"Hmm, I guess it has to be real lightning after all."

Seth sighed softly as he analysed the screen floating in front of him. It displayed the list of his evolution requirements. His main focus was on the 'Lightning in a bottle' condition, that he thought would be easy to solve.

His eyes drifted to the wine bottle resting in his hand, it's delicate glass surface decorated with freshly carved runes that pulsated with a gentle glow of power, as electricity crackled within. It struck against the fragile insides of the bottle, only to bounce off and be redirected back onto itself.

Of course, said electricity had come from his companion. But it didn't seem like this strange system was going to allow it as an option, and instead was asking for what he now dubbed to be 'Raw Lightning' although what the difference was, he had no idea.

Seth passed the bottle back to Astra, who took it with a confused frown. Seth couldn't help but let out a soft laugh and smile warmly at her.

"Here, you can hold onto it for now. Even if you can't fill it directly, between us you're still the best hope to get 'Raw Lightning' into that bottle. I really do appreciate the..."

His smile faded and his brow furrowed, his words trailing off as his gaze became unfocused. Astra's own expression quickly became serious, her hand gripped Seth's wrist and squeezed it softly.

"What is it? What's happening?"

"I don't know... But it can't be good. Grab hold of something."

Astra quickly dug her fingers into the tree trunk, her blackened digits easily piercing through the wood and creating their own handholds. The next moment, their log sofa lurched and shot sideways, racing through the air back towards the city.

As they flew, Seth's eyes remained unfocused and darted around frantically as he looked at nothing. In his mind, he was rapidly flying through the countless sources of perception from all of his Unkindly Guards.

None of them were seeing anything out of the ordinary, which was especially worrying because he was also losing connection with them. It wasn't like before, in the other plane, where he was completely cut off.

No, it was instead like individual lights in the sky of his mind being blotted out, their radiant shine being snuffed out of existence one by one. The fact that he couldn't see the issue, even while more and more of them were being snuffed out, was confusing and aggravating him.

Was it a beast attack? No... this was too coordinated. Rapidly sorting out his various view points, Seth placed all of his puppets in a mental map of the city, sorting them into what was still there and what had been snuffed out.

When another light on this mental map went out, he knew for certain that it wasn't a beast attack, or another shattering. Every puppet loss was outside the houses of his closest companions, the members of the party he had discovered the Heaven's Gate with. Those he had saved his sister and her escapees with.

He grit his teeth, his mind immediately going to the thought that one of them had betrayed him and his sister, but he couldn't dwell on that thought. Not only was it unhelpful, but it was beginning to make his blood boil once again.

His rage had been reduced since he created Carnifex, but that didn't mean it was gone. Just slumbering, waiting for its moment to surge again. And who knows how it would manifest next time.

The castle was the darkest point on his mental map, and only grew darker by the second. They were trying to take away his guards for something, and if it was another traitor in their midst then... revenge.

They were taking care of loose ends. He grit his teeth again, grinding them as his jaw trembled and his blood immediately boiled once more.

"LOOK OUT!"

Seth pulled himself out of his mind, bringing his attention back to his own eyesight just in time to see the massive, truck sized boulder hurtling through the air towards them. He yanked his hand to the side, dragging their log sofa ride through the air in a desperate attempt to avoid it, only to have it smash into the back side.

The wood exploded outwards into a hail of splinters as the boulder barrelled through it. Seth's connection point with the tree was severed, the spectral thread floating uselessly in the air.

The sofa beneath their feet disappeared, shackled by the law of gravity once more as it began to plummet towards the earth, and they were quick to follow.

Wind swept through their hair as they fell, but they were not ones to panic about a small multistory fall. Electricity crackled around Astra's bracers and boots, her eyes glowing bright with energy as she quickly righted herself and flew towards Seth.

She extended her hand outwards as she flew, reaching out to Seth who held out his own hand in response. Their fingers brushed together, a small amount of static electricity bridging the gap, before her hand was forced to follow as her body was ripped backwards through the air.

A thick metal cable, one her powers were unable to take control of, had wrapped itself around her leg, dragging her away from Seth as it flung her backwards through the air. It dragged her to the ground like a ripcord, slamming her down onto the earth which shattered into a hail of fragmented rock on impact.

'NO!'

Seth shouted in his mind as he continued to plummet under gravity's will, his heart sinking when he saw those cracks zigzagging outwards from the freshly formed crater, like an earthen spider-web.

With his hand still outstretched, Ink flowed from Seth's arm and immediately started to pool in the palm of his hand, extending outwards as it slowly took the form of his spear. But as it was forming, he drew closer and closer to the earth, each agonising second of waiting for it to finally form bringing him closer to death.

It was almost done, its tip was all that was left to form, when a figure appeared in the air above him like a spectre. Their black cloak fluttered in the wind, and did very little to hide their colossal figure.

Their hairy, muscular arm as thick as a tree trunk was already cocked back, fingers curled into a knuckle cracking fist that tore through the air as it shot towards Seth.

'Shit...'

Seth quickly covered his face with his arms, curling up into a ball. He finally felt the spear solidify in his grasp, but at the very next second the fist smashed into his forearms. His already rapid descent increased tenfold, his skinny body rocketing towards the ground in the blink of an eye.

His landing echoed out for miles around as he hit the ground with a thunderous boom. A colossal plume of dust and dirt erupting into the air before descending and spreading outwards in an obscuring cloud.

The cloud poured outwards, engulfing the trees and spilling out into the spider-web of cracks that Astra had formed when she landed.

However, when it reached the area of impact, the cloud gave it a wide berth, as if it was blocked by an invisible wall that surrounded the impact crater and kept the area clear of the obscurant.

It was in this area, that three individuals stood, all of them dressed in identical flowing black cloaks. One of them had his hands held outwards, his fingers curled into a claw as his arms trembled. His muscles were visibly bulging and wriggling beneath his arms as he strained them seemingly against the air.

In the centre of the crater, stood Astra. The same metallic cables that had torn her from the air were wrapped around each of her wrists like shackles, rooting her to the earth beneath her feet.

Energy crackled around her, her eyes glowing brightly as she strained her abilities, trying to wrestle control from the cloaked figure and remove these python-like shackles.

"Oh please, Do struggle. It will make our jobs so much easier. Non-ferrous metal, not the best for magnetism, but wonderful for my abilities. It also has another use. It's wonderful at conducting electricity~"

The cloaked figure let out a wicked laugh as he twisted his hands in the air. In response, the metallic tendrils twisted tighter around Astra's wrists, before plunging their tips into her wrists.

A strained scream escaped her lips as they forced apart her radius and ulna, bending the bones apart to make way for themselves.

The crackling energy that surrounded her body began to grow weaker and weaker, the glow in her eyes rapidly dimming, as the electricity that composed her being acted in its most natural way. Against her control, it eagerly flooded through the length of the metallic bindings, and dispersed itself into the earth beneath.

A hulking figure, the same cloak draped over his titanic body landed next to the cloaked figure responsible for these bindings. The metallic conductor turned to his lumbering partner, speaking with a cold tone.

"Is the boyfriend dead?"

The hulking figure nodded, his voice rumbling when he spoke while it took some effort for him to formulate the words.

"Skinny man... dead. Gave him big punch. No one survive... dat fall. Give her big punch?"

"No. Not yet. Not unless you want to die just by touching her. We can't make it as swift as her little boyfriend though, His Divine Greatness asked us to make it slow and painful. He wanted to show it to the demon in his final moments."