The Limit, Gray, Deathly Silence

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Violent explosions stretched for a hundred kilometers. When the dust cleared, a bottomless chasm lay before him.

Before Eleven could recover from the unimaginably powerful attack, the sky suddenly darkened, and the earth trembled. A drop of cold sweat slid down Eleven's cheek and fell toward the ground, breaking apart in midair before it could strike.

Trembling, he looked up. The monster had crossed a hundred kilometers in just a few leaps and landed right in front of Eleven. It was looking down at the little fellow floating in midair, and its gaze met Eleven's.

Buzz...

The instant their eyes met, Eleven's brain felt as though it had exploded. His mind didn't go blank; instead, it became unusually active. It was as if every brain cell were sounding the alarm, sending one command after another to his body to run! Yet his body had frozen, as if he had fallen into a hole in the ice. He was cold all over, and for that instant, even his blood seemed to stop flowing.

The monster lost interest after a single glance at Eleven and swung its enormous hand as if swatting a fly. Eleven was certain that even a casual swipe from the monster would reduce his small body to ashes in an instant.

Move, damn it, move!!

Eleven desperately urged his body to move, squeezing out every last bit of his potential. But against the great hand hurtling toward him, blotting out the sky, his feeble movements were utterly meaningless.

Ding...

As the great hand drew closer, Eleven grew so tense and strained in that instant that his entire brain felt ready to explode. His Spiritual Power had been pushed to its limit. Suddenly, Eleven's pupils contracted, and a clear "ding" rang out in his mind. The entire world fell silent, and Eleven felt as though he had entered a new realm.

The objects around him began moving unusually slowly. Even the great hand attacking him was so slow it seemed almost still. In Eleven's awareness, time itself slowed throughout the world.

He had experienced this state once before, in the instant before his death in his previous life. Now he faced death once again, and its pressure had pushed his Spiritual Power beyond its limits once more.

Eleven instinctively tried to take the chance to escape, but discovered to his horror that his own movements had slowed just as much. This state affected only his Spiritual Power. In truth, his thoughts had merely accelerated under extreme conditions; time itself had not slowed.

The pitch-black hand was still coming for Eleven. What could he do now? Take the opportunity to attack the monster? Don't be ridiculous—he couldn't possibly break through its defenses. Defend? If he could defend against it, he wouldn't be having such a hard time.

Watching the giant claw draw closer and feeling the growing pressure of the wind, Eleven made the only choice he had. He frantically concentrated all his Spiritual Power into Telekinesis, then slammed it into himself in the direction the claw was coming.

Bang!!

As Deliora struck, Eleven's body crashed into the ground like a cannonball, leaving a deep, human-shaped crater.

Deliora looked down at its claw in puzzlement. It seemed it hadn't felt much from that strike. But the monster, whose intelligence had yet to awaken and which knew only destruction, gave it no further thought. It roared and charged toward the city ahead.

In a small town not far from where Deliora had appeared.

A black-haired boy braved the wind and snow and walked out of a small wooden house, ignoring the person inside who tried to stop him.

"Stop! How could you possibly beat Deliora? You can't do it, Gray." The woman who had chased him out of the house continued trying to persuade him in the cold wind.

"Shut up. Someone like you doesn't understand at all." The black-haired boy turned to look at her, his eyes filled with a chill colder than the wind and snow, and a bone-deep hatred. "I'm going to avenge my dad and mom! Got a problem with that?"

"If you dare leave, I'll expel you from my tutelage!" The woman remained in the doorway, her tone growing a few degrees colder.

The boy agreed without looking back. "Fine, that'll make things easier for me too. But if I die, I'll never forgive you for not teaching me stronger magic."

Ur (-ι_-): "I lost my leg, but there's no need to worry about it. Molding Magic is really wonderful, isn't it? If that monster is the darkness in your heart, then of course I have a reason to come out and fight him to the death. Go on, leave this guy to me!"

Gray (ﾉД`): "I'm not leaving! It's all my fault things turned out this way!"

Ur (ˇ∀ˇ): "It's nobody's fault. This is just a trial for me to reclaim my happiness."

Ur (ｰ̀дｰ́): "I won't let you near my precious disciples! This ends here, monster! Take this—Iced Shell!"

Gray (つД`): "Ur, your... your body..."

Ur (•̆ᵕ•̆): "I told you, this magic turns the user's body into ice... forever."

Gray (つД`): "I'm begging you, stop! From now on, I'll listen to whatever you say!"

Ur ◠‿◠: "You don't have to feel sad. I'm still alive in this world... I'll become ice and live on forever. Move forward, toward the future. I'll seal away the darkness in your heart..."

Shff!

A filthy little hand emerged from the scorched earth. Then the soil churned, and a small figure, one side of his body covered in blood, floated out.

"Whew... I really survived. Feels like I was unconscious for a long time."

Eleven let out a long breath and gulped in air. The first thing he did was look down and check his body.

Eleven's body was truly a horrifying sight. The bones on his left side were all shattered, and that side hung limply like a noodle. He didn't know what injuries his internal organs had suffered, but they ached constantly. Blood mixed with mud continued to drip onto the ground, staining it red, forcing Eleven to use Telekinesis to constrict his wounds. He felt no intense pain, though; perhaps his flesh had already gone numb.

"Tsk, was I a little too hard on myself?" Eleven gave a helpless, bitter smile. Fortunately, his mind was still in good shape. He could gather his Telekinesis to float in the air, so he could still move around.

"I had to be ruthless. Without enough force, I couldn't have reached enough speed to escape that monster's attack... Wait! Where's the monster?"

At the thought of the monster, even his numb body broke out in goosebumps. Eleven hurriedly looked around, searching for any sign of it.

Hell on earth!

All he could see around him were raging flames, broken walls and ruins, and corpses... The once-bustling streets were now filled only with the crackle of fire. No screams, no cries of alarm, only deathly silence.

"Wait, there are still people... people?"

Eleven now noticed quite a few people scattered around. But like him, they were all floating silently in midair, their eyes vacant and their faces expressionless...