The Divine Lake didn't just release him, it spat him out like Zylas was some kind of toxic posion. He slammed back into the asphalt at the mouth of the alley, the grit of the city street scraping skin from his palms.
Time, which had stopped in its entirety due to the presence of the mysterious Cosmic Entity, finally resumed.
The Drowned began its movement, its entire anatomy looking like a twisted and horrifying monster, but relatively unharmed considering what Zylas saw during his "Purification".
In reality, the physical blow Zylas had witnessed in the Lake had merely been a type of spiritual event which was the absorption of the Red God.
In the physical world, the Drowned was still an Unbent without any visible damage, the Phantom's Core untouched and pulsing but with a dying light.
The monster's left hand, reinforced by the remaining embers of the Phantom, was accelerating. The shards of bone it used for claws were a fraction of an inch from Zylas's left pupil. He could smell the creature's disgusting stench of rotting human tissue and blood.
"Weakling," the voice of the Cosmic Entity echoed. It wasn't a sound in his ears, it was a vibration in his bones, a frequency that made his very DNA hum.
"Reclaim."
It wasn't a command, it was an activation of a law which was dormant up until this moment.
Zylas didn't have time to remember his 5,000-word essay on socio-economics or his future as a corporate slave. His perspective had shifted. To the old Zylas, this Drowned was a disaster to be feared, an unpredictable horror from the dark. To the new Zylas, the monster's movements were as clear as red ink on a white page.
He didn't just see the claw, he saw its trajectory, the infinite web of possibilities, and the exact distribution of force. He could feel the very moment each and every muscle tissue of the Drowned's body moved as its hand launched towards Zylas' head.
His hand shot up, his fingers wrapping around the Drowned's wrist a millisecond before contact. The impact should have normally shattered his arm. An Unbent Drowned possessed enough strength to crush a whole CAR, and Zylas was just a student with an unbalanced diet and a lack of sleep.
But as the forces collided, the air between them rippled like something has exploded.
"Mirror." Zylas whispered. The word felt like a divine incarnation, a language he had known since birth but only just remembered. He didn't know the mechanics behind it, it just… felt right.
The Kinetic energy from the Drowned's suicide leap didn't vanished, it inverted.
A perfect circle of the ground beneath Zylas's feet obliterated, the ground cracking as it absorbed the downward force as if Zylas were attached to the planet. Simultaneously, an equal and opposite pressure exploded from his grip.
The Drowned's lower body didn't just break, it dissolved into bone dust and grey flesh. The spray of blood painted the alley bricks in a disgusting, crimson mist that hissed as it touched the walls.
The static scream of the transfigured monster cut through the air, vibrating so loudly that Zylas' own ears started to leak tiny bits of blood.
Zylas felt heavy, his blood felt like it was had metal inside it (which it does but you get what I mean) but his vision was bordered by a perfect, dakr clarity. He wasn't tired. For the first time in his eighteen years of mediocrity, he felt… full.
He looked at his hands. They weren't glowing with the golden warmth of a Hallow. They weren't freezing with the dark indifference of a Drowned. They were just… still.
The Drowned stumbled back on instinct. For the first time in its existence, the Predator had become the Prey.
Its ruined left arm dangled. It looked confused, its brain unable to comprehend how its fundamental nature had been rejected.
The Red Phantom Core in its chest began to glow with a blinding intensity. It was overloading, a final self-destruct mechanism designed to take Zylas and the entire city block with it in a burst of radiation.
"No," Zylas exclaimed. His voice carrying a weight of cold superiority. He looked down at the creature like a noble staring at a stubborn insect.
"You don't get that satisfaction."
In The Divine Lake, the Cosmic Entity had consumed the Red God. And Zylas had Mirrored that consumption. He now had the Mirrored skills of that specific Phantom but still lesser to match its Apostle's.
He reached up, his movements a perfect, inverted reflection of the Drowned's. He didn't claw at the monster, he targeted its foundation. He slammed his palm into the monster's chest, directly at the pulsing Core.
The impact was silent. Instead of a shockwave, there was a vacuum.
The tentacles of void Zylas had seen in The Divine Lake manifested inside the Drowned's chest. The void didn't just extinguish the light, it consumed it.
It compressed the core until the Drowned's internal pressure reversed.
There was a gasping sound. The creature imploded. It collapsed into a grey, disfigured collection of meat that barely resembled a ball, hovering for a second before dropping to the floor with a heavy thud.
Silence returned to the alley, but it was a different kind of silence. The mundane world of car alarms and distant traffic felt miles away.
Zylas stood alone over the remains. He wasn't breathing hard. He looked up at the sky, his eyes reflecting the cold, inverted light of the Abyss. The memory of the Unbent Apostle in the silver badge came back to him. Second Rank. Compared to that man, Zylas had always felt like an ant.
"Finally," he thought, a smile broadening as he covered his face with his hand, peering through his fingers at the world he was no longer a part of.
'You are not a Hallow. You are not a Drowned. You are not an Impure.' a voice echoed in his mind. It wasn't any Entity's nor a God's voice. It was his own, unified and absolute.
The Nausea wasn't there. In its place was a hunger, a hunger that no lottery win or corporate degree could ever satisfy. He had asked for the Divine Lake, and the cosmos had metaphorically given him an ocean. Now he just had to see how much he could drink before he truly went under. His crisis was over.
The 5,000-word essay was a joke from a previous life. The peer pressure of his classmates was irrelevant noise. The "Normal" life was officially over. Zylas was no longer average.
He turned to leave the alley, his body demanding he go home and process the sheer volume of power he had just used, when he heard the faint click of expensive leather boots on the asphalt behind him.
Zylas froze. Not in fear, but in recognition. He hadn't been alone.
He slowly turned back. Standing at the mouth of the alley was the figure from the fancy car. The Unbent Hallow had arrived. The Apostle wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore. He was in a dark, tactical combat uniform that seemed to hum with suppressed energy.
His gaze was locked on the small, disgusting sphere of meat on the ground, and then on Zylas's hands, which were still smoking with faint, dark vapor.
The Apostle didn't ask if Zylas was okay. He didn't ask if he was a victim. He simply raised one hand, and the air around him began to shimmer with pressurized, white steam, the sign of an Unbent Apostle "Sinking" into his power (Pun intended). He looked at Zylas with eyes that held the hard, tactical edge of an inquisitor.
"A Kindled can't do this. Not even an Unbent of the same rank could collapse a Tier 2 Core like…that" the Apostle said, his voice layered with the authority of a Commander's fist.
"Yet you don't release any aura at all. No spark. No heat. Almost like a normal citizen."
The Apostle took a step forward, his pressure leveling the trash cans inside the alley. The metal of the cans making an unholy noise due to the weight of his Unbent presence, completely different from the Drowned who was of the same rank. The sheer difference in strength coming from the distinct mastery levels over their abilities was easily noticeable. The Drowned was at the Surface of Mastery whereas the Hallow was Submerged.
"You aren't an Apostle," the man stated, his eyes narrowing. He didn't ask how Zylas was. Instead, he asked the only question that mattered in this acursed.
"What are you?"
The Disease that had defined Zylas's life was gone. But as the Unbent Apostle applied his pressure, Zylas didn't feel the weight of The Grandeur.
He felt the cold hunger of the Deep Abyss rising in his chest, begging him to reflect the man standing before him.
His first hunt wasn't over. It had just begun… or at least, that was what Zylas thought.