Zarek ignored the entire world as Priya lost consciousness. She leaned into his chest, seemingly forgetting that they were in the middle of a battlefield.
He knew that she hadn't done this on purpose. If she could help it, it would have never happened. But he recognized her Godsfall Depleted state instantly.
She had wrung herself dry. Though she recovered it quickly, the side effects weren't something that could be easily dealt with in short order.
It was like trying to get a dehydrated person to drink a bunch of water. If such a person chugged water at the first sign of it, the result would be worse than if they continued to stay thirsty. Only by slowly incorporating water could they recover well.
But…
—
[Talent {Melaloon} has shown great progress]
-
>[Melaloon: E+]
-
>[Melaloon: D-]
—
Priya was so focused on her Intelligence improving that she didn't notice the notification that her Melaloon Talent had also progressed. While she thought that the clones were disappearing because Van Hollen had died, the truth was that her control over Godsfall overwhelmed the weaker clones to such an extent that she disrupted their energy, snatching them away.
Simply put, she was destroying the clones by stripping them of their Godsfall and absorbing it herself.
If it was anyone else, going from a Depleted State to such a highly saturated state would mean death. Luckily, Priya had an SSS Class Talent specifically designed to absorb energy efficiently. If not for this, he might have come back to her corpse.
A head rolled along the ground.
Zarek calmly picked Priya up, stepping over the head as though it had nothing to do with him. But as it rolled more, shifting the hair that covered its face, a familiar visage was revealed.
Eumada.
Others had noticed Zarek's appearance long before Priya had. She was so focused on her battle that she didn't notice the doors open… or the head her boyfriend dropped to catch her.
Zarek propped Priya up in a corner, then he touched the sweatpants he wore, casting Harmonic Recall on its fabric. A moment later, he was using Temp Duplicate to weave out a blanket with an identical fabric, one that wasn't laced with the dense heaviness of the Crimson Rain.
When he was finished, Zarek finally stood to his feet, his gaze landing on what should have been Van Hollen's corpse. However, the man with a hole in his chest was in the process of downing what was already his third Elixir.
This one was far more powerful than the earlier ones. He didn't even have to use three of them, but he knew that if he wasn't quick to flush Priya's energy out of his body, just one Elixir would take far too long to deal with.
Plus, every time one of his clones was destroyed without him reabsorbing it, he lost those bits of Godsfall forever. That wasn't something he could afford.
But what he didn't realize was that Zarek was giving him all the time in the world. The latter just stood there, his gaze calm, unbothered. He was unhurried in the most nonchalant way possible, his amber gaze burning with a smolder instead of a fiery heat.
He had seen it all, felt it, even.
The swollen side of Priya's face, the fractures to her ribs, the hole in the back of her shirt that came from a fist that must have slammed into it with more force than she should have ever had to suffer.
He had taken note of every injury.
As Van Hollen finally made it back to his feet, Zarek looked down at his cracked machete and tossed it to the side. He left his other one sheathed and seemed to forget that he had a gun holstered right above his crotch.
Van Hollen braced himself, looking toward Zarek. His eyes couldn't be seen clearly beneath the blubber he wore to protect himself, but to his credit, he composed himself quite quickly for a man that had just had a hole through his chest.
The blasting radius of the bullet was very much still there, torn through the blubber and his battle armor, revealing a hint of rough skin still weaving together until they fully closed in a spiraling, twisting, bloody mesh.
"Are you ready?" Zarek asked.
In a corner, Zade was huffing for breath. He had been completely occupied with his battle with the clones. When he noticed Priya was in danger, he rushed to finish, overextending himself and burning through his stamina, but everything was happening too fast for him to intervene.
But now, there were no clones left, Priya having taken out most of them on her own, while the ones that remained were cut down by Zade and then absorbed by Van Hollen.
It should have been a scene where everyone turned their ire toward Van Hollen and attacked together. And yet, no one dared to move as Zarek stood there.
Van Hollen didn't reply to Zarek's words. Sinking into a stance of combat, a thrumming Godsfall came from him.
The real tertiary effect of his Talent wasn't something as simple as swapping clothes. It was instead that if he prepared enough in advance, he could form more clones than he had Godsfall to create in a single go. Meaning…
In a situation like this one, where others would already be out of Godsfall, he had been able to replenish himself back up to 100%.
"You made a mistake." Van Hollen finally spoke his first words, his body suddenly splitting into four more clones.
A rush of five headed for Zarek.
Zarek watched them, his own stance almost too relaxed and calm. He hardly moved, but when Van Hollen fused two clones together, suddenly accelerating and attacking him from the side as three others moved to surround him, he suddenly swayed.
Van Hollen's fist to his liver missed. Zarek only took a step back, grabbing the clone's wrist, and activating Harmonic Recall on it.
The clone froze as though trapped in the stream of time.
Zarek pulled its wrist across his body, sweeping out a leg that sent it spiraling. Using its flailing body as a shield, he shifted again, his speed and timing so perfect that Van Hollen's main body couldn't react to the changes.
The freezing of his clone was like a jolt through his mind that severed a connection, sending a spike of pain through his head. It forced him to pause for just long enough… just long enough that when his vision cleared, Zarek's fist was already in front of his face.
BANG!
Van Hollen's nose was flattened. He quickly swapped places with one of his clones, but as though Zarek had already seen through this, he cast Harmonic Recall again in his follow-up attack, slapping it in an attack across Van Hollen's face.
The clone froze again, and yet another jolt went through Van Hollen's main body.
Zarek had already pivoted toward the latter, sending out an oblique kick with his heavy steel-toe boots that shattered Van Hollen's knee, bending it in the wrong direction.
Two clones had fallen to the ground, and suddenly Van Hollen's main body was all but crippled.
Even so, he still had the presence of mind to swap bodies once again, only for Zarek to repeat the same action, casting Harmonic Recall one more time.
One move after another, the same trap, and yet completely unavoidable.
Van Hollen was painted into a corner, suffocated from all sides until he had no choice but to swap to a clone sprawled on the ground.
Unfortunately, he didn't realize that Zarek was standing right next to this clone, his leg lifted up.
When Zarek raised his foot, Van Hollen had still yet to swap to this clone. When the foot was descending, Van Hollen still hadn't swapped over.
By the time Van Hollen realized his mistake, it was far too late. It was like he had presented the back of his head for Zarek to stomp into a bloody mess.
A splatter of blood and bone sprayed, a headless corpse twitching on the ground.