The sky was dark.
The earth had collapsed inward.
The air was so heavy it hurt to breathe.
Miasma stood in front of Asher.
Unmoving.
Untouched.
Untouchable.
Asher was shaking.
Sebastian's silhouette—trapped inside the black core—wouldn't leave his mind.
"Sebastian…" he whispered.
Tears streamed down his face.
This wasn't fear.
It was helplessness.
Suddenly—
Asher screamed and charged.
Crushing Pressure detonated outward.
The atmosphere folded. The ground caved in. Debris turned to dust.
He punched.
First strike.
The sky trembled.
Miasma didn't move.
Second strike.
Shockwaves ripped through the ruins.
No movement.
Third.
Fourth.
Tenth.
Dozens of blows.
Each one stronger than the last.
Asher was screaming. Crying.
"Give him back!"
Another punch.
"Look at me!"
Another.
"You're nothing!"
But every single strike vanished the moment it touched Miasma's body.
As if the darkness absorbed it.
Asher's fists split open. Blood ran down his arms.
His breathing shattered.
His legs weakened.
Miasma simply watched.
With one final scream, Asher gathered everything left inside him and launched a last attack.
The ground split.
The sky fractured.
And—
Nothing.
Miasma did not take a single step back.
Asher staggered.
His eyes emptied.
His knees buckled.
He collapsed onto the broken concrete.
Crushing Pressure faded.
Silence.
His vision blurred.
Then black.
Asher passed out.
Miasma tilted his head slightly.
Then—
He began to laugh.
Low.
Cold.
Mocking.
"This is it?" he said.
"This… is the potential I waited a century for?"
He stepped closer.
"I expected something greater."
His eyes flickered toward the core holding Sebastian.
"I thought you might resemble your grandfather."
His voice hardened.
"But you…"
He looked down at Asher's unconscious body.
"You are nothing."
The words cut through the air.
Then—
The ground trembled.
Faint.
Unnatural.
Miasma stopped laughing.
Asher lay motionless.
But something was changing.
At the tips of his hair—
Color shifted.
Brown strands slowly bled into crimson.
A dim red glow flickered.
Then grew stronger.
His fingers twitched.
A breath forced itself back into his lungs.
The sky tightened again—
But this wasn't Crushing Pressure.
This burned.
Asher's hair fully turned red.
Deep.
Like fresh blood under firelight.
A red aura pulsed from his body.
The ground cracked beneath him.
The temperature rose.
Miasma narrowed his eyes.
"This energy…"
Asher's eyelids trembled.
Then opened.
His eyes were no longer calm.
They were blazing.
No tears.
No hesitation.
Just cold, empty intensity.
He slowly rose to his feet.
The sky above shifted into a dark crimson hue.
The pressure surrounding him wasn't compression anymore.
It felt like annihilation.
For the first time—
Miasma took a single step back.
"…So this is your true form?"
Asher said nothing.
The red aura expanded violently, distorting space itself.
Something ancient had awakened.
And it was not the boy who fell moments ago.