Instead of a direct attack, Sirius gestured toward Taro’s feet with the same casual indifference one might show when pointing out a spill. Dense shadow spread from the ground like living tar, wrapping around Taro’s legs like invisible shackles.
Immediately, Taro began feeling exponentially heavier, as if gravity itself had been weaponized against him.
"What... what is this?" Taro gasped, his voice strained as he fought to remain standing. The weight pressed down on him making each breath a monumental effort. His armor, which had seemed so protective moments before, now felt like a tomb slowly crushing him.
Ren launched himself at Sirius with lightning crackling around him like a storm made flesh. His rage gave him speed, desperation gave him strength, but it wasn’t enough.
Sirius disappeared again, leaving Ren to stumble through empty air.
"Children shouldn’t play at being adults so far from home," Sirius’s voice resonated from all directions at once, as if the shadows themselves were speaking. "And you, Ren..."
The tone became personal, cutting. Each word was chosen to inflict maximum psychological damage.
"You’re believing too much in that rhetoric about being some kind of savior. Stay away from Luna. She’s better off without ridiculous hopes that will only hurt her more when you inevitably fall short before the harsh reality of nobility..."
"Then let nobility rot!"
The fury that exploded in Ren’s chest was like an emotional supernova, burning away everything else, fear, exhaustion, even rational thought. The black marks spread violently, covering his entire body now like a second skin. With them came an intuitive understanding of shadow control he hadn’t possessed before.
He could feel Sirius’s location now, jumping through darkness in a circle with a range of about twenty meters. The sensation was like having a sixth sense, feeling the disturbances in shadow as clearly as if he could see them.
He leaped toward that position, but arrived too late. Sirius was much faster, his decades of experience making Ren’s newfound abilities seem still clumsy and amateurish by comparison.
Sirius reappeared directly behind Taro, who was fighting desperately against the supernatural weight crushing him down. The boy’s breathing had become labored, each gasp a struggle against the impossible pressure.
"Impressive resistance," Sirius commented casually. "Most would have collapsed long ago. Your beast must be providing excellent structural reinforcement."
He intensified the weight dramatically.
Taro’s scream tore through the air as his armor began cracking under the impossible pressure. The beetle plates, which had withstood Gold rank attacks, began fragmenting like glass under a sledgehammer.
"Taro!" Ren roared, throwing himself forward with everything he had, but it was like moving through thick syrup. The distance that should have taken a second stretched into eternity.
It was too late. Taro’s armor disintegrated completely, the pieces falling away like shattered pottery. The boy collapsed under the weight, his body hitting the ground with a thud as consciousness and transformation fled simultaneously. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novel⸺fire.net
Sirius straightened beside Taro’s motionless body, looking directly at Ren in front of him with an expression that was both disappointment and resolve. His face showed no satisfaction, no cruelty, just the cold determination of someone doing what they believed was necessary.
"Julius and Selphira’s people won’t be long in coming for you," he informed in a conversational tone, as if they’d been discussing the weather rather than the systematic incapacitation of Ren’s friends. "They’re going to carry you back to where you belong. So you should stay here and wait like the obedient children you’re supposed to be. You’re responsible for this and you’ll watch over them from the wild beasts around here."
But Ren was no longer listening to rational words. The black marks had covered his entire body completely, thickening like armor made of crystallized rage. The power flowing through him was different from anything he had experienced before, wilder, more uncontrollable, threatening to consume everything that made him human.
He had lost almost all control.
His friends lay around him. The adults who claimed to care about him had once again proven they saw him as nothing more than a wayward child to be corrected. And somewhere back there, Luna was suffering because no one else would act.
"NO," he roared, his voice so distorted it barely sounded human anymore. "I WON’T LET YOU HUMILIATE US, NOT ANY NOBLE!"
The words came out as much a snarl as speech, and the power radiating from him made the very air shimmer with heat.
The energy emanating from Ren began affecting the environment physically, transforming the battlefield into something that defied natural law. The grass at his feet didn’t just grow, it erupted in spirals. Nearby rocks didn’t simply develop cracks; they split along perfectly symmetrical lines.
The air became a visible maelstrom, currents of different temperatures creating heat mirages that made reality shimmer and bend. Dust devils formed spontaneously, carrying with them the scent of ozone and something that reminded observers of the moment before lightning strikes.
Sirius took half a step back, and for the first time since his arrival, his expression showed something that could have been concern.
"Boy," he said carefully, "that’s not normal power. You need to calm yourself before you get hurt. Or turn into a monster like those idiots from Yino..."
Ren launched forward, but this time it wasn’t a calculated attack. It was pure unleashed fury given form, power without control or direction. His movements had lost all semblance of technique, replaced by something primal.
The shadows around him responded chaotically, creating whirlpools of darkness that moved erratically. His elemental control had become unstable, generating electrical sparks that jumped between his fingers.
Lightning arced from point to point across his body, creating a network of energy that pulsed with each heartbeat. The smell of burnt air filled the clearing.
Sirius dodged the first assault, his decades of experience allowing him to read the attack despite its chaotic nature. But he could see that something had changed fundamentally in the boy before him. This wasn’t the same calculating child who had been fighting strategically moments before.
This... creature, had no rational restrictions.
The last vestiges of conscious control threatened to disappear completely.