Scarce millimeters separated the black blades of the Unsleeping Ones from their vulnerable bodies.
Hansel clenched his fist around the daggers. In a movement of brutal precision, the blue blades cut through the air at speeds that defied human perception. The arms of two Unsleeping Ones were sectioned as if cutting through melted butter, falling to the ground with muffled and wet sounds.
Alya remained rigidly glued to his back, moving like a synchronized shadow, using him as a living shield.
With each trajectory of an enemy blade, Hansel dodged with brutal efficiency, retreating in calculated steps to maintain safe distance while counterattacking when possible, beheading and mutilating the creatures that dared approach too close.
Sasha's voice reverberated urgently in Nemor's consciousness:
"Master, the quantity has risen to nine hundred. Do you wish to materialize a weapon?"
His eyes widened witnessing that absurd quantity of grayish creatures with closed eyes converging like an implacable tsunami. He also retreated, but the useful space was rapidly running out. In moments they would be cornered against the black crystalline barrier.
"You said powers are useless in the Void!" The words escaped hurriedly. "How would you materialize a weapon without using them?"
"Master is correct. Correcting—this barrier suppresses the power of any being except divinities." Brief pause. "I am a divinity of angel hierarchy. My essence transcends suppression."
Without time to think, he roared mentally:
"Explanations later! NOW, MATERIALIZE THE WEAPON!"
Hansel persisted in the deadly dance of dodges and counterattacks, ripping off limbs and heads from the Unsleeping Ones. He bellowed toward Nemor, voice torn:
"YOU SHIT, ARE YOU JUST GOING TO STAND THERE?!"
Nemor's arms convulsed. Red rays exploded around his limbs with lightning intensity.
Hansel frowned, perplexed. He tried to manifest his own power but found only emptiness. How does this guy manage that? He had no time for analysis.
The rays dissipated abruptly.
The horde reached lethal proximity. A blade traced a deadly arc aiming for Hansel's neck. He intercepted with his left dagger, but the impact deflected the trajectory. The blade slid laterally, tearing fabric and flesh from his shoulder. Scarlet blood gushed, staining the black suit. Clenching his teeth against the sharp pain, he sectioned the creature's arm before it could attack again.
When he executed the movement, the same Unsleeping One's second blade had already penetrated his abdomen.
The pain exploded—sharp, deep, visceral. He tightened his fingers around the daggers, amputating both of the creature's limbs in a single desperate movement. But another Unsleeping One already occupied that space. A blade descended toward his head, inevitable trajectory.
Before the execution could be consummated, Hansel expelled blood from his mouth. The abdominal wound had penetrated deeper than he'd imagined. He collapsed to his knees, legs giving out. The enemy blade crossed through the empty space above him.
He hadn't crouched by reflex. He had collapsed from blood loss.
When the blade crossed that space, its trajectory led directly to Alya's face positioned behind him.
She desperately tried to invoke her powers. The marks remained inert on her arm, refusing to rise to her eye. The ability lay inaccessible, dead.
The blade approached in torturous slow motion.
Her heart exploded in absolute desperation. She held her own face with both hands like an inviolable promise: I will never allow anything to destroy you.
Even obstructing her face, her eyes still captured the blade advancing inexorably. Then she closed her eyelids too, fingers pressing against them. Heart hammering so intensely it reverberated in her eardrums.
Memory ambushed her.
In that crystalline desperation, voices echoed. Suppressed memories resurfacing like ghosts.
"What kind of repugnant aberration is this?"
The voice tore through her mind. Now she not only heard but witnessed. A classroom materialized. Desks organized in rows. She—Alya—sat on the cold floor, surrounded by a multitude of students. She covered her face as sobs escaped uncontrolled. Silver hair falling like a useless protective curtain.
The voices reached her from all directions, cruel and relentless.
"You pathetic idiot, why are you crying?"
"No one told you to be so ugly."
"With those horrible scars on your face, no one will ever love you!"
SHLACK.
The distinctive sound of flesh being sectioned echoed. But it didn't come from the memory. It came from reality.
"MY FACE!" Alya's voice trembled in absolute panic.
When her eyes opened, she witnessed the Unsleeping One's arm floating disconnected in the air, amputated with surgical precision. Her face remained raised. Intact. Immaculate.
Cleaning her blurred vision, she realized it wasn't just one limb. Six Unsleeping One heads floated in the air, beheaded by cuts so clean they seemed the work of a laser guillotine.
At the epicenter of that controlled massacre, Nemor stood. He wielded two red swords from hilt to blades. Thin yet long, shining with their own light. Weapons materialized from the pulsing energy emanating from his arms.
Hansel, still bleeding profusely, murmured with incredulity:
"Who the hell is this guy?"
Alya held her own face trembling violently. She had been millimeters from acquiring a scar. Millimeters from returning to that hell.
Nemor approached, extending one of the swords.
"If you don't want your little face marked, I suggest you stop just standing there watching."
