The Varkhaals were not idle.
A Stage 6 Ascendant cloaked in coiling shadows emerged from a rift of darkness. His voice slithered through the air like a serpent's hiss.
"Humans… insignificant and doomed. Surrender everything you have."
Marie's sensors flared red.
"Luc, be careful! That one's—"
Before she could finish, Lucien's world went dark.
The Varkhaal's domain had expanded. It was a realm of shadow where time faltered and space inverted.
Lucien's body froze mid-step. No, he wasn't bound by the domain... but the very air solidified around him like tar. His spatial sense was smothered in suffocating black.
Lucien smirked.
"Bad move."
He invoked Decay once more. It stripped the tar-like air around him. Then... with a flick of his aura, he sent the same decay outward like a hailstorm of annihilation.
Holes tore through the domain and the Ascendant recoiled violently.
From one of those tears, a colossal metallic hand burst through. It shredded the shadow realm like mist.
