The dust of the Energy Sector hadn't even settled when Techyon struggled to his feet, his body still sparking with the fading embers of the Sign Form. He looked at Lapis, whose face was stitched back together by shimmering, magenta threads of mana.
"Lapis..." Techyon wheezed. "How? I saw him... he destroyed half your head. How are you standing?"
Lapis adjusted his one remaining lens, his expression colder and more mature than before. "Actually, he almost killed me. My physical body was gone. But at the last millisecond, I used my Matter Technique to rebuild my soul instead of my flesh. If the soul is intact, the body has no choice but to follow."
Lapis's hand glowed, and the magenta energy washed over him, fully sealing his wounds, though a faint scar remained as a reminder of the Monarch's strength. He turned his gaze toward Neweland, his eyes sharp.
"Barkan called you a 'Traitor Monarch,'" Lapis said, his voice dropping an octave. "Tell us the full story. Right now. No more 'Teacher' act."
Neweland stood perfectly still. The wind whipped his blue cloak, but he remained silent for a long, heavy minute.
"I want to know the truth," Lapis demanded, stepping forward. "We almost died for a secret we don't even know."
Neweland finally sighed, the weight of eons appearing in his eyes. "Very well. But the truth does not exist in this dimension. Come with me."
With a flick of his wrist, Neweland tore a hole in the fabric of space. A swirling Hydro-Portal opened, leading to a place where the stars looked like liquid silver.
Techyon, Lapis, and Alya stepped through the rift. They didn't notice a flicker of gold in the shadows. The Yellow-Haired Woman moved like a ghost, slipping through the portal just as the edges began to close.
"Talk with manners where we are going," Neweland warned as they walked through a corridor of infinite mirrors. "Because you are about to meet the most important person in all of reality."
Suddenly, Neweland stopped. He spun around, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the silver mist behind them.
"What happened?" Techyon asked, his hand instinctively going to his belt. "Why did you stop?"
"I thought someone was following us," Neweland muttered, his brow furrowed. "But my sensors show nothing but empty space."
A few meters behind a pillar of crystallized mana, the mysterious woman pressed her back against the cold surface. She let out a silent breath, a small, confident smirk playing on her lips.
"Perfect," she thought. "I teleported into the gap between his heartbeats. Not even a Monarch-level Arcon can track a shadow that doesn't exist in time."