The silence that followed the erasure of the Level 4 Envoy was more terrifying than the battle itself. Melinoe stood over the fallen Saint, her boots clicking softly on the blood-stained marble of the plaza. To Jax, Kiran, and Elara, she didn't feel like a mage or a warrior; she felt like a hole in the world—a walking, breathing vacuum that consumed light and sound alike.
"You... who are you?" Jax gasped, his voice trembling as he tried to put himself between the girl and the unconscious Seraphina. His Tier 2 aura was non-existent now, suppressed by the mere proximity of Melinoe's indigo presence.
Melinoe didn't even look at him. Her eyes were fixed on Seraphina's blackened, tattered wing-stumps. "I already told the Crow. My name is Melinoe. But to you... I am the end of your little fairy tale."
She reached out, and the shadows around her hand coalesced into a slender, jagged needle of dark matter. "This Saint fought well for a Level 1. She burned her future to buy a few minutes of life. It's poetic. It's also incredibly stupid."
"Don't touch her!" Kiran screamed, drawing his broken shortsword.
Melinoe finally shifted her gaze. The weight of her stare alone sent Kiran to his knees, his lungs seizing as if the oxygen in the plaza had turned to lead. "Be quiet, little squire. I'm not here for you. You don't have enough 'weight' to even be worth a harvest."
She turned back to the Cathedral, her indigo eyes scanning the architecture. "Leonardo is still playing in my father's labyrinth. He thinks he can 'stitch' his way out. He doesn't realize that the Abyss doesn't have seams. It only has depths."
Suddenly, the ground beneath the plaza began to vibrate. It wasn't the rhythmic drumming of the Incision, but a chaotic, grinding sound of stone being pulverized. From the direction of the Labyrinth of Longing, a pillar of grey, ashen energy erupted into the sky, clashing with the indigo clouds.
"Oh?" Melinoe's eyebrows arched in genuine surprise. "He's breaking the spatial anchors? How interesting. He's using the souls as a battering ram. He's going to kill himself just to get back here."
She laughed, a cold, melodic sound. "He really does care about this broken bird, doesn't he?"
The rhythmic grinding of the city reached a deafening peak. Suddenly, the very space fifty meters from the Cathedral plaza didn't just break—it unraveled. A vertical tear of jagged, grey static sliced through the air, and Leonardo stepped through the wound in reality.
He was unrecognizable. Black smoke that trailed behind him like tattered funeral shrouds. His eyes were entirely obsidian, devoid of light, reflecting only the "Nothing" he had used to tear his way out of Melinoe's trap.
"Leo..." Jax croaked, reaching out a bloodied hand.
Leonardo didn't speak. His gaze swept the plaza, taking in the fallen citizens, the corroded armor of the squires, and finally, the broken, wingless form of Seraphina lying at Melinoe's feet. A sound escaped his throat—not a cry, but a low-frequency hum that caused the nearby stone pillars to crack.
"Oh, look at you," Melinoe said, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. She didn't move as Leonardo approached, his footsteps leaving literal holes of "Null-Matter" in the cobblestones. "You pushed the Void-Overdrive just to see her?"
"Get. Away. From. Her," Leonardo rasped. Each word sounded like two stones grinding together. The black smoke around him began to coalesce into hundreds of thin, needle-like threads, all pointing at Melinoe's heart.
"Or what?" Melinoe smirked, placing the toe of her boot lightly against Seraphina's neck. "You'll 'Stitch' me? Little Crow, you are a Level 1 anomaly. I am a direct scion of the Abyss a level 3. Even in your current state, you are trying to fight a tidal wave with a needle."
"I don't need to win," Leonardo whispered, his obsidian eyes locking onto hers. "I just need to make sure you can't leave."
With a sudden, violent surge, Leonardo lunged. He didn't use the Void-Stitcher; he threw his entire being forward, turning his body into a localized gravitational collapse. The "Void-Overdrive" had reached its critical limit. He wasn't just attacking Melinoe; he was trying to pull her into the same "Null-Zone" that occupied his own soul.
Melinoe's smile finally vanished. She raised her hand, her indigo aura flaring into a wall of absolute Abyssal density. "Fine. If you want to see the bottom of the well so badly, I'll show you."
The collision of Void and Abyss sent a shockwave through Oakhaven that silenced every lingering echo of the Incision. For a moment, the plaza was a sphere of pure, lightless conflict.
The collision did not result in a physical explosion, but a spatial erasure. Leonardo and Melinoe vanished from the sight of Jax and the others, pulled into a Sub-Space Pocket—a flickering dimension of violet and grey where gravity was a suggestion and time moved in jagged stutters.
