"Iluna, I'm going to remove the cards sealing the rift. Why don't you leave first?"
"It's fine. Don't waste time."
The eighteen-year-old girl leaned against Shade's leg, her voice still weak, but both hands remained tightly clenched around her Dark Gold Scales as she tried to share his burden.
Shade did not insist.
"Get ready. Three, two, one!"
The six cards flew back to Shade from the glowing rift at once. At the same time, he crushed the crystal vial containing the Tear Drop of Parting with a hard squeeze.
The crystal vial itself was a container. Once shattered, it could keep the liquid suspended amid the crystal fragments. As long as Shade controlled the fragments and kept them floating, the liquid inside would remain suspended as well.
But the instant the vial shattered, all the liquid inexplicably coated his palm. Shade had no idea why this differed from what Iluna had described, though it did not seem to have any side effects. Only a sorrow rising from the depths of his heart nearly made him cry at once.
He did not tell Iluna about the accident. Instead, he raised his palm to shield himself from the light before him, then reached for the rift with his liquid-covered hand.
For an instant, Shade even felt as though he had directly grasped the fractured spacetime. Instinctively, he exerted force, trying to pull the two sides of the split together. He almost thought he would succeed, and the liquid on his palm was itself drawing the torn rift back together.
The rift truly began shrinking beneath his palm, bit by bit. Even the dim yellow light shining from within weakened. Though Shade also believed he could never completely erase the rift this way, reducing it to a manageable size was entirely possible.