Souls in Teyvat

The Doomsday Beast's attack was fast, unnaturally so.

With a speed incomparable to what it had been mere moments ago, the arm was swung, only allowing Dan Heng to jump back to avoid the attack, as the rest were safe from the attack thanks to them not being close.

And yet, the arm switched directions mid-air, and approached the alarmed Dan Heng, who had barely enough time to put his spear between him and the hand irradiating Destruction.

Dan Heng felt like a truck had hit him, but gritted his teeth to keep his consciousness as he had been taken off guard and without the time to properly block, and his body was too close to the hand, making some of the emitted Destruction course through his body.

Under March, Stelle and Himeko's alarmed look, Dan Heng was blown away, but the young man twisted his body in the air to land on his feet with a grimace of pain and a trembling body.

"Take care, it's way faster than before!" that was not what Dan Heng wanted to say, but the words to describe the keen movement the Beast had made didn't reach his mouth soon enough.

"Stand back!" ordered Himeko, knowing that if Dan Heng had been blown away, the rest of them had no chance at close range.

Stelle hesitated for a moment, but she was too tired from whatever she had done before, so she begrudgingly complied, as she knew better than to give in to her whims that could put everyone else at risk.

The 3 women ran back, standing next to Dan Heng's side, but once again the creature showed how different it was.

ROAAAAR!

With another dreadful roar, the Doomsday Beast clawed his way into the Space Station, tearing up the wall even more to chase the group of retreating humans with unexpected agility.

Himeko looked in horror at the arm swinging their way, and understood what Dan Heng had wanted to say.

She could sense the intention behind the attack, and unlike the somewhat aimless and clumsy attack from before, this one was way more precise and had a clear purpose.

Eradicate everything it touched.

With a sound similar to broken glass, the shield March created above them instantly disappeared, getting obliterated by the arm exuding Destruction.

Himeko manipulated her suitcase once again, but she knew she wouldn't be able to shoot in time, and even if she did, it would probably do little to deflect the attack.

The white and golden arm slowly reached them, and despite the group of 4 willing their bodies to move, being the target of such concentrated Destruction paralysed them.

And yet, the arms didn't reach them.

A blinding white beam impacted the main body of the Doomsday Beast, making it retreat enough for the attack to fail, with a golden shield appearing on its surface to protect itself from the attack.

"Sorry for being late" said a red-headed woman with shoulder-long hair and light blue eyes sporting a confident smile, with a white staff in her hand.

"Asta" muttered Himeko, quickly standing up and prompting March to do the same.

"This is our Space Station" said a dark-skinned boy next to her with a firm look and a purple greatsword bigger than him in his hand. "We will defend it."

ROAAAA-

Another blinding white ray of energy silenced the roaring Doomsday Beast, making it fall back a few steps more.

A huge cannon appeared from an open space in the middle of the deck of the Space Station, and aimed at the Doomsday Beast.

Clearly, the Space Station's weapons and personnel had arrived late.

But now that it had arrived, they were ready to fight until the end, thanks to the absence of more foes to fight inside the Space Station.

Stelle looked around, and saw how dozens of people with black uniforms and advanced-looking weapons lined up behind Asta.

"Aim" said the solemn dark-skinned boy next to Asta, and the whole corps replied as one, with the front row putting a knee in the ground to allow the back row to fire at the same time.

"Wait a bit Arlan" said Asta, and the boy raised his fist in the air.

BOOOM

The colossal cannon shot once again, making the Doomsday Beast retreat even more, standing in the same place he had been during its fight against the Astral Express crew.

"Now" ordered Arlan, knowing that they needed to make time for the cannon to recharge and be ready to fire again.

The whole security corps of the Space Station opened fire as one, and the Doomsday Beast found itself the target of the most advanced weapons of the Station.

Which weren't common guns by any means.

The Herta Space Station was the place where Herta, an Emanator of the Erudition, lived.

She didn't have a personal interest in weapons, her expertise being crystallography, but the group of scientists living here did everything else. And the Doomsday Beast was tasting those same weapons now.

"Keep firing!" shouted Arlan, his normal shyness being left behind the moment the security of the Station was at risk.

The storm of bullets kept assaulting the Doomsday Beast, raising a cloud of dust that didn't allow anyone to see the effect of the barrage.

For a few minutes, the unrelenting assault continued, with the corps taking turns reloading so the fire wouldn't stop.

