Eva stepped forward, her eyes gleaming with genuine awe.
She pulled out an extrely long black sniper rifle, smooth like volcanic glass, lacking a traditional scope—instead equipped with a neural-link display.
"’Piercing Shadow’ rifle..." Eva murmured, running her fingers over the cold tal.
"This is internationally banned! Its bullets are made of compressed gravitational Eitra. A single round can pierce a central bank vault!"
"Yes," Zack smiled. "And it cost a fortune to smuggle it from Novarion. Take it—it’s yours."
Damian tossed aside his burned machine gun and moved toward a corner filled with combat gear.
He drew a broad sword, its blade pulsing with a red electric current, along with a dual-barrel rotary assault rifle.
"A rank rcenary weapons... this will do."
Sia found a set of daggers made from the bones of rare sea monsters, capable of injecting Eitra poison upon contact with blood.
Aiden acquired holographic gloves that enhanced his illusions to the point of making them tangible for a few fleeting seconds.
As for ... I didn’t take anything large.
I pretended to search, picking up two black "Eitra Magnum" pistols and a set of tactical knives.
I didn’t need their weapons; the Forgotten Blade within was groaning with hunger, waiting for the mont I would unleash it to devour the souls of the Voliders’ abominations.
While the squad ard themselves in a frenzy of desperation, I noticed Valisera was not among them.
I quietly slipped away between the train cars, following a faint trail of glowing crimson blood still dripping from her wound.
I found her in a rear carriage—isolated, shrouded in near darkness.
She was seated on a torn leather seat, her face pale as death, her body trembling violently without control.
Her coat lay discarded on the floor, and her black silk shirt clung to her skin, soaked with sweat and blood.
The wound on her shoulder—the one she had burned with blue fire—still emitted a grotesque smoke, and the spaceti tear at her waist, which she had forcibly sealed, pulsed as if trying to reopen... as though the entity within her was struggling to break free from its prison of exhausted flesh.
"You’re dying."
I spoke quietly, dropping the recruit façade as I stood at the entrance of the carriage.
Valisera raised her dim crimson eyes toward .
She didn’t get angry. She didn’t shout.
She smiled bitterly—and coughed blood into her palm.
"My human body cannot withstand this pressure much longer," she whispered hoarsely, exhausted.
"Fighting the specters, the assassination attempt, then slaughtering those hounds... and my cursed entity rebelling... it has drained completely. If I enter Ilarios Hospital like this, I’ll be nothing more than another corpse in their slaughterhouse."
I looked at her.
Despite her power that terrified even the Supres, she was still, in the end, trapped in flesh and blood.
Human fragility revealed itself in its ugliest form.
"Then... what will you do?" I asked cautiously.
"Will you retreat? Will you leave us to die alone?"
Valisera let out a faint laugh and raised her uninjured hand.
"Retreat is not in my vocabulary, Kyle."
She reached into a hidden inner pocket in her pants—and pulled sothing out.
Sothing that made the air in the dark carriage grow heavy, pulsing with pure, overwhelming life energy of terrifying density.
It was a small glass vial, engraved with ancient Supre inscriptions, sealed with a stopper of pure gold.
Inside it... was not an ordinary liquid.
It was a glowing, pearlescent white substance, moving within the glass as if it were a living, breathing entity—illuminating the darkness around us with an angelic glow that carried a deep, unsettling dread.
"What is that...?" I whispered, my eyes widening.
The Eitra emanating from that tiny vial surpassed anything I had ever seen in my life.
"This, Shadow Boy," Valisera said, gazing at the vial with a complex expression of hatred and need, "is the ’Elixir of Dawn’s Tears.’ An absolute S-rank healing elixir. There are only three vials in all of Elysium. One is held by Kaiser Dravion, and the second by Saint Ilarios himself."
"And the third... you have it?" I asked in disbelief.
"I kept it for an ergency," she said coldly, despite the pain contorting her features.
"For the day my body completely rebels against . This elixir doesn’t just heal wounds... it rebuilds cells at the DNA level, and replenishes the Eitra reservoir beyond its limits."
"Then drink it!" I said quickly. "We need you at full strength tonight!"
"Drinking it isn’t that simple, Kyle," she laughed bitterly, removing the golden stopper. A pure scent—like rain falling on wildflowers—filled the carriage.
"This elixir is designed for Supre bodies. A human body, even at S- rank, will experience a hell of cellular reconstruction. The pain will be... beyond description."
She didn’t hesitate for another second.
She raised the vial to her bloodied lips—and swallowed the glowing pearlescent liquid in one gulp.
She tossed the empty vial, letting it shatter against the tal floor.
For one second... nothing happened.
Then—
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Valisera’s scream was not human.
It was a cosmic roar that tore through the silence of the abandoned train station, forcing to step back, covering my ears.
Her body arched backward unnaturally, her spine nearly snapping.
All her veins bulged and lit up beneath her skin with a blinding white glow—as if molten light flowed through her veins instead of blood.
I witnessed a nightmare miracle unfold before my eyes.
The charred wound on her shoulder, which had been dripping death, began to boil.
The dead, burned flesh sloughed off like ash, and beneath it, new pink muscle tissue began weaving itself at a visibly insane speed.
Bones fused. Skin stretched over the gap as if it had never existed.
The spaceti tear at her waist—refusing to heal—was forced shut under the pressure of absolute life energy.
Cells divided and multiplied at a rate that shattered biological laws, producing crackling, popping sounds that made my stomach churn.
But the pain she endured... was tearing her mind apart.
Tears of light stread from her eyes, and her nails dug into the leather seat, ripping it apart.
She scread—and scread—while her Eitra aura swelled.
It was no longer suppressed and sickly.
It beca imperial. Overwhelming. Absolute.
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