Chapter 70
It ends
Falling...
Falling—no—drifting? Floating?
The world spun and twisted around him.
There was no sky above. No ground beneath.
No up. No down.
Disoriented.
Unanchored.
Completely lost.
So lost.
Silent.
So quiet.
So peaceful.
Tired.
So very tired.
Must sleep.
No need to think.
No need to hurt.
Pain was bad.
Must... sleep...
A scratchy voice—a whisper, barely more than a breath—called to him.
Wake up.
IAM's eyes snapped open.
A violent jolt.
But waking brought no relief.
Instead, a sudden, crushing flood of sensations crashed over him. Too many to process all at once.
The acrid stench of smoke, sharp and biting, wormed its way into his nostrils.
The metallic tang of blood hung heavy in the air, thick and choking.
A faint, sweet decay lingered, reminding him of rot and ruin.
Dust and ash settled on his skin, gritty and dry, filling his mouth and throat with every shallow breath.
Every inhalation was a struggle.
The stale, suffocating air pressed deep into his lungs.
It carried whispers of destruction—burning wood, melting plastic, crushed steel.
His chest tightened, squeezing the air from his lungs. It was as if wrapped in iron bands.
His lips cracked dry and brittle, the skin stretched painfully thin. Dry as desert dust.
His ears rang loud, a constant, piercing drone that throbbed in his skull. A thousand bells tolling inside his head.
His eyes burned, raw and stinging like they'd been scraped. He felt an irrational urge to scoop them out.
His head pounded with a dull, relentless ache.
His limbs felt heavy, as if filled with lead.
He tried to breathe.
To move.
But his body betrayed him.
He twitched, helpless.
Frozen.
Far away—very far away—he could hear it.
Sounds.
Faint and muffled.
Far off in the distance,explosions, shouts, the crackle of fighting—but they were muffled and indistinct, like a storm raging just beyond his reach. He could not tell what was happening, only that chaos still churned somewhere outside his trapped prison.
Shouts and screams, broken and fragmented.
IAM could not understand what was happening.
Only that the world outside was in turmoil.
His body felt numb and alien.
Heavy as stone.
Yet every nerve screamed.
Every breath was a battle.
He stayed trapped in his own body, stuck in the crushing panic of being immobile.
His mind wandered, drifting between consciousness and darkness.
Thoughts blurred, half-formed memories slipping through his grasp.
Faces.
Voices.
Echoes of laughter.
Moments of calm before the storm.
He longed for them.
For the warmth of friends.
His heart pounded weakly, a faint but steady rhythm against the crushing silence.
Time slipped by in that miserable state, unmeasured and endless.
Eventually.
His vision cleared, sharpening bit by bit.
The world around him came into focus.
Slowly, the ringing dulled, fading from a scream to a low hum.
The blurred shapes, now feeling real.
His body was pinned beneath cold, unforgiving debris.
Twisted metal and jagged steel pressed down heavily on his arms and legs.
A cramped pocket of space was his only refuge.
A narrow breathing room.
He could move his right hand around slightly.
But movement was agony.
His left arm throbbed, useless and broken beneath the weight.
Both legs were crushed, mangled and smashed.
Blood trickled warm down his skin.
He was trapped.
Vulnerable....
So very tired.
He felt every ounce of exhaustion like a tidal wave crashing down on him.
So tired.
He wanted to sleep.
To let go.
But he knew he had to fight.
He had to move.
But he couldn't.
His left arm was shattered.
Both legs were broken and trapped beneath the debris.
Pain flared sharp and white-hot, stabbing through the numbness.
His mind swirled, fragmented thoughts clawing at his consciousness.
What should he do?
How could he escape?
The situation felt hopeless.
He could barely summon a full thought, let alone a plan.
The steady drip of blood onto the rubble was a steady pulse beneath the suffocating silence.
He lay still.
Time slipped by.
Closing his eyes.
Just for a moment.
Just to think.
Just a...
His eyes fluttered open,the world was the same.
He had slipped into unconsciousness.
Still trapped beneath the crushing weight.
Still broken.
Still helpless.
His thoughts turned inward.
Perhaps his Path could help.
His blessed and cursed speech.
Could he will the debris to move?
No.
Inanimate objects were beyond his influence.
No power in words could shift cold metal.
It was impossible.
Ok.
What about himself?
Heal.
Restore.
Mend the broken flesh.
Repair the shattered bones.
He inhaled deeply, forcing breath into his aching lungs.
He drained the mana from deep within his core.
Focused it.
Pushed it toward the injured limbs.
[Heal]
His Avien pulsed.
But the effort drained him.
The pain flared sharply, as if his body rebelled.
His Avien bled.
Then darkness swallowed him once more.
When he woke, fresh blood dripped from his nose, running down his face in warm and slow river.
The blood was still wet.
He hadn't been unconscious long.
He checked his body carefully.
Still injured.
Still broken.
He didn't have enough mana.
Or maybe he didn't understand his own concept well enough.
Or maybe both.
Whatever the reason—he had failed.
He closed his eyes once more.
He knew he had to wait.
Wait and hope that someone would find him.
That someone would rescue him.
That he wouldn't be trapped here forever.
For now...
The silence stretched on.
And he waited.
Just for a little while...
But even as he rested, faint echoes of the outside world still drifted through the walls of his prison.
The distant rumble of explosions.
The broken, desperate cries of comrades far away.
A battle still raged on outside.
A war that he was helpless to join.
He was trapped in the quiet between life and death.
He felt utterly alone.
Yet he clung to the fragile hope that he was not forgotten.
That someone, somewhere, was searching.
A silent observer waiting for fate to decide.