The Mouthless man abruptly bent forward, slamming both of his bare hands flat against the rocky terrain. The earth behind him groaned and rippled like water. Solid stone began to shift and flow up his arms, aggressively molding and hardening until it formed two massive, jagged swords made of compressed rock extending from his chained wrists.
I SEE, Adam realized, his eyes widening. So this is his power. It's some kind of rock manipulation.
The Mouthless man didn't hesitate. He charged again, the heavy stone swords dragging along the ground and kicking up sparks.
I have to take this fight to him and away from the kid.
This time, Adam didn’t wait. He dug his boots into the dirt and dashed forward to meet the monster head-on. Just as they were about to clash, Adam pulsed his gravity directly in front of him. The sudden distortion broke the enemy’s momentum, violently jerking the heavy stone swords out of their intended path.
With the Mouthless man's guard blown wide open, Adam drove a brutal, reinforced knee straight into the man's face.
Blood splashed through the air, painting the stone swords red. Using the impact as a pivot, Adam threw his body into a fluid flipping motion. He slammed his hands onto the Mouthless man's shoulders, throwing his feet into the sky. Completing the acrobatic flip, Adam grabbed the chained man's heavy coat mid-air and, using their combined momentum, hurled him aggressively to the other side of the clearing.
The Mouthless man hit the ground hard, tumbling through the dust. Adam immediately dashed to follow up, pulsating his gravity one more time to aggressively pin the enemy to the earth before he could recover.
As Adam caught up, he didn't throw a punch immediately. The Mouthless man was struggling against the gravity, still gripping his massive rock swords. Adam stepped forward, slamming his boots down hard to pin the flats of both stone blades to the ground.
He lifted the gravity. The Mouthless man lunged up, but his weapons were trapped under Adam's feet. Adam leaned in, throwing a devastating combination of two heavy hooks directly to the jaw. The chained man was pushed violently backward, forced to let go of his rock weapons as he stumbled away.
I gained some distance, Adam panted, wiping a streak of blood from his own cheek. I need to go all out and finish him right now.
But as Adam stepped forward to deliver the final blow, the Mouthless man let out a massive, muffled scream that shook the air itself.
He dropped to his knees and completely smashed his hands into the earth.
The ground erupted. A massive, towering wave of jagged, razor-sharp earth and stone exploded outward from the Mouthless man's palms, rushing toward Adam like a tsunami of solid rock.
It was unavoidable. The sheer scale of the attack swallowed the distance instantly. The rocky wave crashed into Adam, pushing him massively backward. Jagged stalagmites of stone pierced his clothes, slicing deep into his skin and tearing his muscles. He was thrown through the air, bleeding heavily, before crashing into the dirt in a haze of dust.
He is capable of such an attack?! Adam choked out, coughing up blood as he forced his head to look up.
His eyes widened in absolute horror.
The Mouthless man was already past him.
Using the massive earth wave as a distraction, the chained man had sprinted completely around Adam. In his hands, the earth had formed into a gigantic, extremely dense hammer of solid rock. He was heading straight for Zeren, completely ignoring the bleeding Adam behind him.
“NOO!!”.
Zeren looked up, completely paralyzed by terror. The shadow of the giant stone hammer eclipsed the sun.
"aaaaaa!" the kid shrieked, squeezing his eyes shut and raising his small arms, ready to be crushed into dust.
The impact thundered through the wasteland. The shockwave blew the dust away in a massive ring.
But Zeren didn't feel the crushing weight.
Slowly, the trembling boy opened his tear-filled eyes.
Adam was there.
Standing directly between Zeren and the Mouthless man, Adam had his arms blocking aggressively above his head. He was physically tanking the colossal stone hammer with his bare hands.
The sheer, overwhelming kinetic force of the impact made it so that the ground beneath Adam’s boots instantly shattered, cratering downward. Adam's knees buckled under the immense weight, dropping him into a half-crouch.
"Run!" Adam roared, his voice tearing through his blood-filled throat. "Get out of here!"
Zeren was frozen, his wide, terrified eyes locked on the cracking stone and Adam's bleeding face. He was completely paralyzed by fear, unable to move a single muscle.
"I SAID RUN! DO IT NOW!" Adam screamed with absolute desperation.
The raw intensity in Adam's voice finally shattered the boy's paralysis. Zeren scrambled backward, his small hands tearing at the dirt as he threw himself out from underneath the massive, looming shadow of the hammer. He made it just clear of the impact zone before his legs gave out entirely, sending him tumbling hard to the rocky ground.
Zeren scrambled to sit up, looking back at the horrific scene. Adam was being driven deeper into the earth, his muscles tearing and his skin splitting under the impossible weight.
"Why..." Zeren sobbed, his voice trembling violently as the tears carved through the dirt on his face. "Why... why, why sacrifice yourself for me?"
Above Adam, the Mouthless man pressed down with everything he had. The chained man’s bloodshot eyes bulged, tears mixing with the blood on his face as he let out a muffled, psychotic wail of exertion, forcing the hammer deeper.
"GAAAAAH!" Adam roared, his resonance flaring wildly around his body, fighting desperately against the crushing mass.
But the physical disparity was too vast. Adam's legs finally gave out completely. He was driven flat onto his back, pinned deep inside the collapsing crater. With nowhere left to retreat, he was now holding the colossal stone hammer in a desperate, agonizing position, the jagged rock hovering mere inches from crushing his chest.
