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“This is,” Noyar muttered as she came running, “this is the exact opposite side of the same floor we were dropped on first.”

That kind of got on her nerves. After so much trouble and hardship, they had to come back to the other side of the same place. Grunting, she looked around the shifting staircases. It appears they won’t last very long. The place was collapsing.

Oscar was battling the beast now, and by battling, she meant buying time. It appeared he somehow gained some control over space. He was throwing away the beast effortlessly, using the staircase it was standing on. Coupling with the floor still having gravity, the beast wasn’t having any fun time.

No matter how much distance the beast covered, Oscar manipulated the space to throw it at the starting point.

“Our bodies,” Jon shouted, beside her. Noyar looked and found two unconscious bodies and an almost half-dead girl next to them. Without further ado, they ran to reunite with their physical self.

Even though she never did it, she somehow instinctively knew what she had to do. She came before her body and jumped into it. It was like she was jumping into a pool, a pool only belongs to her. A couple of seconds later, she was back into her physical self.

She was about to sigh in relief when rattling pain and an implying headache assaulted her abruptly, convulsing her body from getting up. She guessed she was not really all that alright. Gritting her teeth, she looked toward Jon to find his situation was terribly serious.

As if Jon wasn’t injured enough, but now scars of cuts appear all over his body as if he went through thousands of sword moves undefended. That was not all. His veins broke, tearing the skin to spray blood into the air. If this goes on for even two minutes, there won’t be much of him left behind.

“What’s happening?” she questioned and found Yeriel, who should be a healer, looking at the scene with horrifying bewilderment in her eyes. Horrifying because of the sheer amount of injuries, and as for the bewilderment, she has seen nothing like this before.

“Let me see,” the Endus woman said, sitting back at him, even though she was just in a terrible state, though her state was the exact opposite of Jon. She was somehow healing at a frightening pace that was not right. Other than the broken antlers on her forehead, almost all things were healing up.

Yeriel stabilised Jon’s condition first. She didn’t let any more blood out of the body, patched up everything from outside, creating complicated magic circles, and then came the time of healing. However, the moment she tried to heal, her face darkened.

“What’s happening?” Oscar jumped out of nowhere. He looked terrible, but more himself than anyone else.

“My healing,” Yeriel said with terror in her tone. “I can’t heal.”

Oscar frowned, but there was another time to worry about that later. Now Jon needs immediate help. He stooped low to touch Jon’s body. “He took soul injuries,” he said, letting out a breath, “and now his body is reflecting those injuries. At this rate . . .” he trailed off to look towards Noyar. It appeared she had taken some hits too, but nothing serious like Jon on the verge of dying.

The beast was roaring behind and approaching them through the falling staircases. Oscar took a look behind him and a soothing whitish flame kindled around his palm.

“Is he going to,” Noyar’s stomach convulsed just to ask the question, “live?”

“If it was a minute before, I wouldn’t have any way to deal with this,” he said, and stopped providing healing flames to the physical body, though the soothing flame remained around him. “But now, I might be able to fix him and I have something that would make him better than he was before.”

He clasped his fingers on the good arm and hit Jon on the forehead. Noyar didn’t know what he was doing, but she found a white glow of aura around his palm, linking himself to Jon. Somehow, Noyar knew what that was. It was of the same aura as the blinding light, and now she found out why she felt familiar with it.

“A dominion,” she muttered with confusion in her eyes.

“Keen eyes,” Oscar said and dug something out of Jon’s forehead. It was actually Jon’s soul body, which was warping and convulsing, reducing at every moment.

Yeriel and Noyar’s eyes widened at the scene before them. Oscar appeared as if a different person.

"A dominion of an unknown kind," Noyar muttered and examined what Oscar was doing.

The whitish aura from Oscar’s hand enveloped the soul body entirely, but it didn't fix Jon or heal him. It slowed down the chaos in the soul body, but it would only slow down the process of deterioration.

“You know our predecessor had different names for this dominion,” Oscar said as he brought a small vial out of his belongings. He poured carefully only a single drop of liquid on Jon’s soul body. “Ages ago, they called it Dominion of Balance or Order, because it helps in keeping the balance between maternal, spiritual, dream and whatever other realms out there, centuries after that, they call it Dominion of Shift, as its main function is reduced to shift realms. Some called Dominion of Dimension. I guess that name was not all that bad, but it didn’t do it justice.”

He stood up and turned towards the beast, going round and round on the staircase, trying to break through everything. Well, it is the pace of the space was deteriorating; it didn’t even need to break to be freed. Even with advanced cognitive abilities, it was impossible for Oscar to keep such a complex place intact. He sure even a grand magus wouldn't be of much help here, even if he was an expert in this.

This place was likely built by a Hero, and they were divinity at their peak. How can mere mortals compare to their abilities?

“It's time to leave,” he said. “Jump right now.”

Yeriel gestured for Noyar to carry Jon out first. Even though his soul body was healing and looking all good with his physical injuries healing, he was still unconscious.

Noyar nodded and carried Jon to jump into the portal.

Yeriel waited there, looking at Oscar, stopping the beast from reaching there.

“Yeriel, jump,” he shouted, “I’m following right after.”

"What about you?" Yeriel listened, standing just next to the portal.

"I need to make sure it stays here until the place collapses."

She jumped into the portal, biting her lips, while Oscar brought out the last piece of firestone components.

“Sorry,” he said, “it's nothing personal.” He knew none of the two parties were at fault. A saint beast was born and gained strength out of people’s beliefs. A winter heart reindeer remains to protect the order of nature, but now he had to trap it here.

Oscar pushed for the last time, as the remaining stairs twisted to trap the beast in an ever-twisting sphere, as it roared to break free. Lastly, he threw the firestone, providing enough energy that it would blast. It would take him a couple of seconds to close off the portal before it collapses on its own. He couldn’t leave any chances out for the beast to get out after all.

As the bombardment burst behind him, Oscar ran into the portal as the rift collapsed behind him.

_________

Yeah, it's oveeeerrrrr.

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