Asta touched a small screen in her wrist and looked at Arlan, who nodded.

"Stop!" he commanded, and everyone complied.

Himeko saw the cannon shining brightly, and knew that a new shot would soon be released.

And yet...

With a deafening roar that made everyone grimace due to the high-pitched noise of a beam being shot, a golden beam of pure Destruction was shot from the inside of the cloud of dust.

With an explosion that made the steel around the zone of impact melt, the attack from the Doomsday Beast destroyed the cannon, rendering it useless for the rest of the fight.

ROAAAR!

With yet another roar, the Doomsday Beast dissipated the dust covering him.

"Fire!" shouted Arlan, noticing that the surface of the Beast showed some scratching. "The cannon exhausted his shields!! Our guns hurt it!"

And the corps opened fire once again, but this time their purpose wasn't to win time, but to cause as much damage as they could to the beast.

But the Doomsday Beast had other plans, and quickly retreated to the opening it made to enter.

"No!" shouted an alarmed Asta. "We can't let it go! It will open a new hole in another part!"

"This is my space station"

A bright blue shield blocked the area where the Doomsday Beast was trying to leave.

A thick wall of a few meters thick, with a complex pattern of hexagonal and pentagonal plates seamlessly joining with others and not leaving a single space open.

A wall of crystal that no defence mechanism inside the Space Station was prepared to do, and only one person could create.

"Nobody will harm it" said a small puppet with brown hair, with visible joints revealing its nature as a puppet.

And yet, the moment those words left the puppet's mouth, it fell limp to the ground, almost as if its power had been emptied.

The Doomsday Beast found his way out blocked by the crystal wall, and could feel a force far purer than the one coursing through his body from this wall.

In the end, Herta was an Emanator, while the Doomsday Beast was not.

But Herta's physical body wasn't here, while the Doomsday Beast had the energy of every member of the Antimatter Legion, even the ones from the nearby planets.

And yet, the Doomsday Beast judged that breaking through the wall while the humans inside the Space Station attacked him was not worth its time and energy.

So the Doomsday Beast turned around with a body crackling with Destruction, and with a roar lunged at the humans.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Agh!!"

"Disperse! Work together in small groups!"

"Dammit! AAAHH!"

Keith opened his eyes slowly, waking up to screams of people, and feeling blood in his mouth.

The last thing he remembered was feeling something moving and pushing Stelle and Himeko again before something hit him.

We tried to move his body, but a sharp pain made him grimace and stop moving, and thankfully, this same pao4in was what dispersed the fog inside his mind.

And he was faced with a nightmarish scene.

ROAAAAR!

"Hit its back!!"

"No bullets!"

"Squad 1, run awa-"

"AAHHH!"

"SHI-....."

The Doomsday Beast was wreaking havoc, moving too fast for the security corps of the Space Station to react.

These corps were working together in squads, showing impressive skill by cooperating with the other groups to damage the Doomsday Beast as much as they could, but the being exuding Destruction was too fast and resilient.

Keith also saw the distressed faces of the crew from the Astral Express, but besides trying to provoke the Doomsday Beast into focusing on them to give some respite to the guards of the Spatial Station, there was little they could do.

'I need to help' thought Keith, who despite not knowing what could he do against his machine of pure Destruction, staying where he was, laying in a pool of his own blood with his body embedded in a steel wall wasn't an option.

But a realization appeared in his mind.

He wasn't healing.

Even if the attack he took would have rendered him unable to move, he should be healing a bit by this point.

The reason was quickly made apparent, making Keith look at the wristband he took from Kafka, the one that would camouflage his presence from Yao Shi, but also weakened his regeneration abilities as his link to the Aeon of the Abundance was weakened.

Looking at the scene appearing in front of his eyes, he understood he had no choice.

And yet....he couldn't even move.

Moving his eyes to the side, he saw his arms mangled and twisted beyond belief. No matter how much he willed his arms to move with clenched teeth, his arms would move.

"Keith!"

But a pair of golden eyes, belonging to a girl with grey hair appeared in front of him, looking horrified at the state his body was in.

Keith opened his mouth, but realized that he also was unable to do that.

He was so weak that he wondered if the only reason he was still alive was because of the Abundance that formed the core of his body.

And yet, he still tried to tell something to the panicking grey-haired girl, who was moving her hands in the air trying to get help, but now knowing where could she start.