SNAP.
The sound of his left radius fracturing echoed sharply over the howling wind.
Blood poured from Adam's forehead, blinding him. His arms shook violently, the bones in his right forearm beginning to splinter and crack under the relentless, crushing pressure. The aura flickered, dimming as Adam's consciousness began to fade into a haze of absolute, blinding agony.
He couldn't hold it. The weight was going to crush his ribs and flatten him into the dirt. His vision blurred, turning dark at the edges.
Sorry, everyone... Adam thought, the last dregs of his strength bleeding away. Sorry Noah... Evelynn...
A single tear cut through the blood on his cheek, his eyes themselves bleeding.
I will die here. I'm sorry, I betrayed everyone’s expectations, I’m sorry...
Adam’s mind, snapped somewhere else.
"Ughh…" Adam’s eyes fluttered open.
He stood up, instinctively raising his arms to brace against a weight that was no longer there. The colossal stone hammer that had been driving him deep into the collapsing crater was gone. The agonizing pressure that had been splintering his forearms and crushing his chest had completely vanished.
"Where am I? Am I dead??"
Adam looked around, his breath catching in his throat. He wasn't standing on solid ground. He was floating in an infinite, breathtaking expanse of deep space. Swirling nebulas of violet and gold painted the dark void, and distant stars twinkled like scattered diamonds. He drifted weightlessly, turning in the vacuum.
A profound, suffocating sadness washed over him. I failed them. I couldn't. Noah… Evelynn… Zeren… I'm sorry, he thought, remembering how his consciousness had faded as he prepared to die. I guess this is it for me.
But as he rotated slowly, a shadow eclipsed the starlight.
Behind him floated a palace of unimaginable scale. It was a cosmic masterpiece, forged from dark, gleaming stone and accented with celestial gold that pulsed with the rhythm of the surrounding nebulas. Massive, soaring towers reached into the void, crowned with glowing orbs that looked like captured stars. It was an architecture meant for gods, beautiful and terrifyingly vast.
Drawn by an unseen pull, Adam hovered forward toward the palace’s titanic entrance. The moment he crossed the threshold of the giant double doors, the weightlessness vanished.
He dropped heavily to the ground, his boots clacking sharply against the polished floor. Gravity had returned. He stood up, finding himself in a colossal corridor with vaulted ceilings so high they disappeared into shadows. It felt like a hallway built for giants.
He started walking forward.
Suddenly, after about two minutes of walking, with a soft pop, a tiny spark of light burst into existence right in front of his face.
Adam stumbled backward.
Hovering in the air was a tiny, chibi-like creature resembling a lion. It was a majestic, vibrant red, with a mane that looked like flickering, mystical starlight and large, glittering eyes. Despite its cosmic aura, it was undeniably, ridiculously cute.
"HYY, WELCOME TO MY HOMEEE!!!" the creature yelled in an incredibly excited, high-pitched kid's voice.
Adam’s surprised, defensive stance faltered. His eyes wide, he stared at the floating red mascot for a few seconds before a disbelieving laugh bubbled up from his chest. He couldn't stop it. He laughed, the sheer absurdity washing away his grim acceptance of death.
"Hi," Adam said, still chuckling. "I guess the afterlife exists after all."
The little lion tilted its head, its oversized eyes blinking in profound confusion. "After life??? Do you mean when after someone dies?"
Adam looked at it for a few seconds and nodded with a soft, resigned smile.
"But you aren't dead thoughhhh," the lion stated matter-of-factly.
Adam froze. The smile vanished. "I'm not? Then where are we? Who are you??"
"You can call me Little Lion! I'm gonna be your companion in this place!"
"This place?" Adam looked around the impossibly massive corridor. "And what is this place??"
"I don't know!" Little Lion cheered. "It's where me and my companions live! Our home! And I will act as a guide for you to free us!!"
"What??? Wh… what is happening???" Adam’s mind went racing. The whiplash from expecting death to being greeted by a hyperactive cosmic mascot left him completely incapable of stringing a coherent thought together.
"Do you want me to explain? I like this part a looot!" Little Lion spun in a mid-air circle.
"You like it? Did you do it before?"
"No I didn't, at least not to my knowledge! But I just know that I like it! Should I begin now now now, pleeassse?" The little lion was jiggling happily, bouncing up and down in the air like a balloon.
Why is it so excited? This mascot is crazy! Adam thought, rubbing his temples.
"Alright, Little Lion. Please explain."
"HIHIHI YAYYY! OKAY, LISTEN CAREFULLY! THE MAJESTIC, FANTASTIC, AND CUTE LITTLE LION IS ABOUT TO BESTOW YOU WITH…"
"DOOO IT ALREADDYYYY!!" Adam interrupted.
"Alright, alright! So here is how this is. This place is called the Palace of Constellations. The flow of time is fixed, we are practically in your mind, and all of this is happening in a fraction of a second, so the outside world will be just as you left it once you go back. "
Adam left out a sight of relief, happiness finally finding his face again. Then the little lion continued.
"It is home to me and my companions. There is twelve of us in here. They call us…" Little Lion paused, patting the air with its tiny paws. "DRUM DRUM DRUM... THE TWEEEELVE CELESTIAAAALS!"