A HOPELESS CONFLICT, PART 2.

She screamed—loud and disoriented—and tossed me aside. I landed in an open stretch for the first time in this fight, sliding but staying upright. My feet barely touched the ground, kept steady by telekinetic support. Reinforced. Stabilized.

It bought me seconds. Just seconds.

She reappeared right in front of me again, faster than before. No hesitation this time. She launched a massive lance of lightning, point-blank.

I didn't dodge. I didn't run. I did what I'd only done once before.

Telekinesis lashed out again. Not in defence. In control. I caught the lance mid-air.

Like I had done with those shadow spikes during the fight against that Wraith. I wrapped my mental grip around the entire lightning construct—compressing it, slowing it down, containing it. Not pretty. Not perfect. But enough to hold it. Enough to fight back.

It was barely manageable, gripping raw lightning with telekinesis. My head throbbed. My focus flickered. But I still held on.

With the arc trapped mid-air, I did the one thing that shouldn't have been possible—I forced it backwards. The stream of crackling mana bent against its natural path, shoved in reverse toward the Chimaera.

She froze, stunned at the sight. Lightning was her weapon. Her domain. And now it turned on her. She didn't have time to react.

The redirected arc slammed toward her. But before I could follow up—before I could exploit her opening—a second explosion tore through the skies. Louder than the first. Heavier. Closer. My eye snapped upward. Something, or rather, someone, was falling fast.

Forza!

There was no doubt. That insane burst of power earlier must've drained her dry. She was unconscious, plummeting straight toward the ground like a meteor. The Chimaera noticed her too.

She didn't hesitate. She launched at me again—straightforward and brutal, charging up another thunderclap with its movement. I acted before I could think. My body moved on instinct. I split my telekinesis.

Right arm—toward the Chimaera. I summoned everything I had left into a giant force construct, like a massive phantom arm, grabbing her mid-charge. It slowed her down—barely—but enough. Left arm—toward the sky. Toward Forza. She was outside my normal range. But that didn't stop me. I forced it.

I was able to reach farther than I ever had. My mind screamed. A searing pressure erupted behind my eyes. My brain felt like it was being ripped in two, a fracture line splitting down my thoughts. But I didn't stop. I couldn't.

My core—damaged, already on the edge of collapse, responded anyway. It extended. Somehow.

The telekinetic field shot upward like a flare, thin and desperate, but it reached her. Just enough to grab hold.

Not enough to stop her. But enough to slow her. Barely.

I could feel it—she was still going to hit hard. Maybe fatally. The reduced speed would only delay the damage, not prevent it. So I shifted plans.

'If I can't slow her down... I'll change where she lands.'

I redirected her trajectory, pulling her sideways instead of straight down. My target was the nearby pond—the same one I'd nearly drowned in earlier. I knew its depth. I knew its location. That gave me just enough confidence to act.

Slowly, steadily, I dragged her falling body toward it, buying as much vertical distance as I could before impact. But that split focus cost me.

The Chimaera roared, her body bursting with thunder as she finally broke free of the force holding her. She tore through my grip like it was air and slammed into me at full speed. Everything blurred.

I was lifted off my feet, sent flying backwards with her weight crashing into mine. The air exploded out of my lungs as we crashed, rolling over broken ground. My focus on Forza snapped.

The last thing I saw was her body disappearing from view, pulled just enough off-course toward the water. I didn't know if it would be enough. I just hoped it was. Because I couldn't help anymore.

The Chimaera was back on top of me, her claws grinding into the earth on either side of my skull, thunder curling off her skin in electric pulses. Her breath came in bursts, each one searing the air with that same sickening static that made my skin prickle with dread. Her eyes burned with instinct and cruelty, no rage, no hatred, just the grim efficiency of something bred to kill.

My right arm was still raised. Trembling. Barely functioning. But it held. I forced what little control I had left into it, if only to buy myself one more second. One second to gather everything.

I rerouted all the mana I could scrape together into a single point—my fingertip. The entire world narrowed to that spot. Every nerve from shoulder to nail screamed with pressure. My veins felt like they were boiling. My mind was a blur of fragmented equations, muscle memory, and sheer desperation.

Just one shot, one hit.

PRAISE: ULTIM—

Then darkness. My vision went blank. A total blackout. Not even a shadow—just nothing.

And then it came, that sinking feeling, like my whole body was collapsing toward the left, spiralling downward through a funnel. Vertigo, nausea, and dread rolled into one. It felt like falling—but I hadn't moved. I knew I hadn't. But my mind? It was free-falling.

Then—

SLASHHHH

A cold sting—so sharp, so clean, it didn't register at first. But then I saw it.

I watched—horrified and frozen—as my own arm, from just above the elbow, tumbled away from me in slow motion. The mana I'd gathered vanished in an instant, snuffed out like a candle. The connection severed. The pain? It hit a second later. And it was blinding.

A primal, searing agony exploded in my chest and shoulder, like every bone and nerve had been dipped in acid and shattered with a hammer. My right side went dead—no control, no strength, just this massive, gaping hole where purpose and movement used to be.

Blood erupted from the wound, spraying my face, my broken chest, the ground—warm, thick, too much. Far too much. My lungs clenched. I choked.

My heart stuttered under the weight of the pain, barely pushing blood through the chaos that remained of my circulatory system. But the Chimaera wasn't done.

Her head pulled back. Her jaw widened unnaturally so revealing rows of jagged teeth, drenched in venom and coated in saliva that hissed as it hit the bloodied ground.

This was it. She was going to bite my head off. My eye twitched.

And still, I resisted. Not because of will. Not because of strength.

But because I was terrified. I didn't want to die—not like this. Not screaming and helpless, with my guts spilt out and my vision flickering like a dying bulb.

Telekinesis snapped to life again. Or whatever was left of it. I lashed it forward. Weak. Shaky. Barely there. But it caught her. Right at the neck.

Her massive maw stopped just centimetres from my face. Saliva dripped from her jaws, landing on my cheek and burning like acid. Her breath was suffocating—soaked in blood, ozone, and heat. She pushed. I pushed back.

She snarled, twisting her head violently, jerking against the invisible wall between us. My skull felt like it was going to split from the sheer pressure, her strength grinding against what little force I could maintain. My body quaked. My spine arched. The wound on my chest ripped wider from the strain.

But I held her off. For a second longer. Then another. Then one more.

Her jaw snapped forward again, teeth closing on air, missing me by a hair as I strained every cell in my body to just... keep... her... back.

My eye—my single eye—blurred. Not from blood this time, but tears. My body wanted to shut down. My brain was screaming for release. My broken core pulsed wildly, flickering in and out like a dying flame, mana leaking in unstable bursts from the fractures in its shell.

I couldn't feel my legs anymore. My left hand twitched—barely—and even that cost me more than I could afford.

Was this what dying felt like? Slow? Undignified? Stripped of everything you had until all that was left was pain?

My lips trembled. I wanted to scream, to curse, to sob. But all I did was hold on.

Because maybe, just maybe... if I let go now... It wouldn't just be my end. It'd be hers too.