Knuckle roared like a cornered beast, stumbling toward the silvery-white barrier as thin as a cicada's wing.
The eerie blue in his eyes had completely devoured his reason.
Bai Zhu reacted with incredible speed, an incantation flashing past his lips.
"Bakudo #4: Hainawa!"
A golden rope of light appeared out of nowhere, winding precisely around Knuckle's waist.
But the instant Bai Zhu yanked backward, a terrifying force surged from the other end of the rope.
Knuckle's charge paused only slightly before he forcibly dragged Bai Zhu along and continued forward.
The heels of Bai Zhu's shoes plowed two deep furrows through the sand, and the pressure on his ankles made him grunt.
"Shuto!" Morel roared.
"I... I can't control it!" Shuto sounded close to tears. The shadow tendrils beneath his feet had gone completely berserk; several had even lashed his own face, leaving bloody marks.
Bai Zhu clung to the rope of light, staring at Knuckle's crazed figure as he held his head in both hands and kept repeating something. An indescribable sense of familiarity pierced his mind.
This scene... where had I seen it before?
The moment that thought surfaced, he inexplicably felt a surge of irritation. He even wanted to curse himself. At a time like this, I'm still getting distracted?
Something seemed to be blocking his memories, yet the emotions had surged up first.
Crack-
Another fissure opened along the barrier's edge.
The monsters battering the barrier sensed an opportunity and surged toward the crack even more frantically.
Bai Zhu clenched his teeth. His spiritual power erupted again, and he forcibly dragged Knuckle back two meters.
It was that movement, that posture-still clutching his head while being dragged, muttering something incoherently...
The floodgates of memory burst open.
Pushi.
That shipwreck survivor from the Voyage Bureau aboard the