But suddenly, Stelle's eyes met his, and Keith looked firmly at his wrist.

Stelle followed his look, and found herself looking at a wristband with a small black stone that she immediately disliked. It was something visceral, she felt a part of herself being dissipated, contained or simply disappearing upon looking at it.

Such was the power of IX, the being whose power created the stone that wasn't a rock at all, but a small fragment of nothingness, the only thing IX was allowed to create.

And yet, Stelle seemed to sense Keith's intention, because she carefully took the wristband away, careful of not touching that 'stone'.

Stelle grimaced when she heard an ominous crack the moment she undid the tie holding the band in its place, but she finally took it off.

Keith immediately felt an immense pain on his body, as his bones started moving, realigning, or simply growing anew, trying to restore his damaged body.

"Ste- gurgle Keith tried to tell Stelle to help him stand on his feet, but his body chose the moment he opened his mouth to expulse all the blood inside his body, which came as a torrent of blood that dirtied everything around him, with some of it splattering int he horrified Stelle's face, who wondered if Keith was telling her to NOT touch the wristband.

But in front of her golden eyes, Keith's mangled arms started recovering at a speed naked to her eyes, and his sunk-in chest quickly recovered with a painful-sounding creak.

"Help me stand" said Keith, hiding a grimace of pain when he felt all his bones moving inside his body.

Stelle wanted to tell Keith to stay still and recover, but the sounds of battle behind them made her realize that they had no other option.

Soon, in front of her, Keith stood, with a firm look in his purple eyes looking at the Doomsday Beast.

-------------------------------------------------------

The Doomsday Beast turned to attack another group of humans running, with his body slowly recovering enough Destruction to form a flimsy shield that had proven to be enough to stave off the attack from such advanced weapons.

A few more cannons appeared around the dock of the Space Station, but they were incomparably weaker and smaller compared to the colossal giant one that had caused the Doomsday Beast to lose its shield, and were swiftly destroyed but the powerful member of the Antimatter Legion, leaving the armed members of the Space Station to fight with what they got.

But suddenly, the Doomsday Beast sensed something moving behind it.

How did it see it then?

Because he sensed a source of energy incomparably smaller than his, but of a purity that made him recognize who it belonged to.

A meteor-like impact on its back made the Doomsday Beast fall forward, with a human with purple hair and a broken leg doing the same on the other side of his back.

Himeko looked in astonishment at Keith, whose leg had healed before even reaching the ground.

The Doomsday turned around, with its target now decided, and swung an arm irradiating destruction, ready to crush Keith.

And yet...

Another impact, even stronger than the one before if it was possible, made a crunching noise upon colliding with the Doomsday Beast's body after destroying the shield and making it fall forward yet again.

Stelle stood behind the Doomsday Beast, exhausted but ready to swing her bat again.

A force she didn't know she had coursed through her body, almost inviting her to attack once again, and telling her to put even more force in her attack.

The Doomsday Beast got up unexpectedly fast, and a fist was swung in Stelle's direction, which the beast decided was more dangerous.

And yet, an explosion on the side of what would be its face sent him off balance, allowing Stelle to dodge the unbelievably fast attack.

Himeko looked at the beast who took her attack, an explosive shell shot with their multi-purpose suitcase, and noticed that there was a slight burn on the extremely hard surface of the Doomsday Beast, proof that its shield was down.

"Fire!!" shouted Asta, noticing the same, and pointing her staff at the beast.

The staff glowed with red light, and 5 beams were shot at the beast, who turned and extended one hand, stopping the rays.

And yet, no amount of arms would be enough to block the barrage of bullets that arrived from the survivors of the beast's previous rampage.

Some bullets bounced off the beast's plates, but Stelle and Keith found that a pair of white-ish shields were protecting them from the ricocheted bullets.

March stood on one side, with a concentrated look on her face, but with eyes blazing with determination.

Keith looked around for a weapon to use, because as strong as he was now that the Abundance was freely flowing within him, his body was still weak in the sense that punching steel wouldn't be too effective.

And he suddenly found a pretty good one.

"Take it!" shouted Dan Heng, throwing him a purple greatsword belonging to a now-unconscious Arlan.

Keith took the purple greatsword, realizing how heavy it was, but it also meant that he could cause even more damage to the beast.

ROAAAR!

The Doomsday Beast roared again, dispersing once again the dust around him, but also showing how damaged its exterior was.