Leonardo's movements were frantic, his body a conduit for the 82 screaming souls. He struck with palms open, each touch attempting to "Unstitch" Melinoe's existence. But she moved with a sickening, liquid grace, her indigo aura absorbing his Void-strikes as if they were nothing more than raindrops hitting an ocean.
"You're so desperate," Melinoe mocked, her voice echoing inside Leonardo's skull. She appeared behind him, her hand brushing his shoulder. A surge of Abyssal pressure sent him spiraling through the empty air. "Why do you fight for them? They call you 'Inept.' They fear what you are. Even that little bird you just tried to save... she only stays because she thinks she can 'fix' you."
"Shut up," Leonardo spat, coughing up black bile. He stabilized himself, the Void-Stitcher appearing in his hand, its blade vibrating so fast it hummed at a frequency that tore the surrounding sub-space.
"My father watches you from his throne of shadows," Melinoe continued, her expression shifting from amusement to a cold, simmering envy. "He speaks of the 'Hollow Star' with a reverence he never gave to his own blood. I am the Abyss incarnate, the princess of the end, yet he obsesses over a scavenger from the junk pits of Albion."
She blurred forward, her fingers catching the edge of Leonardo's blade. The metal groaned, beginning to crack under the sheer density of her Tier 3 power.
"I wanted to see what was so special," she whispered, her face inches from his. "I wanted to see the spark that makes the Black King hesitate. But all I see is a boy playing with a power that is eating him alive. You aren't a king, Leonardo. You're just a temporary container."
She slammed a knee into his chest, the impact shattering his ribs and sending him crashing toward the "floor" of the dimension. Leonardo felt the 82 souls begin to fragment. The Void-Overdrive was consuming his life force; he was minutes away from total soul-collapse.
"Let's see how much you love your 'friends' when they are the price for your survival," Melinoe said, her indigo eyes glowing with a sudden, cruel light. "I'm bored of this duel. Let's play a game of consequences."
With a snap of her fingers, the sub-space pocket dissolved. They were back in the plaza, but Melinoe wasn't looking at Leonardo. She was looking at Jax and the wounded squires.
The reality of the plaza snapped back into focus, the transition so jarring that Jax and Kiran vomited from the spatial whiplash. Leonardo fell to one knee, his skin grey, his breathing a wet, ragged sound. The Void-Overdrive had reached 94% saturation; his very cells were beginning to turn into non-existence.
Melinoe stood perfectly still, not a hair out of place. She looked at the pathetic group—the broken Saint, the crippled warrior, and the two trembling squires.
"You see, Leonardo? This is the weight of your 'choice'," Melinoe said, her voice echoing with a cold, divine authority. She raised her hand, and three spears of pure indigo Abyss materialized in the air, hovering over the hearts of Jax, Kiran, and Elara. "You want to be their hero? You want to play the 'Stitcher' who mends the world?"
"Don't..." Leonardo choked out, trying to raise his hand, but his muscles refused to obey.
"I'll give you a choice, Little Crow. A game of truth," Melinoe smiled, and it was the most terrifying thing Leonardo had ever seen. "Surrender. Let the Void consume you entirely. If you stop fighting the souls and let them turn you into a true Hollow Star, I will let these insects live. I'll even leave the little bird's soul intact."
She leaned closer, her eyes boring into his obsidian ones. "But if you resist... if you try to fight me one more time... I will watch you watch them die. I'll start with the boy, then the girl, and I'll leave the big one for last so he can hear their screams."
"Leo, no!" Jax roared, trying to crawl forward. "Don't listen to her! Kill the witch!"
Melinoe flicked a finger, and the indigo spear over Jax's heart descended an inch, piercing his armor and drawing a line of dark blood. Jax gasped, his eyes bulging as the Abyssal cold began to freeze his veins.
"Choose, Leonardo," Melinoe whispered. "The lives of your precious 'friends'... or your humanity. Which one is worth more?"
Leonardo looked at Seraphina's pale face, then at his companions who had followed an "Inept" into the mouth of hell. Something inside him—the last tether of the boy from the junk pits of Albion—finally snapped. The 82 souls didn't scream anymore. They went silent.
A terrifying, absolute cold radiated from Leonardo's core. The silver scars on his body turned pitch black, and the air around him began to liquify. He wasn't just using the Void anymore. He was becoming it.
"I don't choose," Leonardo said, his voice no longer human. It was the sound of a star collapsing.