The void spear launched.
Time didn’t slow. That was a lie they told you in movies. Time kept its normal pace while Natalia watched the concentrated darkness streak toward the man she loved.
She threw everything.
Not just her telekinesis. Not just her power.
Everything.
Her fear. Her rage. Her obsession. Her jealousy. Her pride. Every wall she’d ever built to keep herself safe, every mask she’d worn to survive her father’s expectations, every cold word and cruel thought and desperate, aching need that she’d buried so deep she’d forgotten it existed.
She threw her entire soul at that void spear.
And something inside her shattered.
The sensation was indescribable. Like chains she’d never known existed suddenly snapping free. Like a door she’d been pressing against her whole life finally giving way. Like drowning in reverse, gasping up into air after a lifetime underwater.
A voice that wasn’t a voice echoed through her being.
Bond Rank 10: Covenant Established.
Title Granted: [The Psychic Sovereign].
The void spear stopped.
Three inches from Satori’s face.
Natalia hung in the air. She didn’t remember floating up. Her feet had simply... left the water. Her hair whipped around her head in a storm that had nothing to do with wind, the purple strands bleeding white at the tips like ink spreading through paper.
The Abyssal Nerve’s child-face twisted with something that might have been confusion.
"What... are you?"
Natalia looked at the void spear trapped in her crystalline grip.
She closed her fist.
The concentrated darkness that had nearly killed the love of her life, the weapon that a B-Rank monster at minimum had crafted from pure void energy... crumbled like wet sand.
The entity screamed.
Natalia screamed back.
But her scream wasn’t just sound. It was force. It was will. It was every ounce of telekinetic power she possessed channeled through a bond that burned like fire in her chest and sang like music in her skull.
The Abyssal Nerve lifted out of the water.
All fifteen feet of bioluminescent nightmare, all those pulsing tendrils and veins of darkness and ancient malice, rose into the air as if gravity had decided it no longer applied.
Natalia’s hands moved.
The monster’s tendrils ripped away. Separated at the molecular level, each tendril dissolving into motes of black light that scattered like fireflies.
The child-face wailed.
"No! NO! You can’t! Master promised! He PROMISED we would—"
Natalia tore it apart.
There was no other way to describe what happened. One moment, the Abyssal Nerve existed. The next, it was a cloud of particles dissipating into the cathedral’s vaulted ceiling, each atom pulled from its neighbors by telekinetic force that shouldn’t have been possible.
KRR-UNCH.
The entity’s core cracked.
SPLAT.
The rest followed.
Black ichor rained down into the water. The bioluminescent glow faded from the chamber. The crushing gravity vanished so suddenly that everyone still conscious stumbled.
And floating in the middle of it all, hair white-purple and eyes blazing with violet fire, Natalia Kuzmina hung like a vengeful goddess who had just reminded the universe why mortals used to build temples.
The cathedral went silent.
Then the entity’s final words echoed through the air. Not in their minds this time, but spoken aloud, a death rattle from something that shouldn’t have been able to speak at all.
"Master will be... disappointed..."
The voice faded.
And Natalia dropped.
The power left her all at once. The fire in her eyes died. The crystalline violet matter dissolved into nothing. Her hair settled, still streaked with white, as gravity reasserted its claim with brutal efficiency.
She fell.
The black water rushed up to meet her. She couldn’t move her arms. Couldn’t think. Her nose was bleeding, she could taste copper on her lips, and her veins felt like someone had replaced her blood with molten lead.
Satori.
I saved...
Satori...
Strong arms caught her.
She hit flesh instead of water, and the impact hurt because those arms belonged to a man with broken ribs and a shattered shoulder who had no business catching anything heavier than a pillow.
But he caught her anyway.
"Got you," Satori wheezed. Blood bubbled on his lips. "Got you, Nat."
She looked up at his face.
One eye was swollen shut. His nose was crooked, clearly broken. His skin was pale from blood loss, and his breathing made a horrible rattling sound that suggested at least one punctured lung.
He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
"You... idiot," she managed. Her voice came out as a croak. "You’re... supposed to let... the tank take hits..."
"Bad habit." He tried to grin. Winced. "Keep forgetting I’m the DPS."
Footsteps splashed through the water. Isabelle appeared at their side, her wine-red hair plastered to her face, her eyes wide with something that might have been awe.
"We need to move. The Gate’s destabilizing. Whatever that thing was, killing it triggered some kind of cascade reaction."
The chamber was shaking. Stones fell from the ceiling. The black water churned with ominous purpose.
"Natalia needs a medic," Emi added, her voice high and thin. The healer looked exhausted, her sapphire hair limp, her hands still glowing faintly as she tried to stabilize the wounded. "Her mana circuits are completely blown. If we don’t get her to a proper facility—"
"No."
Satori’s voice was quiet. Ragged. But absolute.
"What?" Isabelle stared at him.
"We don’t leave." He shifted Natalia’s weight, and she could feel his arms trembling with the effort. His broken arm hung useless at his side, but he refused to let go of her. "Not yet. We didn’t come this far to walk away with a participation trophy."
"You can barely stand!"
"Good thing I don’t need to stand." He pointed with his chin. "I just need someone to grab the shiny."
Natalia followed his gaze.
There, floating in the water where the Abyssal Nerve had died, was a Core.
But it wasn’t like any Core she’d ever seen. Normal Monster Cores glowed with soft light in colors that matched their element. Fire Cores were red. Ice Cores were blue. Even the high-rank Cores she’d seen in museum exhibits had followed this pattern.
This Core was black.
The absolute absence of light. A sphere of concentrated void roughly the size of a baseball, floating serenely in the center of a nightmare cathedral while the dungeon collapsed around it.
"Is that..." Juan’s voice came from somewhere behind them, weak but curious. "Is that a Black Core?"
"Told you this dungeon was irregular," Satori said. "Isabelle. If you would."
The queen of the Onyx Hounds hesitated for exactly one second. Then she nodded, crossed the chamber in four long strides, and plucked the Core from the water with her bare hand.
The dungeon shuddered.
The shaking intensified. A massive chunk of ceiling crashed into the water ten feet away, sending up a wave that soaked everyone anew.
"NOW can we leave?" Isabelle demanded.
"Now we can leave."