A few holes in some unimportant places, scratched, and some spots emitting sparks.

Nothing too serious, but proof that the attacks had reached him.

But the beast didn't stay in place, and quickly attacked Stelle once again.

Keith lunged forward wanting to use this chance to take the free hit, but mid-movement, the Doomsday Beast turned around to attack Keith instead.

The purple-haired man found himself looking at a white and golden arm emitting Destruction approach, but he steeled himself.

If this thing wanted to clash, he had no problem doing it.

And the purple greatsword met the glowing hand, making the whole Space Station violently shake.

Keith felt his own shoulder dislocating due to the huge impact, and his humerus shattering, but the attacking hand had been repelled, and a finger had been torn to pieces due to the violent clash.

And yet, the Doomsday didn't feel any pain, and the other hand swept through the air chasing Keith, who was caught backfooted.

"I SAID" a shout came from behind the Doomsday Beast, who felt a surge of power surging from its back. "HOME RUN!!"

And the baseball bat hit the Doomsday Beast with the strength of a meteorite on the unguarded back of the Legions of Destruction.

The golden veining around its body turned blue for a second, quickly recovering its golden lustre, but the damage had been done, a huge area on the Doomsday Beast's back had crumbled, exposing its insides.

And Himeko didn't miss it.

From the elevated position she had taken after she saw Keith stand up, she fired another projectile of fire at the Doomsday Beast's uncovered back.

ROAAAR

The beast roared again, but in time of pain, as it felt its insides carrying Destruction being melted.

But the beast had no time to recover, because a purple sword descended once again.

Another violent impact shook the Space Station, and the gargantuan body of the Doomsday Beast rose a few meters off the ground when the greatsword hit its front part, and collided with the crystal wall Herta made.

The Doomsday Beast's body raised another cloud of dust, but his time Himeko was quick.

She fired another explosive projectile at the hidden enemy, instantly dissipating the cloud to allow Stelle and Keith to keep attacking without letting the dangerous member of the Antimatter Legion recover.

"Be careful!" shouted Asta, immediately making Stelle and Keith stop. "Its energy is accumulating in its arms!"

"What does it mean?!" shouted Keith, feeling too much pain in his recovering arms to think.

"It means that it will attack now!" shouted Asta, her eyes widening in panic.

Stelle and Keith, now side to side as the Doomsday Beast was in a corner of the room, looked at their foe only to realize that a pair of hands were already in front of them, with a golden glow that made them feel the terrifying power of Destruction they held.

But they also had their own tools.

Stelle swung her bat, while Keith slashed with Arlan's greatsword as strong as he could.

CLANG!

The aftershock of the attack was unlike anything that happened before, making the ground under them crack.

But the moment their weapons touched the golden hands, blue energy started to surge from their weapons.

The Trailblaze was the only thing that could stave off Destruction, and...the path had already been made.

When Keith conquered the Stellaron of Destruction Stelle had been in, the path to triumph against Destruction had been made.

So the only thing the trailblazers needed to do was follow it, even if they would need a force comparable to the Destruction they wanted to win against.

But unlike going in blind, the Trailblaze already knew the road it needed to trace, allowing the blue energy to efficiently neutralize the Destruction.

So when Stelle and Keith's blue energy clashed against the Destruction, they fell into a stalemate, where their power of the Trailblaze tried to break through the stronger Destruction, her powers as an Emanator still undiscovered.

A stalemate that was only possible due to the power of the Trailblaze being purer, and already knowing how to fight against Destruction.

And yet...they found themselves unable to repel the attack.

But there was a difference between the Trailblaze and the rest of the fragments of the world like Destruction.

The Trailblaze's purpose wasn't to fight or conquer, but to pave a path that every trailblazer would follow.

And the more followers that road had, the stronger it would be.

A network that connected everyone following the path of the Trailblaze that allowed them to support each other, and a network that had been ignited quite recently, but would expand outwards.

But...wasn't there another Trailblazer near?

Just as Himeko found herself exhausted, a flow of blue surged from Stelle and Keith, incomparably smaller than their own, but enough to repel the attack.

The bat and the greatsword ended their respective swings, making the Doomsday Beast retreat, but it quickly attacked once again.

Keith felt his body burning, but as he had already noticed, it only meant that he was in the process of getting stronger.

