Mio
The blade came down.
Mio raised the shield. Black chitin met golden light, and the impact drove her knees into the floor.
Tiles cracked beneath her. The tremor ran through her bones, her teeth, the soft meat of her brain.
The shield held.
The force behind it didn't care.
Pain lanced through her shoulder. Something had torn—the daemon's blade hadn't touched her, but the shockwave had found the gaps in Can's protection.
[Reservoir: -61,000 → -58,440]
The number burned behind her eyes. Not relief, not yet. But something. Twenty-five hundred points of debt, gone. Eaten by Can's shield. Converted from violence into progress.
Every strike that got through. Every scrap of damage the shield couldn't fully absorb.
It fed her. And it broke her.
This was the economy of her survival now. Pain for points. Blood for balance.
