If I gave up in that crucial moment, all our sacrifices and efforts would have been in vain.
Still sprawled on the ground, I watched the scene that tore at my soul. My mind, however, worked frantically as I observed my friend struggling to breathe under that deadly grip.
The monster's appearances and disappearances followed an identifiable pattern, I suddenly realized, and my eyes darted quickly between the creature and the barrier guarding the mysterious cubes.
—The barrier —I murmured to myself, my voice broken but growing with determination—. Everything is connected... if the barrier falls...
I dragged my paralyzed legs, overcome by terror, feeling how fear infiltrated every cell of my being, threatening to nullify my will.
I couldn't comprehend the origin of that overwhelming certainty, but something deep within me warned me vehemently that if I didn't act immediately, we would never see Arceus among us again.
I knew well the strength Arceus possessed, but even so, a visceral intuition kept screaming from the depths of my being.
No matter how powerful Arceus was, he couldn't defeat the abomination looming over him like the embodiment of eternal night.
It was as if my heart whispered insistently that if I didn't do something, regret would accompany me until the end of my days.
If I gave up now, I would spend the rest of my existence shedding bitter tears. For myself and for the family that had saved me from loneliness.
I had to act if I wanted to save him. I decided to heed the voice of my heart over the screams of fear, and strangely, my anxiety dissipated like mist under the morning sun I had read about in books.
With a resolution born of the deepest desperation, I closed my eyes and concentrated all my stellar energy, that energy flowing through my being like a luminous river.
The air around me began to vibrate with as I invoked my innate ability: "Miracle."
A sacred gift capable of reconstructing the very fabric of reality, temporarily altering the immutable laws that governed the known world.
A sensation both unfamiliar and familiar coursed through my being, a force whose origin I couldn't precisely identify. But it wasn't necessary to know it at that moment.
The only thing that mattered was that the power that should have remained dormant in the depths of my being was awakening in an explosion of stellar energy, what should have been a mere thread of energy was turning into an uncontrollable torrent threatening to overflow the limits of my existence.
Once had been enough, a single time had sufficed to lose my first family in the distant past.
I would do it, even with this fragile mortal body as my only instrument.
This time I would succeed! I would protect them at any cost!
Though my throat burned as if I had swallowed glowing embers with each breath, though I felt my arms on the verge of disintegrating under the pressure of that energy, though every cell of my body cried out in agony, I wouldn't yield to the pain.
It doesn't hurt at all, I repeated to myself like a desperate mantra, a little faster, faster, faster!
I shouted with all the strength of my soul, I waited with every fiber of my being.
I prayed fervently, I longed with desperation. I made a wish born from the deepest part of my heart.
A blinding pillar of light descended majestically from above, plunging with divine fury toward the protective barrier. The entire room flooded with a dazzling white radiance, its intensity magnifying as it reflected infinitely off the immaculate walls surrounding us. Suddenly, the room trembled as if shaken by an earthquake, and the thick barrier shattered with an apocalyptic roar, bursting into myriad crystalline fragments that scattered like a rain of dying stars, glittering with each reflection as they spread across the marble floor.
Miracles were phenomena of mysterious and capricious nature. One could never predict with certainty when they would occur. One never knew if they would manifest, nor under what circumstances they would do so.
Unfortunately... All power came with an equivalent price. A wave of vertigo overwhelmed me relentlessly, my life energy drained like the flame of a candle exposed to a gale. Like a fleeting illusion, the strength left my body in an instant.
The outside world gradually regained its clarity, but I was barely aware of it. Exhaustion struck me with the force of an unstoppable avalanche, and I collapsed onto the floor with a dull, hollow thud; my body stubbornly refused to obey the desperate commands of my mind.
My forehead struck the cold surface, and my vision distorted into a kaleidoscope of lights and shadows, but I felt no physical pain. Numbness had overtaken my body like a dark tide.
This can't be happening...
Desperation began to invade my spirit once more as I watched helplessly while the creature maintained its deadly grip on Arceus, its spectral fingers now attempting to force his eyelids open to subject him to its nefarious influence.
It was then that Reinhardt, still dazed as his body trembled uncontrollably, glimpsed the opportunity we had created with such sacrifice. With the barrier destroyed, the control pillar stood exposed and vulnerable. Without a moment's hesitation, he extended his trembling hand toward the central mechanism.
The contact of his fingers with the control sphere triggered an immediate reaction. A sharp sound, almost painful in its intensity, filled the room, and the creature vanished like mist before the midday sun. The red and gold cubes lost their supernatural glow, revealing a dull gray surface crisscrossed by faint luminous lines that pulsed with the residual energy of what they once had been. Against all hope... we had succeeded...
Arceus collapsed to his knees, coughing violently and gasping desperately as air returned to his oxygen-deprived lungs.