Alex felt the world turning dark. The roar of the battle, the golden light, the dissolving chaos and hunger domains- all of it faded into a suffocating silence.
It crashed down all at once, dragging him into a spiral that moved from fear into something worse, something closer to absolute helplessness.
The terrifying truth bled straight through the denial he had been holding onto without fully admitting he was holding onto it, drowning whatever desperate hope had been keeping the worst possibility at arm's length beneath an icy, settled certainty.
He had known Sophia was special. He was no fool, and he had never pretended otherwise, not even to himself.
When he had first noticed the accumulation of mana in her body, he had attributed it to some fortunate encounter in the Ancient World, a stroke of luck similar to his own awakening through the Evolution Fruit.
