F-Rank Soul Eater-Chapter 150: Chronovore Is Wounded

...Dr. Kaya sighed softly, then pushed herself off the half-broken pillar.

She didn’t leap like a soulbound warrior would.

She simply stepped forward—

And fell.

Her coat fluttered once before she landed lightly on the arena floor, heels clicking against cracked stone.

The lollipop shifted lazily in her mouth as if she were walking through a quiet courtyard instead of toward a screaming dome of unstable chaos.

Eyes followed her movements. After all, this was supposed to be an ordinary human being.

No human being should be capable of what she just did.

She approached.

Lieutenant Rocky’s voice snapped toward her immediately.

"Dr. Kaya! Please, Stay back!"

But she didn’t slow down.

The Red Swords were straining visibly now. The seals beneath them trembled, golden lines scraping against the obvious crimson pressure.

"It isn’t safe!" Rocky barked. "The formation is calibrated to suppress everything inside it!

That thing will mold you like Tofu."

She waved one hand dismissively.

"Yes, yes," she replied around the candy stick. "Very impressive geometry. Very dramatic."

She reached the edge of the dome.

The surface rippled violently at her proximity.

Rocky’s eyes widened.

"Do not go any further!" he shouted. "I am serious. The formation will tear you apart!"

It was for this ability that it had, that it was chosen to contain Goldsworth. Of course, it did work at first, but not any more.

Dr. Kaya paused at the threshold of the dome.

Slowly, she removed the lollipop from her mouth.

She turned her head slightly toward Rocky.

Rolled her eyes.

"Oh please stop it," she said flatly. "I dissect shades for a living.

This is a piece of cake."

And then she stepped forward, into the dome.

The bloody surface swallowed her whole.

Rocky’s breath hitched. "Shit." He cursed.

Dr Kaya was very high priority. What was he going to tell his superiors.

That he allowed a valuable asset of the empire die before his watch?

It would be mercy if he did not have his family killed with him for such a mistake.

Even the other Red Swords simpky watched. Unable to do nothing.

If they disrupted the formation, everything would collapse.

So all they could do was watch.

Helpless.

The dome pulsed once—

Twice—

Violently.

The red liquid energy inside churned, as if resisting something unseen.

Then—

Whoosh....

Silence.

The pulsing stopped.

The bloody glow thinned.

Thinned—

And then dissipated entirely.

Like blood mist caught in sunlight.

The golden dome no longer faced resistance.

Rocky stared in disbelief.

"Release formation," he ordered hoarsely and quickly.

The Red Swords lowered their blades.

The seals faded from beneath their feet.

The dome collapsed gently into particles of light.

And there—

At the center of the arena—

Stood Dr. Kaya.

Completely uninjured.

Goldsworth hung limply in her arms.

The violent red soul energy pressure was gone, though faint glowing veins still trailed across his skin like dying embers beneath flesh. His bird sat silent on his shoulder, feathers dull, head lowered.

Dr. Kaya walked forward calmly.

She stopped in front of Lieutenant Rocky.

And without ceremony—

Dumped the boy into his arms.

"Take him to the sick bay," she said casually, slipping the lollipop back between her lips. "He’ll live. Probably."

Rocky stared at her.

Speechless.

He had felt that pressure.

That draining force.

And she had simply... walked through it.

He knew that those considered to be assets of the empire were abnormal in their own ways, but this. Was this not just too much?

Before he could gather his words—

A heavy presence descended behind them.

Boots struck stone.

Rocky turned.

Instructor Vandabel landed with quiet authority. His purple hair flowed behind him in the settling wind, eyes sharp, expression cold.

"No," he said evenly.

"Take the boy to the detention center."

Dr. Kaya raised a brow.

Vandabel’s gaze hardened as he looked at the unconscious Goldsworth.

"I’ve already sent word to the Council."

His jaw tightened.

"The Goldsworth’s family will explain this."

His voice lowered.

"Corrupted Shade is blasphemy."

The word left his mouth like something foul.

Without waiting for a response, he turned.

And walked away.

Not checking to see if his orders were taken seriously or not.

Simply expecting obedience.

Dr. Kaya watched his retreating figure thoughtfully. "Hmmm... politics." She commented.

The other Red Swords looked towards her, but said nothing.

The silence lingered only a moment.

Then she tilted her head slightly.

As if she had just remembered something mildly important.

"Oh."

Without another word, she turned away from the cluster of Red Swords and instructors and began walking toward a collapsed section of the arena.

Broken pillars.

Twisted seating frames.

A massive slab of stone that had fallen from the upper tier during the earlier impact.

She stopped in front of it.

It was easily seven times her size.

Cracked.

Dense.

Weighing several tons at least.

She slipped the lollipop to the other side of her mouth.

Bent slightly.

And gripped the edge.

There was no dramatic soul energy flare.

She simply lifted.

The slab rose with a grinding groan of stone scraping against stone.

Dust cascaded down in thick sheets as she hoisted the entire mass up and casually shifted it aside.

Beneath it—

Cynthia.

She was kneeling in a shallow crater formed by impact, one arm wrapped tightly around Soren’s body, the other bracing against the ground.

Her helmet was dented at one side, and at another side, it had a huge hole that revealed her patched head.