Still trembling, she grabbed the weapon with unstable fingers.
But the Unsleeping Ones didn't cease. They continued converging like an implacable, infinite tide.
She gripped the sword with force, planted her feet on the ground. She propelled herself directly into the middle of the horde. She didn't dodge the blows—she sectioned every limb that dared attack.
Hansel couldn't remain prostrate. He stood up staggering, ignoring the pain that burned in his abdomen. He gripped the daggers, also shot into the middle of the creatures. Just like Alya.
With each enemy thrust, the blades collided in metallic symphony before the lethal counterattack.
Sasha's voice echoed:
"Master, there is a more efficient method to neutralize them."
Nemor, while beheading and defending himself, maintained concentration on the strikes.
"What method would that be?"
"If master consents, I could assume control of your body. As my power transcends suppression, everything would be much easier. Do you authorize?"
Almost breathless:
"If it would help, why didn't you say so earlier?!"
"I will interpret that as affirmative consent."
Nemor's body froze for a second.
The air vibrated. His eyes ignited in incandescent gold, shining like miniature suns. Two wings—one red, one golden—sprouted from his shoulder blades, tearing through the fabric of his shirt.
Hansel witnessed that and his eyes widened, memory assaulting him like a slap. The winged woman who had humiliated him that day. He clenched his teeth with force:
"This guy..."
Meanwhile, Alya beheaded Unsleeping Ones with visceral fury.
"How dare you threaten my face, cursed creatures!"
The wings expanded majestically, covering several meters. Nemor's voice echoed internally: Don't damage my body.
Sasha responded—not internally, but through his voice, feminine and serene tone coming from his mouth:
"There is no reason for concern, master."
Unsleeping Ones approached like a deadly avalanche.
When Sasha moved, the speed completely transcended perception. No one could follow. They only saw the result—heads floating in the air, sectioned by the wings that cut them when she finally stopped meters ahead.
Her palms joined lightly.
CLAP.
In the obscure empty space, something impossible happened to the Unsleeping Ones—they saw light.
CLAP.
The second clap reverberated like silent thunder. All the Unsleeping Ones returned to reality, but the pain was so deep, so incomprehensible, that they expelled black blood and collapsed dead instantly.
The wings retracted. Nemor's eyes returned to normal, the gold extinguishing like a candle.
Alya and Hansel stared at that almost petrified by the absurdity of what they'd witnessed.
"Master, I needed to be quick. Assuming your body consumes your energy exponentially when your power is suppressed."
Nemor observed the corpses covering the ground like a macabre carpet. Trembling:
"They're all... dead?"
"Affirmative, master. Unsleeping Ones levels twenty to twenty-five don't normally survive Eclipse."
Stammering:
"Then you should be more careful using that power..."
"As master wishes. By the way, master reached the level you wanted so much." Almost satisfied tone. "You reached level one hundred."
"What a relief..." He took a deep breath. "I thought I'd never get there... again."
Alya shouted, stepping over corpses without any care:
"YOU USELESS IDIOT! You could have done that from the beginning, but you let my face be threatened!"
"Master, I detect a very large quantity of Unsleeping Ones approaching."
His eyes widened in horror:
"Are you kidding? How many?"
"Countless."
From the same black crystalline wall, an enormous quantity of creatures emerged, like a plague of undead being poured out.
Hansel, bleeding profusely from his abdomen, collapsed to his knees again. Alya felt her heart accelerate violently, running behind Nemor as always.
"Master, the level of each Unsleeping One is forty-five."
"Shit..."
The creatures ran at unnatural speed, much faster than the previous ones. Seventeen seconds to reach them.
"Master, fifteen minutes completed."
Blue and black rays completely enveloped the three. The air vibrated with physical pressure. Then they were no longer there. The rays dissipated like smoke. Hundreds of Unsleeping Ones invaded the empty space where they had been seconds before.
---
Nemor reappeared in his room. The rays vanished, leaving only the silence of night.
He breathed deeply, exhausted to the bone:
"What the hell was that?"
"At least you reached level one hundred."
He stood up from the bed, shouting:
"SO WHAT?! I ALMOST DIED IN THAT HELL!"
"But you didn't die. And if you remember, you were desperate to reach level one hundred. You should celebrate."
He shouted even louder, frustration overflowing:
"GET LOST, WOMAN! I had ALREADY reached one hundred before! Then you appeared and reset me to zero! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!"
"Master—"
"Don't say anything. I just need a shower and to see my parents before they leave for work. Then I'll celebrate my SECOND level one hundred."
"It's exactly about that I intended to speak. I don't know what happened, but master just reset to..."
Long pause.
Heavy.
"Level zero."
He froze. The world seemed to decelerate around him. He stammered, voice coming out weak:
"Wh... what?"
The silence that followed was deafening.
Level zero.
After all that. After almost dying. After facing that infinite horde.
Level zero.
**END OF CHAPTER 7**