Rumble, rumble.

Gurgle!

Splash.

Solaris’s knees were bleeding profusely as her arteries had been cut deeply.

She immediately froze the wound, but the blood pressure was already building behind the ice, pushing away and rejecting the emergency first aid.

"I’d rather die fighting than bleed out like this," she thought.

Her hair and eyes began to glow, a brilliant blue thrum flowing from her eyes and hair tips.

She stomped her mangled leg firmly.

A burst of frost encased her entire knee. Initially, the ice held its usual translucent hue, but it slowly deepened into a murky pink as it mixed with the blood from her mangled foot.

She struggled to balance on the makeshift prosthetic. The ice spear magic she usually shoots out with pride was now reduced to nothing more than a jagged walking cane, along with her loom staff

Solaris! Fanna called at her all the way back in the med room, worried.

"I’m fine," Solaris coughed, leaning heavily on her staff. "Stick to the plan. How is he?" 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

All his conditions are stable. The stubborn spores of the Blightcap Madness are finally gone. It’s just his consciousness hasn’t returned.

Meaning he is just sleeping right now, right? A voice could be heard somewhere.

"Oh... not quite, but pretty much the gist of it, yeah," Fanna caught off guard.

in the distance, near the entrance.

Abalam was still walking down the stairs calmly.

She looked around and was suspicious of something... or someone.

She felt an unmistakable prickle that she was constantly being stalked by someone, yet with her absurd senses, even among the Abberant nobles that she knew, few could hide away from her, let alone these measly children.

After failing to figure out what it was, she let her instincts lead her towards her ancestor.

There was a faint presence of it on the boy who claimed to be above ground, but it paled in comparison to the presence lurking in this room.

"She’s coming! Wake him up!" Solaris urged.

Slam!

Slap!

Pinch!

Fanna tried every physical shock she could think of, but the boy didn’t move a muscle.

"Seriously! What is wrong with your body! Are you even a human? "

"Swap with me," a voice commanded from the air.

"Go help Solaris, or she won’t last another minute."

"Oh, alright... alright!" Fanna stuttered before scrambling to comply.

In the distance, Solaris unleashed a wave of jagged frost spikes, but Abalam didn’t even flinch.

She continued her rhythmic walk down the stairs.

Phew!

An arrow screamed through the air, aimed directly at Abalam’s eye.

For the first time, the abberant actually raised a hand to block.

"Yeah, Cwal’s intel was right. Thrum-based attacks don’t work, but physical ones do." Solaris muttered as her mouth released a fog of frost.

"Fanna, what about Matt? Is he up?"

"No, but I think he will be soon. Solace is over there trying to wake him." Fanna replied while cocking another volley.

"Good," Solaris said, though her face darkened. "

So, thrum is useless. The natural resistances of Aberrants really are the perfect counter to mage-style weavers.

She looked down at her blood-stained ice crystals and snapped a piece off.

As she defrosted the shard in her palm, her own blood began to drip slowly from her hand.

"This might just work," she whispered.

She unfroze her leg.

The deep gashes opened immediately, and blood poured out, pooling around her feet.

"Urk," she groaned in pain while watching the crimson puddle grow until she was deathly pale.

Once the pool was large enough, she immediately froze the whole leg back into place, sealing her wounds once more.

Fanna caught the odd actions the Solaris was doing.

Realizing she was never the type to do something unnecessary, she immediately moved to provide cover.

Fanna loosed arrow after arrow. Each shot whistled through the air, aimed at Abalam’s eyes, heart, and neck.

Solaris joined in and struggled to raise her hand.

Within the hail of arrows, ice lances began to rain from above, whistling toward the same targets.

At first, Abalam blocked everything.

However, she soon noticed that the moment her skin made contact with the ice, the spears shattered and dissipated into harmless mist.

Flick.

Twack!

Confirming the ice spears were no threat, Abalam stopped wasting movement on them.

She completely ignored the frost attacks, letting them shatter against her shoulders and face. She focused entirely on swatting away Fanna’s arrows with her hands and the occasional whip of her tail while continuing her walk toward the two girls.