Her clothing was torn in places.

But her grip on him hadn’t loosened.

Not even when the stadium nearly collapsed.

Dr. Kaya leaned slightly, peering down at her.

"Hey, Cynthia," she said lightly. "You’re looking good."

Cynthia turned her head slowly.

Her voice came out uneven as usual. "Nooot... weeeellll..."

She coughed once, gaze turning to the person in her arms.

Dr. Kaya’s gaze shifted to Soren. He was unconscious.

Her expression changed subtly.

Soren’s body hung limp in Cynthia’s arms.

From the wound at his chest—where the Shades had torn free—thin red vein-like patterns spread outward across his torso, crawling up his neck, down his arms, threading beneath his skin like some glowing roots of a diseased tree.

They pulsed faintly.

Although it was not the violent red liquid like the one from Goldsworth, it still pulsed unnaturally.

It looked like something different.

Something invasive.

Dr. Kaya crouched.

"Ah," she muttered.

Then she clicked her tongue.

"Oh, that’s not good."

She reached down and brushed two fingers lightly against one of the glowing veins. It reacted—flickering faintly at her touch.

Her eyes sharpened.

She straightened immediately.

"Come," she said briskly. "We need to get him to my lab."

.....

Soren was running.

The world around him was nothing but blue.

Not sea or sky. Something in between.

This place. He had been here before.

The qater stretched endlessly in every direction, layered and luminous, as though he stood inside a submerged universe. Light filtered down in soft currents, wavering across his skin.

Like the last time, he was breathing even though this was clearly water.

Each inhale filled his lungs smoothly, as though this place accepted him.

That terrified him more.

His feet struck something beneath the water—solid, though invisible—sending ripples outward with every step. The sound was muted, as if the world swallowed noise before it could form.

He clutched his chest as he ran.

That wound Goldsworth gave him was still there.

It throbbed beneath his palm, deep and aching, not like torn flesh but like something missing. As if a piece of him had been hollowed out and the emptiness refused to settle. The red vein-like pain crawled outward from it, spreading under his skin in faint, pulsing lines.

He didn’t know how long he had been running.

There was no sun. No horizon. No sense of time.

Only distance.

In the far reaches of the blue expanse, enormous shapes moved.

At first he thought they were mountains.

Then one of them roared.

The sound carried strangely through the water—deep, warped, vibrating through his bones.

They were Shades.

Dozens of them.

Perhaps more.

These creatures of impossible scale clashed in the distance. A winged beast with shredded membranes tore at a hulking armored thing that resembled a walking fortress.

A serpentine creature wrapped itself around a many-limbed titan, crushing as they both sank and rose in the shifting currents.

The water churned violently where they fought.

But they weren’t fighting each other alone.

They were converging.

All of them.

At the center of the chaos, coiled like the axis of this drowned world, was a massive white serpent.

Its body was endless, scales shimmering faintly beneath the blue haze.

Its head rose above the others with a kind of silent authority.

Six eyes stared outward from its face.

Each one a different color.

Red.

Orange.

Yellow.

Green.

Blue.

Violet.

They did not blink.

They did not rage.

They watched.

Soren could see that ot had the same scar he did on his body.

That was Chronovore.

Every creature that lunged at it was struck aside with calm, devastating precision. A casual movement of its coils sent titanic bodies spiraling away. When one of its rainbow eyes focused on a Shade for too long, that creature faltered, weakened, and was swallowed by the currents.

Chronovore seemed to be dominating now. But soren coud tell.

The thief was weak.

And they knew it too.

They were fighting... for their freedom.

Soren stumbled.

His breathing grew uneven despite the water filling his lungs easily.

His heart pounded violently.

He didn’t understand this place.

He didn’t understand why he was here.

But he knew one thing.

He did not belong in the open.

A ripple shifted behind him.

He froze.

Slowly, he turned.

Shapes were moving through the blue.

Closer.

Not the distant giants.

These were smaller.

Broken.

A chicken-like form drifted through the water, its torso split diagonally, leaking faint streaks of strange fluid that dissolved into the currents. A crystalline limb scraped across the unseen ground, fractured and incomplete.

They weren’t fighting now.

They were searching.

For him.

A cold spike of fear drove straight through his spine.

He turned and ran again.

The wound in his chest flared sharply, pain radiating outward with every step. His legs felt heavier now, as though the water thickened around him in resistance.

He spotted a structure ahead—a towering pillar rising from the invisible floor, cracked and ancient, like a ruined monument submerged for centuries.

He darted behind it.

Pressed his back against the cold surface.

Forced himself to breathe quietly.

The water vibrated faintly as the wounded Shades drifted nearer.

One passed above him, its shadow warping the light.

Another dragged itself slowly across the floor, its fractured body scraping in uneven rhythm.

They were close enough now that he could see the jagged edges of their wounds.

Close enough that he felt their attention.

His heartbeat thundered in his ears.

He clenched his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering.

A crystalline limb slid into view around the pillar’s edge.

It paused.

Twitched.

Then began to turn further.

Toward him.

The water seemed to tighten.

His pulse spiked—

And the world collapsed.

The blue shattered like glass struck from the inside.

The serpent’s six eyes flared—

And Soren’s eyes flew open.