Her head jerked upward with a shriek. Golden light flooded her cheeks like a burst dam, and her long black hair lost all its color in that instant.
Terrifying power rumbled outward from her body, seemingly out of control.
All of Dark Night City shook.
And as all the Night Doctors watched, struggling to keep their footing, the black Magic Array overhead finally shattered into countless fragments amid that immense tide of power.
It was like waking from a nightmare.
A heart-stopping nightmare in which everything seemed poised to descend into madness.
Inside the dark passage.
Barbed chains tightened one after another. Her long golden hair settled as the storm subsided, and she slumped to the ground as though utterly spent, her head bowed. She let the chains bind her arms, all strength seemingly drained from her body, her long hair scattered across the floor like countless tiny petals.
And at the sight of this.
Lynn was finally certain that she had returned.
Relief and lightness flickered across his face. The string stretched taut within him seemed to slacken all at once, and overwhelming exhaustion sent his entire body toppling stiffly forward.
"I really am... pretty amazing after all..."
His weary eyelids kept drooping, but a faint, confident smile still curved his lips as he praised himself.
He was too tired.
From Curse City until now, he had never truly had a proper rest.
He had defeated enemy after enemy and faced one enormous crisis after another. From his struggle with the Mother Tree of Desire to charging toward the boundary with the Colossus, his mind had long since reached the brink of exhaustion. He had forcibly propped himself up with outside power time and again, but even that could not dispel the weariness in his heart.
And now.
It