CHAPTER 203: INTERVENTION

My blade came up instinctively, but before steel met shadow, a voice cut through the chaos, and everything froze.

The tendril stopped mid-strike, suspended in the air inches from my face. My blade followed through instinctively, slicing at nothing but empty space. The momentum threw me slightly off balance, and I staggered a step before regaining my footing.

I turned back toward the entity of death, breath ragged, and what I saw made my pulse stutter.

It was still alive—still moving—but something was wrong. The writhing tendrils that had been spreading uncontrollably only moments ago were now twitching in place, trembling as though caught in invisible restraints. The black ink around it quivered violently, but it couldn’t advance, couldn’t move.

"What... the hell?" I muttered under my breath, scanning the scene for any sign of what had caused this sudden paralysis.

And then the voice came again:

"Isn’t facing such a being beyond you?"

The sound wasn’t just heard—it was felt. The words rolled through the air like thunder underwater, resonating in my bones, heavy and deliberate. My knees buckled under the sheer weight of it. It wasn’t loud, but it carried a pressure that pressed against my lungs and skull, threatening to crush both.

The voice was ancient. Ethereal. Impossible.

I looked up—and my breath caught in my throat.

The sky was gone.

In its place loomed a colossal face that spanned the heavens, gazing down at me with eyes shaped like ovals of pale light. Its features were almost too simple to describe—clean, geometric, as if carved from the idea of symmetry itself. Oval eyes. A square nose. Lips that didn’t quite move, yet every word it spoke trembled through the air like the pulse of creation.

And the aura it radiated...

It wasn’t evil. It wasn’t even hostile. It was divine.

A crushing, holy pressure poured down like the weight of a thousand storms. My entire body tensed involuntarily, my muscles locking under the strain. My heart hammered against my ribs, desperate to keep up, and every instinct screamed at me to kneel.

It took everything—every shred of willpower I had left—not to collapse or lose control of my body right there.

I swallowed hard, trying to speak, but all that escaped was a hoarse whisper.

What... what the hell am I looking at?

The question barely formed in my mind before I realized I couldn’t move.

Its gaze held me completely—paralyzed, pinned in place as though the very concept of motion had been stripped from me.

Those colossal eyes stared down, ancient and unblinking, their light reflecting across the mountains like the glow of a distant star brought too close.

Then, slowly, they shifted.

The divine being turned its attention toward the entity of death.

When it spoke, its voice wasn’t sound—it was a vibration that thrummed through the ground, the air, the marrow of my bones.

"For something far beyond this realm to attempt birthing existence in my

domain..."

A pause—one that carried more weight than any silence I’d ever known.

"How gutsy."

The tone wasn’t praise. It was disgust.

Its massive features shifted, the once-calm expression twisting into something sharp and visibly annoyed. And then everything happened at once.

The black entity—Jael’s corrupted form—screamed as though awakened by a command, and tendrils of death burst from its body, hundreds of them, lashing wildly at the air, reaching toward the divine figure as if in defiance.

The ground trembled beneath the assault, the sky darkening under its influence.

But the divine being didn’t flinch.

A pulse of pressure swept through the world—silent, invisible, absolute.

In an instant, every tendril froze mid-motion, snapping like glass under impossible strain.

The entity was slammed into the ground with such force that the entire mountain groaned, the earth beneath it fracturing like fragile clay.

Its body convulsed once, trying to resist, but the aura pressing down was beyond anything I could comprehend. Even from where I stood, my knees buckled, my body forced down by the same overwhelming authority.

And then, with a movement that defied distance, the massive hand of the being above descended. The sky rippled around it as though space itself bent to make way for its touch.

It reached the ground—delicate yet inexorable—and closed its fingers around the crushed body of Jael’s twisted form.

The black ink screamed, writhing violently around the divine hand, tendrils flailing in a last, desperate attempt to consume it. The corruption surged upward like a wave, coating the celestial fingers in a slick, oily darkness that hissed on contact.

But the being didn’t react.

A faint hum filled the air, low and resonant—then light erupted from its palm.

White fire.

It wasn’t flame as I knew it, but something purer, older—a cleansing fire that burned without smoke, without heat, and without mercy. The infernal black ink sizzled and screamed as it met the light, disintegrating on contact. In seconds, it was gone, erased entirely, leaving behind nothing but motes of ash that dissolved into the wind.

When the light dimmed, what remained in the being’s grasp was no longer a monster.

It was Jael. Or what was left of him.

His body was a ruin—burnt and broken, flesh barely clinging to his frame, muscles hanging in torn strands like scorched rope. His armor had fused to his skin in patches, the metal melted and warped by the divine flame. Smoke curled from the blackened remnants of his form.

Then, with a flick of its hand, the being cast him down.

Jael’s body hit the ground hard, rolling once before coming to a stop near the shattered crater. The impact sent up a puff of dust, but there was no cry, no movement.

I stared, my breath shallow.

That was when I noticed it—the faint, glowing marks etched along his charred skin. My strikes. Every rift slash, every dimensional cut I’d made—they were still there, faint traces of violet energy embedded deep within his flesh.

My attacks had been working.

But whatever that black corruption was, it had been shielding him—using Jael as a shell, a host, to carry out its own will. It hadn’t been him fighting me near the end. He was just the vessel.

The divine being’s voice rumbled across the sky again, calm but final.

"Now that that’s done... It’s time to leave."

It turned, its colossal form already beginning to dissolve into light.

But I shouted, my voice hoarse, the word slipping out before I could stop it.

"Wait!"

The face paused mid-fade, the vast eyes lowering to meet mine again. I swallowed hard, forcing the question through the dryness in my throat.

"Who... what are you?"