The scene within the barrier had become an abattoir. The white-robed Clerics moved with cold, efficient detachment, "processing" those "defective" individuals unable to consolidate their Marks in time. Short, sharp screams and the sizzling sound of energy being forcibly ripped away rose and fell, punctuated by the occasional sated sigh from a Cleric. There was no pity, no hesitation. Only the naked selection and plunder based on "efficiency" and "value."
Erika's heart was in a vise. His gaze pierced the chaotic field, locked onto Loren. In this moment, Loren had become the vessel for all his hope, the only remaining sign of a "comrade" in this madness.
Loren sat cross-legged on the cold ground, body slightly hunched. His pale gold hair was utterly soaked with sweat, plastered to his pallid forehead and cheeks. His eyes were tightly shut, long eyelashes trembling with extreme pain and concentration. Every muscle on his once handsome, arrogant face was taut, twisted into a mask of near-ferocious tenacity.
His brow was a tightly knotted fist. His jaw was clenched, the line of it hard as stone. A fine trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his tightly pressed lips—he'd clearly bitten the inside of his cheek raw fighting the feral energy invading his body. His hands rested on his knees, knuckles white with strain, trembling faintly, as if he was using his will to bridle a savage beast poised to turn on him.
Erika could faintly sense it: the chaotic, violent energy in the surrounding space, not yet fully settled, was being drawn by a weak yet stubbornly persistent pull. Like iron filings to a magnet, it slowly, laboriously converged towards Loren. The pull was not strong, even precarious, but it existed, stubbornly resisting the natural dissipation of the ambient energy and the interference from the other Clerics' plundering.
Loren was trying to tame this destructive force, to use it to build his second Mark! It was a dance on the edge of a blade, a walk along a precipice!
His efforts and this faint energy flow, however, soon attracted the attention of the Clerics who had just "feasted" but were still hungry for more.
A few exchanged glances, their faces breaking into malicious, cat-and-mouse grins. They sauntered over, forming a semicircle around Loren.
"Well, look who it is. Our esteemed young master de Witt," one Cleric sneered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "What's the matter? All that family resource, and this is the best you can manage? Struggling so pathetically with a simple Mark?"
Another snorted derisively. "I think he lost his nerve out in the wilds that night. Finally realizing power isn't something you can buy with a name and fancy robes?"
"Tch, this energy fluctuation is weaker than a guttering candle. I'm half-afraid it'll snuff out any second," a third chimed in, shaking his head with exaggerated drama. "Tell you what, young master, why don't you do us a favor? Stop struggling. Let us brothers here have this little 'essence.' Save you the suffering, eh?"
Their words, like the cawing of crows circling the dying, were not aimless. They were poisoned needles, seeking to pierce Loren's strained mental defenses, disrupt his focus, shake his resolve, and force a lapse—so they could justifiably claim the meager energy and remaining life force he was struggling to consolidate, just like the other "defectives."
Loren's body trembled more violently under the barrage of malice, sweat streaming down his forehead in rivulets. But he kept his teeth gritted, eyes shut, offering no response, pouring every shred of his being into the battle with the feral energy within. It was as if he was trying to forge all the humiliation and pain into fuel for the struggling furnace of his nascent Mark.
But verbal interference seemed too slow.
One Cleric, his face greedy, eyes impatient, seemed unable to restrain his craving for that pure energy any longer. Watching the increasingly clear, yet still unstable, convergence of energy around Loren, a vicious light flashed in his eyes.
"Enough talk! This dithering is an eyesore!"
With a low roar, he lunged forward. His right hand curled into a claw, a vortex of dark, absorptive energy instantly coalescing in his palm. With undisguised malice, he aimed directly for the crown of Loren's head—the core of the energy convergence—and struck!
He was going to forcibly interrupt the process and plunder directly!
"Stop!" Erika's heart nearly burst from his chest, the cry torn from him, but he was too far away, utterly powerless to intervene!
The claw, carrying destructive force, already brushed against Loren's sweat-drenched hair!
At the critical moment, just as the malicious claw was about to shatter Loren's skull and abort his Mark consolidation—
"THUMP."
A dull, resonant sound, seeming to strike directly upon the soul, came from on high!
