A sharp glint of cold light flashed past Kiana's side. The instantly passing blade struck Kiana's shoulder, leaving a white scratch mark on the Spirit Awakening Key's pauldron.
The young man's attack faltered for a split second, clearly not expecting Kiana's Spirit Awakening Key to possess such hardness.
This was Soulium, forged from two months' worth of [Hope] – specifically, the two months immediately following that major battle, a period when [Hope] was surging wildly.
The young man hadn't anticipated his attack being completely ineffective.
Seizing the moment of hesitation, Kiana didn't bother walking step-by-step anymore. She lowered her stance and charged straight forward.
[Operating Power: 15%]
The extremely high power output had already drained the color from Kiana's face, leaving it white as paper. But she seemed oblivious, letting the armor glow with a blood-red light.
It was the color of danger.
Startled, the young man instinctively tried to step back again, but the solid sensation behind him made him realize one thing.
He couldn't retreat.
Almost instantly, Kiana, boosted to high power and nearly on the verge of losing control of her speed, arrived perilously close right in front of the young man.
Kiana's forehead nearly collided with the young man's chin. Looking up, Kiana's azure eyes clearly reflected the fear almost overflowing from the young man's own.
"Listen to me... you..." Kiana frantically braced her hand against the wall behind the young man, looking up at him intently from below.
She wanted to explain, but seeing the young man's pupils shrink, Kiana clamped her mouth shut and braced herself.
A massive explosion seemed to erupt between them, indiscriminate, immensely powerful.
Kiana threw her arms up protectively. The next moment, she was flung backward even faster than she had charged, tumbling several times in mid-air before landing messily on the ground.
[Operating Power: 15% —— 30%]
An arc of blood painted the air. In an incredibly short time, the Spirit Awakening Key had nearly doubled its operating power, barely managing to protect Kiana's body from the sudden, massive explosion.
Upon landing, Kiana couldn't immediately stand. Her entire body screamed with a pain like being hacked by knives and axes, a pain that pierced deep into her bones. The sudden burst of agony instantly robbed Kiana of control over her body.
For a fleeting moment... Kiana even lost consciousness in mid-air.
Though brief, it was enough to indicate the severity of the situation.
This was the first time she had ever experienced pain intense enough to make her black out.
But...
Kiana gritted her teeth, the knuckles of the hand supporting her on the ground turning white. Veins stood out starkly on her usually slender, fair arms.
She gasped for breath, struggling to look at the young man in the distance who was fighting to straighten up from the crater.
Compared to her, the young man seemed to have taken even more damage...
She had room to be thrown back, absorbing most of the external force through the impact and the tearing force through the Spirit Awakening Key.
But the young man?
The unyielding wall behind him, combined with the explosion's outward thrust, had crushed him in between.
Splattered bloodstains marked the large, concave crater. The young man was missing an arm, one shoulder, and half his face revealed pale, shattered bone.
Rainbow-colored light surged over the young man's wounds, rapidly repairing his broken body.
The young man's face visibly paled several shades. Seeing Kiana get up in the distance, his eyes widened in terror. Ignoring his body's discomfort, he struggled to get up again.
But Kiana stood firm, while the young man, leaning against the wall, couldn't even rise promptly.
Messy bangs partially obscured Kiana's vision. One of her two pigtails had come undone, half her hair hanging loose, stained with her own blood.
"No matter..." She stubbornly lifted her foot and took a heavy step forward. The sound of her boot hitting the ground echoed louder than the explosion, deep and resonant.
Her eyes burned with fierce determination as she stared at Shu from beneath her disheveled hair.
"No matter the cost... I will... take you away!"
Mist began to quietly manifest in the pure white space. The gray-white girl's resistance had reached its limit.
Kiana's peripheral vision noted the mist appearing on the horizon, but she disregarded it, looking away and gritting her teeth, taking another step forward.
"I... saw everything..."
As if psyching herself up, or perhaps trying to explain to the young man, Kiana forced out a word with each step.
Her broken sentences, interspersed with heavy gasps, barely formed coherent phrases.
"You... all this time... were... working hard... so tired... fighting so hard..."
"I'm so sorry... for forgetting... someone like... you... I'm sorry... I couldn't... be there for you... during those times..."
"I'm sorry... for being... one of your... pains... I'm sorry..."
Stepping onto the edge of the crater, Kiana's body trembled, nearly stumbling at the brink.
The mist from behind had caught up to her. A thin wisp began to circle Kiana, hovering around her.
Gradually, faint silver-gray lights started to emerge from Kiana's body, drawn out by the swirling wisp, threatening to leave her.
Kiana stopped at the edge of the pit, her words cut off abruptly, a hint of confusion clouding her face.
She was here... to do...
Just then, in this pure white space, a blinding blood-red radiance suddenly erupted.
A cuckoo chick instinctively pushes other eggs out of the nest; a newborn baby tightly grips whatever is placed in its hand...
On the path of evolution, some [Memories] become deeply engraved in the genes!
And this... was the domain of [Evolution]!!
[Operating Power: 30% —— 50%]!!
Compared to the previous blood-red patterns, at this moment, the Evolution Core embedded in the chest plate of the Spirit Awakening Key flared with an unquestionable brilliance, like an arrogant monarch!
The color instantly returned to Kiana's face. Her previously faltering steps steadied, and the look of confusion vanished completely with the crimson light from her chest.
However—a blood-red crack also crawled across Kiana's face, reaching just below her eye socket. And one of her azure eyes turned a horrifying blood-red.
Kiana herself paid no mind to these changes. She simply clenched her fists, broke free from the mist's binding (which had been blasted away by the crimson light), and continued her determined advance towards the young man.
"I've missed too much... This time."
"I don't want to miss you again!"