The escape turned into a desperate, high-speed battle through the sunken ruins.

Adam beat his void-starlight wings with everything he had, soaring upward between floating broken temples and shattered bridges. Ignis clung tightly to his chest, her golden eyes sharp as she kept firing bursts of Solar Flare behind them.

The Abyssal Shadow Titan roared in silent fury. Its massive body rose from the depths like a nightmare given form, twelve thick shadow arms lashing out in every direction. Some arms smashed through ancient stone structures to clear its path, while others stretched unnaturally long, trying to grab Adam and Ignis mid-flight.

"Left side!" Ignis shouted.

Adam twisted sharply. A massive shadow hand slammed past them, barely missing. The force of it sent a shockwave that almost threw them off balance.

Adam retaliated immediately. He twisted mid-air and fired Void Prism at full power. The swirling rainbow beam of void energy exploded against the Titan’s shoulder, tearing off two of its arms in a burst of black smoke. But the monster simply grew two new ones in their place.

"It’s regenerating too fast!" Adam growled.

Ignis gritted her teeth and unleashed a powerful Dragon’s Will-enhanced flame breath. A thick column of golden fire roared downward, engulfing the Titan’s upper body. The creature’s shadowy flesh sizzled and burned, but it only seemed to enrage it further.

The Titan slammed its massive hands together. A shockwave of pure darkness exploded outward, shattering several floating ruins around them. Adam was forced to dive sharply to avoid it, nearly crashing into a half-sunken tower.

"Adam, it’s catching up!" Ignis warned, her voice tense.

She was right. The Titan was gaining on them. Its body was now fully visible, a colossal humanoid made of writhing darkness, easily the size of a small mountain. Its featureless head turned toward them, and the gaping maw opened wide.

From its mouth, a wave of pure void energy erupted, a beam of concentrated darkness that devoured everything it touched.

Adam’s eyes widened. He poured every bit of mana into his wings and shot sideways at the last second. The void beam grazed his left wing, tearing through scales and flesh. Pain shot up his arm, but he gritted his teeth and kept flying.

"Hold on tight!" he shouted.

Ignis clung to him desperately as Adam weaved between the ruins at high speed, trying to lose the Titan among the floating structures. But the monster was too big, it simply smashed through anything in its way.

Adam’s mind raced. ’We can’t keep running forever. We need to find the exit... or slow this thing down long enough to escape.’

He glanced down at the endless darkness below them. They were still too deep. If they kept getting pulled lower, even escaping would become impossible.

"Ignis!" he called out while dodging another sweeping arm. "We need to go higher!"

Ignis nodded quickly. She raised both hands and began charging a much larger attack.

"Leave the defense to me for a bit!" she shouted. "I’ll buy us some time!"

Golden flames gathered rapidly around her body as she prepared a powerful skill. Her crimson hair whipped wildly in the wind as golden flames erupted violently around her body, forming a spiraling vortex of pure solar fire.

"Adam, keep flying straight up, don’t stop no matter what!" she shouted.

Adam nodded, pouring everything into his wings as he shot upward at full speed.

Ignis raised both arms high above her head. The flames around her condensed rapidly, growing brighter and hotter until they formed a massive, blazing sphere of golden fire almost as large as the Titan’s head. The air around them warped from the intense heat.

"Blazeheart Nova!!"

With a powerful shout, Ignis hurled the gigantic sphere of condensed solar fire straight down at the Abyssal Shadow Titan.

The attack descended like a falling sun.

BOOOOOOM!!!

The sphere exploded violently upon impact. A colossal pillar of golden flames erupted upward, engulfing the Titan’s entire upper body in an inferno of pure dragon fire. The intense heat and light were so powerful that even Adam had to squint as he flew.

The Titan let out a distorted, silent roar of agony. Its shadowy body burned and melted under the golden flames. Several of its massive arms were completely incinerated, and large chunks of its torso were blown away. For the first time since the battle began, the monster actually slowed down, its body writhing and smoking as it tried to regenerate from the devastating attack.

Ignis panted heavily in Adam’s arms, her face pale from the massive mana expenditure. The golden flames around her dimmed significantly.

"That... should slow it down for a bit..." she breathed, clearly exhausted.

Adam glanced back. The Titan was still alive, its body already beginning to reform from the darkness but the attack had clearly damaged it badly. It was no longer gaining on them as quickly.

"Good job, Ignis!" Adam praised, still flying upward at full speed. "That bought us some time! We need to keep going up, the exit has to be somewhere higher!"

Ignis gave a weak but proud smile, resting her head against his chest as she tried to recover her mana.

"Ignis, you okay?" Adam asked, glancing down at her.

Ignis nodded weakly against his chest, still breathing heavily from the massive attack. "Yeah... just... need a minute to recover my mana..."

Adam was about to reply when something caught his eye.

Far above them, through the floating ruins and the thick darkness, he spotted a faint blue light glowing in the distance. It wasn’t the golden light of Ignis’s flames, nor the cold darkness of the abyss. It was a soft, ethereal blue like a distant star or a portal.

"Ignis, look!" Adam said, excitement rising in his voice. "Up there! There’s a blue light! That might be the exit or at least a way out of this layer!"

Ignis lifted her head and looked up. Her golden eyes widened.

"You’re right...! That has to be it! Let’s go—!"

But before they could celebrate, the darkness around them suddenly shifted.

From the broken ruins below and the sides of the floating structures, something new began to emerge.

Long, thick, writhing tentacles, pitch black and covered in glowing violet runes shot out from the shadows. They were massive, easily several times thicker than the shadow hands from before. Some of them had glowing eyes along their length, and they moved with terrifying intelligence.

One of the tentacles lashed out at lightning speed, aiming straight for Adam’s legs.

"Watch out!" Ignis shouted.

Adam twisted sharply in mid-air, barely dodging the first tentacle. But three more shot out from different directions, trying to wrap around his wings and Ignis’s body.

"It’s another monster!" Adam growled. "This one’s different, it’s using tentacles!"

The new creature revealed itself partially, a massive octopus-like horror made of pure darkness, with dozens of tentacles stretching out from a central body hidden deep within the ruins. It seemed to be guarding the area near the blue light.

One thick tentacle managed to wrap around Adam’s left ankle, yanking him downward with immense force.

"Ghh—!" Adam grunted, losing altitude for a moment.

Ignis reacted quickly. She gathered what little mana she had left and fired a concentrated Solar Bolt at the tentacle holding Adam. The golden flame projectile burned through the tentacle, forcing it to release him.

But more tentacles were already coming.

The creature was clearly trying to drag them away from the blue light as if it didn’t want them to reach the exit.

Adam’s crimson eyes narrowed as he steadied himself mid-air, holding Ignis tightly.

"Looks like this thing doesn’t want us to leave..." he muttered. "We have to break through!"