It was Grand Cleric Hong Bo! He had, at some point, raised his golden staff and brought it down lightly upon the dais floor. The sound was not loud, but it carried a strange, irresistible authority, spreading through the 'Angel's Descent' hall like an intangible wave, vibrating through everyone's spirit and freezing their movements!
The attacking Cleric, the frantic Erika far away, even Wolfgang who had just phased like a ghost in front of Loren, his Mind-Blade energy already bristling, ready to block the blow—all were momentarily frozen in place!
Hong Bo's voice followed, still wearing that tone of benevolent compassion, yet holding absolute control:
"Our merciful Lord will forgive all of us, small as dust." His gaze swept the hall, as if observing unruly children. "The choice of fate must ultimately be returned to the lamb itself. Gentlemen, please… be patient."
That offhand remark, like the strongest intangible shackles, temporarily restrained all stirring greed.
Yet, it was in this forcibly imposed moment of "peace" that Loren's body convulsed violently!
"Pfft—!"
A torrent of hot, bright blood erupted uncontrollably from his mouth, painting a stark, crimson arc in the air before splattering across his chest and the ground before him.
The energy fluctuation around him instantly became wildly erratic, guttering like a candle in the wind. Erika could clearly "see" it—the structure of Loren's nearly-formed second Mark was almost complete, shining with a faint, stubborn light. It needed only a final infusion and stabilization of energy to solidify completely!
But this final step, he simply could not take!
The successive waves of psychological torment, the extreme physical agony, and the final, life-and-death terror… had long since pushed his will and stamina past their breaking point. The vomited blood seemed to carry away the last of his supporting strength.
He tried to focus again, to guide the energy, but an invisible, insurmountable barrier seemed to form on the Mark's circuit. He strained, his body shaking violently with utter exhaustion and bitter frustration, the light in his eyes like dying embers, filled with a desperate struggle.
Finally, a faint, whimpering sound, like that of a dying animal, escaped him. His taut body lost all strength, and he fell limply, face down, onto the cold ground with a heavy thud, stirring a small cloud of dust.
He had lost consciousness, or his body had triggered its final protective shutdown. The unfinished Mark, as he fell, dimmed rapidly, its structure blurring, left in a perilously unstable state, on the verge of complete collapse and dissipation.
High on the dais, Grand Cleric Hong Bo let out a long, drawn-out sigh, filled with seeming infinite regret. The sigh echoed in the silent hall, falling like a final gavel, pronouncing Loren de Witt's "fate" in this ceremony—a "worthless" defective who had failed to consolidate his Mark.
That sigh also acted as the final release from restraint.
The Cleric who had been blocked by Wolfgang and then cowed by Hong Bo's staff instantly had his face contorted anew with savagery and greed! No longer able to contain himself, a ferocious light blazing in his eyes, he roared:
"Waste! I'll take this pittance of value for myself!"
He sidestepped Wolfgang, who stood like an iron tower before him, face dark but temporarily immobilized by Hong Bo's intervention. His hand, once again formed into a claw, shot towards the unconscious Loren with a sharp whistle of cutting air! This time, he intended to directly and utterly drain the residual, crumbling energy and life force from Loren's body!
Just as that plundering claw, gleaming with malign light, was about to make contact with Loren's body—
A figure, slightly slower than Wolfgang's 'phasing' but moving with a desperate, all-or-nothing resolve, arrived just in time, thrusting itself bodily between the Cleric and Loren!
It was Erika!
He didn't know where the courage came from, nor how he could possibly block the enraged strike of a full Cleric. His body had simply reacted before his mind could process it, the moment he saw Loren fall and the Cleric lunge again!
He turned his back, shielding the unconscious Loren securely. He crossed his arms in front of him in a guard, though it would likely be as flimsy as paper against the Cleric's power. He lifted his head, meeting the Cleric's startled, then rapidly enraged gaze without flinching. The two newly-formed, still-youthful Marks on his arms seemed to sense their master's will, glowing with a faint but unwavering light!
"Get out of the way, you little bastard!" the Cleric snarled, his assault unchecked.
Erika gritted his teeth, holding his ground.
He knew he was a mantis trying to stop a chariot. But he knew even more clearly that if he moved aside now, Loren was truly finished. This wasn't just for Loren. It was for the fragile, newly-kindled spark of "comradeship" in his own heart, and it was a slight but all-out rebellion against the injustice and darkness he had witnessed!
In the split second, conflict was imminent.