CHAPTER 73 – FRACTURED GRAVITY
Boom.
A figure crashed into the planet's surface, carving deep trenches through the stone before vanishing into the darkness of the crater he had created.
The impact reached the planet's core before the sound reached the sky.
Miles beneath the battlefield, ancient rock shuddered.
Pressure waves rolled through the mantle like slow thunder. Magma rivers twisted as the shock passed through them, their currents briefly reversing before settling again.
For a moment..The planet itself seemed to inhale.Then silence.
High above the battlefield, Crimson Six hovered in the air. Her obsidian form rippled like liquid starlight, radiating an energy pressure so dense the surrounding atmosphere trembled around her.
She stared into the chasm below.She said nothing.She simply waited.Seconds passed.Then pale fingers appeared at the crater's edge.A pair of battered hands gripped the broken stone as Leylin slowly pulled himself upward.
The rock beneath his palms still glowed faintly from the heat of the impact. Dust drifted through the air like grey snow, carried by currents that had not yet settled.
Across the shattered landscape, Crimson Six watched him with mild interest.Her posture was relaxed.Too relaxed.Leylin stepped onto solid ground again. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes remained steady, moving slowly across the battlefield.
Calculating distances.Pressure gradients.Shifts in energy density.Inside Crimson Six's chest, the Wrath Core pulsed.Each pulse felt heavier than the last.
The invisible pressure spreading across the battlefield had grown dense enough that nearby cliffs had begun collapsing under their own weight.
Leylin inhaled slowly.Inside his body, the cores rotated.Gluttony devoured the lingering shock of the previous strike.Envy replayed every movement Crimson Six had made.Greed quietly siphoned fragments of energy from the cracked planet beneath them.
Still...It wasn't enough.Crimson Six began walking toward him.No rush.No urgency.Each step caused the air itself to tremble.
"You're learning," she said.
Leylin did not respond... crimson Six's gaze sharpened slightly.
"But you're still thinking inside a cage."
Leylin wiped the blood from his chin.
"And you're outside it?"
Crimson Six tilted her head.
"Of course."
She raised one hand.The Wrath Core pulsed.For an instant..Nothing happened.Then Leylin felt it.His body suddenly became heavy.Not gradually.Instantly.Gravity multiplied.The ground beneath his feet shattered as the crushing weight forced him downward.Crimson Six spoke calmly.
"Tell me something."
Leylin's muscles tightened as the pressure intensified.
"Where do you think gravity comes from?"
He didn't answer.He was busy staying upright.Crimson Six smiled faintly.
"Mass bends space. Space pulls matter. That's the rule your universe follows."
The pressure increased again.Leylin's knee dipped slightly.
"But what if the rule itself… is negotiable?"
The Wrath Core pulsed once more.
Suddenly...
The pressure vanished.Completely.Leylin's body jerked upward as the crushing force disappeared.Then the opposite happened.Gravity reversed.
Broken stones lifted from the battlefield, rising slowly into the air like fragments of a shattered world.Leylin felt his own body lifting with them.His eyes narrowed.
Crimson Six watched calmly.
"You see the problem now?"
She raised one finger.The floating rocks stopped.Instantly.Frozen in midair.Leylin's body halted as well.
"Physics isn't a law," she said quietly.
"It's an agreement."
Her finger moved slightly.The suspended rocks rotated ninety degrees.Gravity shifted sideways.
The floating debris slammed violently into a nearby cliff as if the entire planet had tilted.Leylin twisted midair, forcing his body to stabilize.Inside him..The Envy Core flared.His mind replayed the pattern.
Force vectors.Field distortions.Something clicked.Leylin landed lightly on the side of a vertical stone pillar.Standing sideways.Gravity still pulling in the wrong direction.Crimson Six raised an eyebrow.
"Oh?"
Leylin's voice was calm.
"You didn't reverse gravity."
She smiled slightly.
"Your adapting..i expected at least that much from a being I've been monitoring for weeks now"
Leylin narrowed his eyes as he glanced around the space between them"You rotated the frame."
Crimson Six clapped once.A slow, deliberate clap."Very good."
The Wrath Core pulsed again.The gravity vector twisted violently.The pillar beneath Leylin shattered instantly.But he moved before the collapse could swallow him.
This time his speed was far greater.Envy was no longer copying her movement.It was copying the principle.His body adapted to the shifting gravitational field instantly.
Crimson Six's smile widened."Now we're getting somewhere."
Leylin appeared in front of her.His fist descended.The Gluttony Core surged.But the moment before impact..The world bent.His strike passed through empty air.
Not because she moved.Because space shifted.Crimson Six's palm struck his chest.The impact created a violent vacuum burst that ripped the air out of the crater.
Leylin's body launched across the battlefield like a broken arrow.He tore through two hills before finally stopping.Dust slowly rose into the sky.For several seconds..Silence.Then the rubble shifted.
Leylin emerged again.Breathing harder now.But still standing.Crimson Six watched him with something almost resembling approval.
"Still adapting."
Leylin said nothing.Inside his mind, calculations raced.Gravity manipulation.Frame rotation.Localized spatial distortion.The cores weren't just tools.
They were interfaces.He simply didn't understand the language yet.Crimson Six rolled her shoulders slowly.The Wrath Core pulsed again.
The pressure across the battlefield doubled.
"Good," she said.
"Now we can start the real lesson."
She vanished.Leylin reacted instantly.But he was still too slow.Her fist struck his ribs.The shockwave drove him downward.
This time the ground didn't merely crack.The crust collapsed.Leylin's body blasted through layers of rock as the planet swallowed him.Kilometers deep.Stone collapsed behind him like a closing grave.
Far above..Crimson Six floated calmly over the massive crater.She looked down into the darkness where he had vanished.Her expression remained thoughtful.
"Let's see how long you last."
For a moment she hovered there in silence.
Then her gaze drifted toward the distant laboratory complex resting on the horizon.Deep beneath it..Machines continued to operate.Experiments continued to progress.
Crimson Six watched the distant structure for a moment.Then she looked away again.Unconcerned.
Far below the surface of the planet...Beneath the battlefield.Beneath the laboratory.Something else was moving.And Crimson Six hadn't noticed.