Chapter 197: Dawn Blast
Kikaru’s head turned, her breath catching as the stands above erupted in light, the ninety‑one Shard Users vanishing into particles that shimmered like fireflies before fading into nothing.
The sound of the crowd’s sudden absence hit harder than any roar—one instant a wall of tense murmurs, the next a vacuum that swallowed every stray echo.
Holo‑screens winked out, leaving behind dark glass panes that reflected a realm now stripped of witnesses, and the temperature seemed to drop with the spectators’ departure, as though their collective life‑heat had been fueling the arena’s glow.
Small, pale forms remained—ghostly echoes of their Ikonas, trembling in the air—before they, too, dissolved, leaving the platforms empty, the realm silent save for the hum of the portal and the faint pulse of the veins beneath.
That portal’s green‑black cyclone growled on, its static crackle gnawing at the edges of her hearing, a reminder that the rules she trusted were already bending.
Her good eye widened, her hands tightening around the shard pieces, the jagged edges cutting deeper into her palms as she turned her gaze back to the figure, her chest tight with a fear she couldn’t name.
A single heartbeat pulsed beneath her sternum, slow and deliberate, as if her body needed extra time to decide whether to freeze or flee.
The man’s cloak rippled as he moved, the red lining catching the torchlight, a stark contrast to his pale skin, his white hair shifting like a curtain as he stepped closer.
Each step erased distance without haste, as though the ground itself realigned to greet him; faint stress fractures spider‑webbed beneath his boots before sealing over, unwilling to betray his passage.