Lira stood bound near it, her silver eyes wide with defiance and fear.
The rescue team—Darel, Rowan, Nico, and Victor—stood at the door, their breaths ragged.
Kal stood in the shadows, his silhouette sharp against the rift's eerie glow, his smile a blade of cold amusement.
Darel, the leader, stepped forward, his stance protective.
Kal's eyes flicked to Darel's midsection, noting the faint tremor of a partially healed wound.
With a subtle plucking motion of his fingers, the air over Darel's stomach distorted.
Inside, newly knitted tissue tore apart—not a slash, but a rupture from within.
Darel let out a soundless, choking gasp, buckling forward as blood soaked his shirt, dark and spreading.
He collapsed, writhing in exquisite agony, neutralized but alive, his leadership shattered in seconds.
Rowan, lunged toward Darel, his pocket watch swinging. "Darel!"
But Kal pointed a finger, and the air around Rowan's head compressed—not enough to crush his skull, but enough to ignite a debilitating, explosive migraine.
Rowan screamed, clawing at his temples as blood trickled from his nose.
His power to freeze time flickered uselessly, lost in a world of pain, his body crumpling to the cold floor.
Nico, rushed forward, hands glowing to stem Darel's bleeding.
Kal's smile widened. "So, you're the healer." He didn't touch Nico's body; he attacked his power.
A wave of nullifying energy surged, reversing Nico's healing ability.
The years Nico had aged to mend Darel slammed back into him all at once.
Nico gasped, his body withering, back stooping as if decades were stolen in a heartbeat.
He collapsed, a frail, gasping old man, unable to help anyone, his hands trembling against the tiles.
"Was this supposed to be a fight" Kal mocked, " cos I'm not really sure what it is".
Victor, stood frozen, his eyes locked on Lira.
Kal tilted his head, intrigued. "So much sorrow in you. A vintage year." He didn't injure Victor physically.
Instead, he amplified every negative emotion Victor had ever felt—loneliness, dread, fear for Lira.
Victor dropped to his knees, overwhelmed by a despair so profound he couldn't move, drowning in his own psyche, his breath hitching in silent sobs.
In less than a minute, the rescue team lay broken on the observatory floor. Not dead. Humiliated.
Utterly defeated without Kal tearing a sweat.
He turned his back on them, gliding toward Lira, his steps deliberate.
"You see?" he said, voice dripping with mock pity. "This is what hope earns them. Agony. This is why your sacrifice is so… elegant."
Lira's eyes burned with tears, her gaze darting to her friends—Darel writhing, Rowan clawing his head, Nico withered, Victor paralyzed by despair.
Her voice cracked, desperate.
"Stop! Let them go. Heal them… and I won't fight you. I'll come willingly."
Kal paused, his head tilting.
A willing sacrifice was far more potent, its energy richer for the Gate. He savored the offer, his lips curling.
"A tempting trade."
Victor's head lifted, fighting through the ocean of despair.
His voice was raw, trembling with resolve.
"No… Take me. My life for all of theirs. My sorrow… it's deeper. Richer. You know it is."
Kal stopped, his eyes flicking from Lira to Victor.
He could only kill one, he had a rule binding him (What rule?).
Victor was right—his pain was a more potent fuel, a vintage he'd planned to save for later.
But killing Victor now, in front of Lira, would deepen her grief, priming her as an even richer meal in the future.
A slow, hungry smile spread across Kal's face. "The offering is accepted. A superior vintage."
He turned from Lira, his focus narrowing to Victor.
The air grew cold and still, charged with the promise of a ritualistic killing.
Victor stood, his body trembling not with fear but with resolve.
"You want my sorrow? Take it. But you have to get close. You have to feel it to consume it, don't you? It's not just death. It's the… transfer."
Kal's smile widened, a connoisseur savoring the challenge. "Transfer. A crude word for a sacred art. But yes. Intimacy is required."
He stepped forward, then another, arrogant in his certainty of their defeat, his cruelty gleaming like a polished blade.
This was the moment.
Darel, through blinding, white-hot torture, clung to one purpose.
His blood-slicked hands slammed together, a guttural, pain-racked roar tearing from his throat. "Now!"
He didn't redirect Kal's power.
He did something desperate, gathering the storm of suffering—his searing gut, Rowan's migraine, Nico's stolen years, Victor's despair—and channeled it into Kal's mind.
For one precious second, Kal froze, his eyes wide with shock, not from injury but from sensory overload.
The raw, amplified anguish of four people flooded him, short-circuiting his focus, trapping him in their pain.
Nico, with the last of his strength, stemmed Darel's bleeding, unable to fully heal but keeping him alive.
The cost was immediate: more gray streaked his hair, his skin turning papery.
He aged another five years, gasping. Rowan, fighting the fading echo of his migraine, stumbled to Lira, untying her bonds with trembling hands.
Victor hauled Darel to his feet, blood dripping between them.
Darel, through clenched teeth, shouted, "The rift! Go!"
They stumbled, half-dragging each other toward the shimmering portal.
Lira reached back for Victor, her voice breaking. "Victor, come on!"
Victor took a step, then stopped, his eyes meeting hers.
"If I come, he'll follow. He'll never stop. This is the only way."
He shoved a folded, blood-spattered paper into her hand.
Lira screamed, Rowan pulling her back. "No! Victor!"
Kal broke free, a soundless psychic roar erupting, cracking the stone at his feet.
His eyes were infinite voids of rage, fixed solely on Victor. "You… are mine."
He slashed a hand through the air.
A veil of black energy slammed down over the portal, sealing it.
The last thing the group saw was Victor, standing alone, turning to face the advancing monster.
Lira banged her fists against the unbreakable veil, sobbing, the paper clutched tight.
On his side, Victor gave her one last, heartbreaking look of peace.
Then the rift closed.
Kal glided forward, the space between them vanishing in an instant.
Victor stood his ground, trembling with the effort of holding his mental shields.
"You think your pain can hurt me?" Kal's voice was a blade of ice.
"It is a vintage I will savor. But first… I will have your truth."
Kal's hands rose, fingers curling as if gripping an invisible sphere.
The air around Victor's head shimmered.
"You can't have her," Victor gritted out, blood seeping from his nose.
"I don't want her," Kal replied. "I want the idea of her. The perfect, pure love in your mind. I will drink it from your synapses."
The true horror unfolded.
Kal wasn't just killing him; he was looting his soul.
Victor's body went rigid, his eyes wide, filled with a kaleidoscope of memories:
Lira's first smile, her hand in his, the promise to protect her, every lonely moment that made her light brighter. Kal siphoned them, stealing the essence of Victor's love.
Victor's body didn't dismember.
It desiccated.
The light left his eyes as his memories were ripped away, his skin pulling taut over bones—not from age, but from emptiness.
He became a shell, drained of his most precious contents.
Kal withdrew, sated.
A single, perfect tear—Victor's tear—tracked down his cheek.
He savored it. Victor's empty vessel crumpled silently to the floor, no blood, no wound, just a horrific absence.
On the other side of the sealed rift, Lira collapsed, the blood-spattered paper clutched to her chest.
Her screams died, replaced by a silent, shaking void where her heart once was.
She hadn't just watched Victor die.
She'd watched everything he was for her be consumed.