Chapter 206: The First Dawn After Eternal Winter
The light sphere convulsed in my grasp like a dying star giving birth to a new one. One hemisphere burned with an eye-searing whiteness that cast jagged shadows across my trembling arms, while the other swallowed all light into its fathomless black maw.
They warred at the edges where they met - the white advancing like dawn creeping across the tundra, the darkness recoiling like a scorched beast.
As the white consumed more of the sphere, the excruciating pain wracking my body began to recede, replaced by a surge of overwhelming emotions: a clawing eagerness to exist, a deep sense of freedom, a burgeoning hope, and a wave of pure, unadulterated relief.
I was in no state to form coherent thoughts, my mind still reeling from the psychic assault, yet somehow, I knew.
They are fighting!
The original consciousness was winning - its light devouring the corruption pulse by pulse.
CRACKLE—!
The void itself lashed back. Jagged sounds split the abyss, the pain renewing, needles of agony stabbing into my mind, willing my fingers to unclench.
Yet I held on.
I clutched the light ball tightly, refusing to let go.
After a few excruciating moments, thin, spiderweb-like white cracks began to appear across the otherwise impenetrable blackness of the void.