Angel studied Maguston closely, hoping to see how he resisted the fruit's pull.
But even after watching for some time, he could spot nothing unusual.
It was not that Angel lacked keen powers of observation. The current situation simply did not allow him to extend his mental tendrils, and his senses alone could hardly give him the full picture.
Still, though nothing outwardly gave Maguston away, Angel faintly sensed a familiar yet strange aura drifting from where he stood.
"A very faint mystic aura," Angel murmured. He had caught the slightest trace of it on Maguston.
Compared with the towering waves of aura rolling off the Mystic Fruit, though, Maguston's was a lone skiff in a storm, forever on the brink of being swallowed.
"A mystic object? One that can resist the pull?"
Angel was still weighing the possibility when the Inspector beside him said, "It's hard to find a mystic object made specifically to counter another mystic object."
Did such objects exist? Of course. But the Inspector did not believe one had just happened to turn up here.
"Then how is Maguston resisting the pull?" Angel asked.
The Inspector glanced at Maguston. An invisible force of distortion flashed through his eyes.
A moment later, he looked away. "It isn't a complete mystic object. It's a failed creation—or rather, a half-finished one."
"Half-Step Mystic?"
"You can call it that." The Inspector nodded. "And it wasn't made specifically to resist the pull. Its power concerns space. It seems able to stabilize and partition off part of it."
He paused, then continued. "But partitioning off space alone can't eliminate the pull. At most, it can weaken it. What's kept him going this long is his Void Body."
"Void Body?" Angel asked. "Maguston slipped into the gap between the void and reality?"
The