_________________________________

Shelter( Medical Area)

Cwal POV

Fanna’s attempts were unsuccessful.

In my line of work, information rarely comes willingly, but they always cave in with a little nudge of torture.

I’m reluctant to do this since technically he is Mom’s benefactor, but the urgency of the situation leaves no room for hesitation.

"Let’s start on the lighter side," I mumbled while taking vials gifted by Belle from my storage.

I began by applying high-pressure sensory techniques.

I used a medical stimulant, administering a sharp, concentrated dose meant to shock the nervous system into a state of hyper-alertness. I watched his vitals closely, looking for even a flicker of a reaction. His pulse remained slow and steady.

tsk....

It’s been a long time since I felt this guilty. The last time was my first contracted harvest.

I took his left hand, pinning it firmly. I slid a thin, flat blade beneath the edge of his index fingernail.

The skin at the cuticle began to tear, a thin line of crimson as I peeled the nail back further while listening for the wet, sickening creak of the keratin separating from the hypersensitive nail bed.

Most victims reach their breaking point here and tell me everything they know.

I watched his face looking for a flinch, a grimace, or a spike in heart rate.

Nothing...

Even as the nail finally came free with a final, sticky tug, Matt didn’t move a muscle.

Should I peel off another one?

No...If his mind could ignore the shedding of skin and nerve, I had to threaten the very foundation of his life

I had to create a situation where his autonomic nervous system would have no choice but to take over and wake up the rest as well.

I got on top of Matt and shifted my weight down his diaphragm with my knee to collapse his lungs’ ability to expand.

At the same time, I wrapped my hands around his throat, squeezing until the airway narrowed to a pinhole.

Grip...

Choke...

Minutes felt like hours.

"I don’t say this a lot, but don’t die on me...."

After several tense minutes, the physical signs of a struggle for breath began to manifest. His chest hitched, and his limbs began to twitch with the reflexive desire to move.

He’s waking up, but I’m not loosening him up just yet. If I do, the hard-earned fight-or-flight instinct I built up would go to waste.

He was still convulsing, and a thin, white foam began to bubble at the corners of his mouth

I kept the pressure for what felt like an eternity.

Chhh-kkkk-nghh...

Khhh... g-ghrrrk...

Ack-kkk-hkkk!

Finally, his eyes began to twitch violently under the lids.

They snapped open, bloodshot and tears slowly coming down.

I immediately threw myself off him

Matt lunged upward, coughing and clutching his chest as his lungs filled with air.

He looked around the room with his disoriented eye, but he was finally awake.

When my silhouette finally sharpened in his glassy eyes, I felt a wave of relief wash over me.

Wait.....relief?

Since when did I ’calm down’?

I’ve reaped the lives of countless souls, both the deserving and the innocent, without a second thought. I’ve stared into the depths of despair and met its gaze with a heart of ice.

.....

Am I finally going soft? Or have I just gone senile from spending too much time with this kid?

Hack—cough—ack!

Wheeze—hukk—hukk—

Kaff-kaff-chhh!

Cough!-cough!.... Whew....

He was still coughing nonstop, though it was obvious he could breathe just fine now.

I walked to him and handed him a glass of water.

"Are you alright?" I asked, uncharacteristically worried.

He snatched the glass, gulping the water down in one go.

"Whew... h-huck... that hits the spot..." Matt rasped.

He set the glass down and looked up at me, his eyes still bloodshot and watering

.....

Is he mad that I nearly choked the life out of him?

With his brain still not fully comprehending what was going on, and in the process of rebooting. I wouldn’t have blamed him.

I figured I should let him vent for a moment so we could deal with the aberrant as quickly as possible.

I braced my self for his complains.

"I didn’t say anything weird... like ’harder step-bro’ or anything like that, right?" Matt asked, his expression dead serious.

"...."

"......"

We both sat in silence, staring at each other in disbelief, though for two completely different reasons.

"Wait... did I actually say it?" Matt started sweating bullets.

Should I choke this guy unconscious again?