Inside the crimson dome of Milim's sealed domain, the air ceased to behave like gas. It turned dense, heavy, and hot, vibrating with a suffocating draconic frequency that made the surrounding earth crack without being touched.
Milim didn't speak another word. She moved.
There was no sound to her acceleration. Only the instant, total displacement of space as she appeared in front of Loki, her small fist driven forward with enough concentrated momentum to collapse a mountain into dust.
Loki didn't backpedal into a spatial fold. He planted his lead boot into the fractured stone, shifted his hips, and brought a heavy, rectangular tower shield manifested through Hephaestus up to meet her strike head-on.
The collision sounded like two tectonic plates snapping in half. A ring of white-hot shockwaves flattened the earth for two hundred yards in every direction, pulverizing the bedrock into fine, glowing silt. The kinetic recoil drove Loki's boots four inches deep into the stone, shattering the divine metal shield into a shower of sparkling fragments.
The raw friction of her Draconic aura scorched through his sleeve, leaving a jagged, bleeding burn across his forearm which regenerated instantly. Yet his body remained a solid, immovable wall between Milim's fist and the obsidian cube secured tightly beneath his right arm.
"Milim, I know I handled this badly," Loki said, his voice dropping into a tense, earnest register even as a strained smirk flickered on his face. "But smashing the only thing keeping Gaia stable isn't going to fix it!"
"Stop hiding Gaia behind yourself!" Milim screamed, driving her left hand forward in a vicious, open-palm strike aimed directly at his throat.
Instead of deploying a lethal spatial blade, Loki summoned a short Hephaestus spear, using the haft to catch her wrist and redirect her palm strike upward. The concentrated beam shot harmlessly into the red sky above, tearing a hole through the cloud layer. He instantly discarded the weapon before it could harm her, stepping into her guard with a localized gravity field to anchor his posture.
Every time her claws swung near the obsidian box, Loki didn't block with spatial barriers; he interjected his own shoulders, his ribs, and his arms, physically absorbing the brutal stray impact of her strikes so that not a single erg of kinetic shock reached the container.
Snap. Crack.
Milim's sweeping kick caught Loki squarely in the ribs.
"Give Gaia back to me!" Milim roared, her aura expanding into a swirling storm of crimson force. "You're just trying to keep my friend away from me!"
Loki gritted his teeth, materializing a broad Hephaestus buckler to deflect a vicious downward elbow. The impact shattered the divine metal once more, driving the jagged shards into the dirt as Loki twisted his torso, absorbing the kinetic shock through his shoulder.
Outside the translucent red wall of the sealed personal domain, Rimuru Arashi and Guy Crimson arrived moments after following the massive magicule distortion across the sky, finding Frey standing outside the boundary with her wings flared in desperate concern.
"We have to break it!" Rimuru insisted, his eyes glowing with gold light as Raphael calculated structural weaknesses in the barrier. "If they keep clashing in there at this output, the whole province will be reduced to cratered glass!"
"Frey, what exactly happened before she sealed the space?" Guy asked, his voice calm but his crimson gaze intensely focused on the fluctuating magicules.
"Loki arrived carrying the dragon's soul container without giving advance warning," Frey explained quickly, her wings beating nervously as she monitored the barrier's density. "Gaia's corrupted magicules reacted to Milim's presence, the seals flared, and Milim assumed Loki was experimenting on or torturing her friend."
"That fool..." Rimuru muttered, taking a step forward with spatial magic gathering around his palm. "I'm going to cut a seam through the wall."
"Touch that sealed crimson barrier and you'll destroy what Loki is trying to save," Guy commanded firmly, placing a heavy hand on Rimuru's shoulder. "Frey confirmed the dragon's soul container is inside. Milim's domain is anchored directly to her Draconic magicules. If we force our way in from the outside, the spatial collapse will crush whatever is trapped in that box. Loki made this mess—he has to survive it and make her listen."
Inside the domain, Loki raised his right arm, holding the translucent obsidian cube out between them, shielding it with a dense spatial barrier.
"Stop swinging at me for one second and look at the box!" Loki yelled. "I'm not keeping Gaia from you! The soul is reacting to you right now!"
Inside the container, the black, spiderwebbing fractures of malice thrashed, but as Milim paused for a fraction of a second, the chaotic energy shifted—vibrating in a rapid, rhythmic pulse that resonated directly with the Draconic aura bleeding from her skin.
[Core identity response detected. Internal soul framework is fluctuating rapidly,'] Manas: Loki reported within his consciousness. ['Proximity to Milim Nava is stimulating the origin core, but outer corruption layers remain dangerously volatile.']
"Listen to it!" Loki pressed, taking a raspy breath. "Gaia is still in there! The core identity survived!"
"Don't you dare use Gaia's reaction to lie to me!" Milim's eyes burned with absolute, unyielding betrayal. To her, Loki's explanation sounded like another manipulation. A cruel trick using her friend's lingering spirit to force her hesitation. "You locked my friend in a cage! You analyzed the soul like a specimen! You don't care about Gaia—you just want to control everything!"
The air pressure inside the sealed domain dropped to a suffocating, absolute stillness.
Milim took a slow step back. The crimson aura surrounding her stopped expanding. Instead, it pulled inward, condensing around her small frame until her physical form began to shift. A single crimson horn emerged from her forehead as large dragonoid wings unfurled behind her back, jet-black battle armor materialising across her body, sealing her in the terrifying battle form she reserved for truly serious combat.
Loki's eyes widened as he felt the fundamental nature of the energy shifting around her. It was no longer ordinary Draconic magicules.
Specks of blinding, stardust-like light began to coalesce around her hands—the unmistakable, catastrophic signature of Star Magic.
"Milim..." Loki's voice lost all its remaining lightness, his face going pale as he recognized the spell forming in her hands. "Don't... if you unleash that in here, there won't be a soul left to save!"
Milim raised both hands, her blue eyes completely submerged under a cold, hollow crimson glare, her voice echoing with the finality of an ancient disaster.
"Drago..."
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