Chapter 38: Regret and realization
Lumoria — Divine Cataclysm
As soon as Lunethra’s words slipped past her lips, a searing, golden-hot pain exploded at Zephyr’s eyes. It wasn’t a simple ache—it was as if molten light had been poured directly into his skull, flooding his mind with blinding agony. His vision went white, blotting out everything in front of him. Then came the terror, raw and visceral, clawing at his heart with icy fingers. It was instinctive, primal—the kind of fear that digs deep into the bones.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Zephyr reached for the only thing that could shield him from complete annihilation.
His hand clasped together— his two pinky fingers stretched out, his two thumbs pointed upward. And a whisper.
Limbo—Border Jail
A sudden, crushing pressure seemed to fall from the sky. To any ordinary observer, the space around him would look untouched, still shimmering with the golden brilliance of Lunethra’s might. But to Zephyr, the world had transformed. Red pillars of energy—vivid, fiery, and unyielding—descended from the heavens, piercing the air like spears of divine judgment. They framed his existence, boxing him in, forming a barrier that was invisible to everyone but him.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the light, the pain, the overwhelming heat, then he struggled to open them, his pupils narrowed to slits. What he saw made his eyes surge wide open, disbelief etched into his expression.
Everything around him was suffused with an intense golden light. It wasn’t just bright; it was absolute. The light was so pure, so radiant, that it seemed to blur the boundaries of his effective eyesight, reducing everything beyond a few meters to indistinct silhouettes. It was like staring directly into the heart of a sun—blinding, dazzling.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.