So when the new attack arrived, he found himself swinging his sword once again, cleaving the air to meet the attack, with a bat helping him in his task.

Once again, the whole Space Station trembled and cracked, and both Stelle and Keith found themselves in a stalemate, as the blue energy had seemingly run out.

But this time, both parties were ready for it.

The Doomsday Beast attacked from one side with one hand, while the other attacked from above.

Stelle and Keith wordlessly moved as one, each one targeting the one they knew could repel.

Keith swung his sword upwards, colliding with the fist attacking him, while Stelle batted at the fist coming from the side.

Both clashes happened at the same time, and once again were both part repelled, with the humanoid being stepping back with an exhausted expression, but the Doomsday Beast attacked once again.

Keith felt his body burning again, and something inside him screamed that something dangerous would happen should he continue abusing the Abundance, but right now he needed to defeat this foe.

So gritting his teeth, and used every muscle on his body to add more strength to the sword just as Blade taught him.

For the fourth time, Stelle and Keith defended against the attack, but this time, Stelle couldn't keep up, even if it was only because she lacked a body as resilient as Keith's, and the constant clashes had drained her strength.

But while Stelle got tired, Keith had only grown stronger, only thanks to his body receiving the influx of Life.

His greatsword collided with both fists attacking them from the front, and the help Stelle gave had been enough for him to be able to repel the attack by himself.

And he realized something.

'The next attack' he thought with his body burning due to the damage he was taking, but the Abundance quickly made him recover and grow a little stronger.

But his foe seemed to notice the same, because the next move it did caught Keith off guard.

The Doomsday Beast, sensing that the crystal wall behind him had been damaged, knew that his best chances were to leave this place and tear the rest of the Space Station from the outside.

So with a lightning-fast attack, the Doomsday Beast, clearly more intelligent now than it had been before, destroyed the crystal wall and made to escape under Keith's disbelieving expression.

"Where are you going?"

A deep voice echoed in the deck, and a black hole sucked the Doomsday Beast back in.

A brown-haired man wearing glasses, with a cane and similarly brown eyes looked with a hard and sharp gaze at the Doomsday Beast struggling to get up, and focused on making his gravitational powers to keep the beast locked in place.

"Hurry up" he said, making Keith realize this was their best chance.

So pulling the exhausted Stelle up, he rushed to the immobile Doomsday Beast, whose golden glow had diminished a lot after the blue energy collided with its golden one.

He quickly looked for the core he had seen before, and found it firmly embedded in the underside of the being.

So he took the only action he could.

He took Arlan's greatsword, readied himself, and hit the creature in the head with a movement a golfer would be proud of.

The beast's head cracked upon receiving such an impact, but that wasn't Keith's purpose.

The Doomsday Beast's whole body had been raised, exposing the core for a single moment before it would once again be hidden by the beast's body falling again.

But Stelle was ready to use that moment.

As tired as she was, she knew that she needed to swing her bat one last time, but it would need to be the strongest swing she would have ever made.

But...why wouldn't that be a problem?

Gritting her teeth, and feeling her body scream in pain, she patiently waited for the colossal body to fall down, while she stood directly in front of it.

The world seemed to slow down, and Stelle's eyes were firmly set on the weakly shining golden cube she had smashed before.

Her whole field of vision was filled with crackling golden, white and the metal lustre of the beast's plates, scratched by the attacks it received until now.

She saw the body slowly falling, until...the core stood in the place she needed it to be.

"HHHAAAAAAAAA!!" with a roar that left her mouth, her whole body moved to unleash the strongest attack she had ever released in her short life.

With crackling blue around her bat, the attack impacted the exact center of the Doomsday's Beast core at the same time the brown-haired man holding the beast in place released his power with a pale expression.

Now free of the hold gravity had it him, the earth-shattering impact blew the Doomsday Beast backwards, shooting like a bullet to the space behind it, with a pulverized core that couldn't resist Stelle's attack, and a dull golden colour that soon disappeared as the extremely weak Trailblaze finally triumphed against it.

Stelle's body stopped answering to her the moment she saw the Doomsday Beast being sent off to space, but before she could fall, a strong arm under her waist held her.

And arm belonging to the purple-haired man who had been by her side this whole time.

"Good work"

That, and a pair of purple eyes were enough to make Stelle smile before unconsciousness took her.

But not before a last thought appeared in her mind.

'What a beautiful pair of eyes' she thought, before her world turned dark.