Rain pelted Klaus's shoulders, soaking through his clothes.
Amid the boundless curtain of black-and-white rain, a sphere suddenly fell from high above. Klaus's expression tightened, and he instinctively reached out to catch it. The sphere landed squarely in his hand.
It was a pitch-black sphere roughly the size of a fist, with a faint, ghastly white chill glimmering beneath its surface. It felt heavy in his hand and carried a trace of coldness, yet there was none of the aura an Eerie should have within it.
Klaus could clearly sense that the sphere contained not the slightest trace of resentment or lingering will.
Aside from that pure energy, it was practically the final thing the Guardian had left them, obtained at the cost of his own annihilation.
A complete core of a Fifth Order Eerie.
Meanwhile, the tremors coming from the Inner City grew ever more violent.
Beneath the dim sky, that colossal mass of Starry Sky Flesh surged upward in near-madness. Thick veins continuously interlocked with the Crown of Ten Thousand Kings, while intertwined scarlet hues gnawed away at every inch of space surrounding the Tower of Erudition.
Under the violent pressure, the colored streams of light shining from the Sea of Knowledge Rift in the sky had dimmed somewhat.
Lu Yuan was suspended deep within that rift at this very moment, constantly fending off the Crown's attacks.
Klaus knew Lu Yuan would not be able to hold on for much longer.
If they could not quell the chaos here in short order, then once the Crown and the flesh completed their fusion, the newly hatched Taboo would bury the entire city—and everyone in it.
"Only one way, then."
Klaus lowered his head and looked at the Fifth Order core in his arms.
If he consumed this core along