The energy didn't merely leave him; it hemorrhaged.
Fifteen thousand points a fortune built on the bones of fallen armies, the ashes of a conquered god, and the excruciating strain of nineteen maximum bonds surged out of Rex in a violent, invisible torrent.
It felt like his very marrow was being vacuumed out through his pores. For a heartbeat, there was a terrifying emptiness, a void where his power used to be, leaving him feeling exposed and fragile.
Then, something else flowed back in.
It wasn't the familiar weight of a new skill settling into his muscle memory or the sharp clarity of a passive ability slotting into his consciousness. This was something fundamentally alien.
It didn't settle into him; it unfolded around him. It was an expansion of his very existence, a sense of available volume where there had previously been only air and stone.
