Lumoria — Divine Cataclysm
As soon as Lunethra's words slipped past her lips, a searing, golden-hot pain exploded at Zephyr's eyes. It wasn't a simple ache—it was as if molten light had been poured directly into his skull, flooding his mind with blinding agony. His vision went white, blotting out everything in front of him. Then came the terror, raw and visceral, clawing at his heart with icy fingers. It was instinctive, primal—the kind of fear that digs deep into the bones.
Without a moment's hesitation, Zephyr reached for the only thing that could shield him from complete annihilation.
His hand clasped together— his two pinky fingers stretched out, his two thumbs pointed upward. And a whisper.
Limbo—Border Jail
A sudden, crushing pressure seemed to fall from the sky. To any ordinary observer, the space around him would look untouched, still shimmering with the golden brilliance of Lunethra's might. But to Zephyr, the world had transformed. Red pillars of energy—vivid, fiery, and unyielding—descended from the heavens, piercing the air like spears of divine judgment. They framed his existence, boxing him in, forming a barrier that was invisible to everyone but him.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the light, the pain, the overwhelming heat, then he struggled to open them, his pupils narrowed to slits. What he saw made his eyes surge wide open, disbelief etched into his expression.
Everything around him was suffused with an intense golden light. It wasn't just bright; it was absolute. The light was so pure, so radiant, that it seemed to blur the boundaries of his effective eyesight, reducing everything beyond a few meters to indistinct silhouettes. It was like staring directly into the heart of a sun—blinding, dazzling.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
The space itself—the hardened barrier of Limbo—was burning. Not metaphorically, but literally. The very fabric of the cubical prison he had crafted from Aether was igniting at its edges. Golden flames licked at the corners, spreading like wildfire, eating away at the once-impenetrable surface.
It was fragile—like paper curling at the edges from the touch of fire. The golden light crawled forward, creeping along the hardened space, leaving behind trails of blackish-grey ash, evidence of its consumption. Zephyr watched, horrified, as fragments of his prison flaked away, crumbling into nothingness, the structure slowly unraveling before his eyes.
To make matters worse, each burnt patch left tiny fractures, gaps that allowed spills of the searing light to pour through. The moment the golden essence touched his skin, it was like acid—searing his flesh, sending hot tendrils of pain racing up his nerves. He gritted his teeth, suppressing a scream as he watched the skin on his forearm blister and sizzle where a droplet of light had touched.
Panic clawed its way up his throat. He didn't have much time.
'I need to stabilize it. And fast'.
With desperation flooding his veins, he poured more of his Aether into the prison, reinforcing the walls with a lot more Aether then was required. It was like throwing water onto a raging fire, buying him moments—just moments—before the light began its hungry crawl again.
'I should have trapped her instead'.
The thought crashed into him like a tidal wave. Instead of hiding behind the walls of his little jail, he could have expanded it, encapsulating Lunethra and her blinding light within the prison's hardened space. It would have bought him time—time to escape, to counterattack, to do something other than cower behind flimsy defenses.
He cursed under his breath, his fists clenching tightly.
This wasn't the first time. Back during the entrance exam, when he had faced off against that Vermilion girl who controlled hair, he had done the exact same thing. In the heat of battle, his instinct was always to hide—to shelter himself behind Limbo's walls rather than take the offensive. His first instinct was to protect, to shield, rather than fight. It was an old habit—one born of survival, of countless years at the pit and his own fear at this new world. Despite the amount of time he had spent in this world he was still fearful at this new strange environment.
And now he realized that survival was not enough anymore, if he truly wanted to survive to at least when he took his revenge, he needed to stopped being a coward.
As the golden flames crept closer, burning through his defenses inch by inch, Zephyr's mind solidified with new resolve. No more hiding. If he got out of this alive, he would not simply hide behind Limbo's walls. He would learn to wield it as a weapon. And take up his role as a Jailer.
'Yes a Jailer not a prisoner'.
As soon as his mind touched on the declaration a new type of presence made itself known. The feeling was different from Aether, Zephyr could feel his mind suddenly become clearer and more active and then he felt it.
Knowledge
Knowledge of a new way of controlling his jail. He suddenly got knowledge of how tomanipulate his jail.
Knowledge poured through the runes on his mind that were LIMBO— BORDER JAIL.
He could condense the boundaries of his Jail, making the space more compact, stronger.
He could enforce limitations, cutting off energy, suffocating powers within the space, like a locked cage.
The edges of his burning space trembled as he grasped this newfound understanding. His fingers tightened, and the harden space around him groaned.
Zephyr gritted his teeth, his eyes flaring with newfound purpose. His still clasped fingers tighten around each other as he commanded his jail.
The red pillars flared with intensity, and the burning fragments of space began to contract. The red pillars began to twist and turn, becoming smaller and smaller and more hard to the extent that even Zephyr who didn't feel out of place before in his jail could feel the remaining air in it harden.
As the Jail strunk the golden light and flame found it hard to torment the boundaries anymore, the area occupied by the jail was getting smaller so as the Aether required to keep it running.
Although it may feel like a very long time, only a few seconds had passed from the moment she first attacked to when she invoked her Art.
Then the Light abruptly receded and so did his harden space softened.
'What is happening'. Zephyr started to panic as he suddenly lost control of his jail. Until a genderless stiff voice rang out.
"Fighting apart from Assassination attempt isn't allowed".
"Princess Lunethra of Solmyr was the first to attack sixty percent demerit".
"Zephyr Demios is the Victim, no penalty drawn".