Nova quickly understood what Manto was trying to do. He brought his arms down in a descending slash with the sword, ready to split the big bad wolf in two, but the Lycan reacted instantly—throwing himself to the ground with the momentum, rolling to take a blind spot. A fraction of a second later, using one of the platform edges, Manto launched himself to repeat the same maneuver.
'Shit!'
Once again, Nova's eye shone with a Danger Omen. From his perspective, he watched the alien's claws sink into his abdomen, splashing crimson blood across the platform.
When the brief vision ended, Nova no longer had time to dodge. Manto was too fast. In less than a heartbeat, the claws were already buried in his flesh.
He choked on the blood that tore through his organs as his ribs cracked painfully.
Wham! Crash! A single explosive strike was enough to send Nova flying into one of the platforms, smashing into it and shattering the concrete.
'No… damn it… no…' Nova thought as he collapsed face-first onto the metal.
Manto laughed, licking the blood from his claws.
"You gave me some trouble, Nova Asmodai—I'll admit that. You were surprisingly slippery."
Desperate, crawling across the ground to escape, Nova coughed, spitting blood.
"Sh… shut up… Cough," he muttered. His body painted the concrete red. "Shut up…"
The announcer touched his forehead, disappointed.
"Look at this. Isn't it pathetic? And this is what calls itself Nova? Unbelievable…"
The creatures in the stands laughed. Some celebrated Nova's impending death, while Mina watched him with a complicated expression.
In pain, he dug his nails into the concrete—half-dead, thinking of his own misfortune.
'Why?! Why does it have to be like this?!'
If he had known sadness, he would have been crying in helplessness—instead, his expression was rigid, desperate, irritated. The flames of his aura still burned intensely, his single eye still fixed on his distant goal—going back home—but his body could no longer endure.
'I can't accept this! I can't!'
He clenched his teeth. Weak, his abdomen destroyed, he stood up. Drops of blood soaked the ground. Not even he understood why he was getting back up when his body was already ruined.
The tangled emotions in his heart began to mix—chaotic, dissonant, complex—like a simple knot of black threads tightening as they spread across a field of blue flowers.
Manto raised an eyebrow, surprised.
"Ohhh… Is this what they call 'strength before death'? Impressive. Let me praise you, human. I've never seen anyone stand up like that on the very brink of death."
Ignoring everything around him, Nova drew the sword. Staggering, he turned to face the monster that wanted to kill him. The black clothing hid the full extent of his wounds, but the blood staining the floor betrayed how severe they were.
"Shut up… you… don't know anything…" Nova muttered.
The announcer laughed. He pointed at the boy with an elegant hand gesture and, wearing an ironic yet refined smile, said:
"Hm… It seems our human isn't feeling too well. Do you want to surrender?"
The other creatures booed. Their voices rose into the air like a dissonant, hellish chorus. Nova, however, shut all those sounds out of his mind. His single eye rested on Manto. His aura trembled ominously, wrapping around him in a suffocating embrace.
'None of you know anything…'
His gaze fell to the ground—his vision grew blurry. He covered the wound with one hand while lifting the sword with the other. Mysterious whispers echoed throughout the Arena. Everyone fell silent at once. Even Manto frowned, unsettled.
'All of you… you just want a show… You only want to watch others suffer…'
He could no longer speak, but his mind was overflowing with thoughts. Those thoughts became projections of the past, dancing inside his head and smothering his emotions even further.
There were eyes watching him—voices judging him.
He looked at his hand… It was stained with blood…
He raised his gaze. He saw all the creatures staring at him as if he were a circus animal.
He wished he knew what to do next. He was dying—an inescapable problem. He had nothing left to defend himself with except the sword, and even the luck he had at the beginning was no longer with him.
He had lost—but the feeling of wanting to continue, of wanting to know what would happen next, filled his mind.
That reminded him of something he had learned long ago.
How could people lose control?
When an Empath's emotions reached a certain point, their mind became clouded, blinded by that intense and self-destructive emotion. Their body underwent a drastic change due to the corruption of the energy around them—corruption born from the improper manipulation of their own power.
Losing control was different depending on the Empath's Spectrum, but it almost always showed the same result—it left destruction in its wake.
Nova, who had never understood emotions other than Serenity, was experiencing for the first time what it meant to lose control. Moreover, his blood was still contaminated by the serpent's poison, so his Serenity would not function as it always had.
"You all…" Nova said, bringing his hand to his abdomen again. "You all don't know anything…"
He repeated the same words over and over, as if his body had disconnected from his mind. The spectators remained silent while Manto felt that something was wrong. He prepared to attack, intending to end this immediately.
Inside Nova's mind, however, something entirely different was happening.
'Something is wrong with me…'
He was standing in the field of flowers. He felt a chilling calm as his body died. The great stars in the sky seemed to look at him with pity, but he only sighed, exhausted.
His Serenity glowed faintly, fading away, while his Anticipation intensified like the flame of a massive bonfire.
'What is this feeling?' he wondered, staring at the sky, both eyes painted with that Spectrum.
It was something that made his heart tighten painfully—a powerful urge to control everything down to the smallest detail.
'Is this… Anticipation?'
A curious feeling, to say the least. Even if it made him nauseous, it was the Spectrum that had saved his life.
"Is this… my power?" he whispered, looking at the flowers spread around him.
Beneath his feet was something else. Lying there were nearly a dozen corpses—and all of those corpses… were Nova.