We were paralyzed with confusion when Ryn suddenly fell.
But the space behind him remained unstable, a jagged wound in the air that threatened to reopen and swallow him whole. ERON immediately ordered the others to catch him before the void reclaimed its prize. I knew Seraphine would reach him first. It wasn't to kill him—no. I had a strange feeling she already believed Ryn would somehow survive this.
It was almost as if she knew something the rest of us didn't. Ryn had someone behind him. Someone far stronger. And if that person truly existed… they weren't helping him out of kindness. It felt like they were treating him like a toy while he suffered in their cruel game. And yet, Ryn still seemed willing to remain under that person's control.
We reached his unconscious body quickly. To our shock, his wounds were already healing. Not completely, but slowly knitting shut. No one spoke. Ryn had pushed himself too far, collapsing from pure exhaustion. Those who had been drowning in despair felt a slight relief, but none of us cried. We had already cried too much. In the last day, most of us had barely even tasted water.
Seraphine stood silently beside him, looking down with a rare, heavy pity.
"He won't wake up for at least three days… maybe even seven," she said.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
She explained calmly, "He pushed his Devil Form and cast spells his mana core wasn't designed to handle. His tendons are stretched far beyond their limits. Even if he wakes, moving will be a nightmare." She paused. "And his mana core… it shifted from pure brown to a dusky white."
I stared in disbelief. "A core shift takes decades… and he did it in thirty minutes?"
She shook her head. "I'm not sure what method he used. But he pushed his vessel far beyond what any human should endure."
Silence filled the arena. Then Caelrion spoke. "So… what should we do with him now?"
Luna's expression hardened. "Why not just break his bones and take revenge?"
Mira, Aeldir, and Eron grew furious. I stepped forward. "If you wanted revenge so badly, why didn't you try it on the battlefield? You're breathing because of him. If Ryn had wanted you dead, you'd be rotting like the others."
Eron finally spoke. "First, let him recover. Then we'll test him. We'll find out if he's really Ryn… or someone else wearing his face."
The "System" flickered, awarding us 10,000 coins and the title [Team Who Fought Against a Prophet]. Moments later, we were teleported to the planet's center. Aeldir carried Ryn on his flattened sword as we marched North toward the Mixed-Blood Kingdom—the only place that might give us a hotel room without an execution warrant.
By evening, we retreated into a shallow cave. Groups split off for water and fuel, leaving only Elara and me to watch Ryn. I turned to her. "What do you think about that person behind him?"
Elara's gaze was fixed on Ryn, her eyes sharpening into thin, cold needles of light as she analyzed his state. "Maybe a 'brother-in-law' of sorts," she whispered. "My blessed eyes can't pierce his soul anymore, but his soul energy... it resonates with Mira's."
Ryn shifted slightly, like a man slipping from a chair. a small fireball floated above us, cast by ELARA, illuminating the cave's damp walls.
"What exactly is Soul Energy, Elara?" I asked.
She explained "Soul Energy is the architecture of existence,", "Mana forms the spell, but Soul Energy shapes the soul itself. It can be converted to mana, or used to force the body to ignore its natural limits."
She looked at Ryn's broken form. "Imagine someone completely broken—unconscious, or in a coma. If they possess the will, they can burn Soul Energy to temporarily force their corpse to move again."
Her eyes sharpened even further, glowing with an ancient intensity.
I looked around, a chill settling in my bones.
"The cost is your very life," she continued. "Normally, one second of use drains one minute of lifespan. With mastery, I've reduced my cost to twenty seconds." She paused, a small, knowing smirk playing on her lips. "But it isn't just for power. You can manifest physical objects with it too—tools, weapons, things that remain stable for long intervals if your control is perfect. You've been using it for years without even realizing it, haven't you, Ryn?"
She raised her hand and manifested a thin metal needle, surrounded by a blue aura. "This is another application."
She flicked it. The needle pierced Ryn's neck before he could react.
Suddenly, Ryn's body jerked. His eyes snapped open—not his eyes, but a pair of terrifying, piercing red spheres that burned in the darkness. He tried to lunge up, trying to force his broken body to flee the cave using a final, desperate burst of Soul Energy.
But the needle's magic was faster. The red light vanished instantly. His body slumped back, eyes closing as he fell into a true, silent sleep.
Elara sighed, looking down at him with a teasing tilt of her head. "Honestly, Ryn... using Soul Energy just to escape your own siblings? That's a bit dramatic, even for you. You really shouldn't try so hard to run away from people who just want to tuck you in."
"What are you talking about?" I asked, confused.
Then we saw it. A diary beside his hand. Its pages were open, written in fresh, weeping blood.
"Why didn't you help me escape earlier?"
The text faded, replaced by:
"It isn't interesting to watch a corpse fight beasts. Rest first… I still want to enjoy the show."
We closed the book. [Diary of a Master's Slaves]. On the cover, two shadowy figures stood back to back.
The others returned then, freezing at the sight of Ryn pinned by a needle and us clutching a bleeding book. The confusion in the cave was thick enough to choke on.
{A/N } APOLOGY for being late this draft have gaps and many grammar mistakes so I have to re write almost half chapter