It’s cold. It’s so cold.

Ver felt like a cooked fish being cooled in a bowl of ice water after being bleached, and her flesh was carved open, ready to be seasoned and served.

Her forehead was sore, and a massive bump of inflamed soft tissue over her face felt like it was about to explode at any minute. Then, she rapidly opened her eyes when she found herself floating in the middle of an endless dark ocean with the Kraken sitting in front of her.

“Did we…fail…?” Ver asked, looking down at her body, but it was completely hidden behind a layer of the Kraken's green fluid, “Did we…die?”

The Kraken’s glowing green eyes locked onto Ver, and it slowly wiggled from one side to the other before Shra’Ahk’s voice returned, “I have told you before, the only thing I am good at is surviving.”

“…But we need to get back out there!” Ver said, trying to swim forward through the darkness when she finally noticed the Kraken’s blood stained green eyes that nearly made her jump, “H…ow hurt are you…?”

“With a combination of the Kraken’s cowardice and the ink clones, we were able to switch out our bodies before being made into a meatball.” The Kraken quickly explained, “I swore to use that ability only to fight before, and now…we have used to it run again…”

“No…” Ver shook her head as she thought back to the absolute beating she just took, “It’s not just that. We-”

Before she could continue, the Kraken created a projection of Wu and Lera being stared down by both Rache and Rote. That was the barometer for how long they can stay here, as everybody out there believed them to be dead.

“-we need to figure out our plan of attack before getting back out there…and we needed this time to figure it out…” Ver slouched her shoulders, “Come on Ver! Think! What would Wu have done…what would Lera have done…”

The biggest issue is Rote’s raw physicality that rivaled if not surpassed Fatara in her Dominance mode. It's not exactly unheard of for manifest abilities to replicate effects of the most elite of Channelers, and there was no doubt that Rote was a Manifester from the way his power manifests itself in combat, yet the nature of his rage ability was very different from any other Manifest that Ver had faced before.

Ver felt like she was fighting against someone who moves at such a different frequency that it felt hopeless to even try to fight back against his relentless barrage and ridiculous speed. When there's a difference in power to this degree, instead of trying to bring up her speed to match it, she needs something in her arsenal to counter it directly. Something that she can use to work around such a deficit.

“Ver, you have some ideas?” The Kraken asked, its voice softening before the pair of eyes approached the girl as they continued floating in the dark domain. She scratched her head before emptying her pocket and looking at the piles of tools and weapons that slowly floated in front of her.

Then, something caught her attention, and she tilted her head before raising a finger and pointing at the Kraken, “Say…how good is your memory?”

"Legendary."

“Rache! Think about this!” Wu plead once again as Rote smiled and walked straight at him, “Think about what would happen to the Realm if Rote carried it through with his plans!”

“The Realm don’t care about me, so why should I care about it?” Rache shot back stubbornly, “For I all know, he could destroy Costa city as well!”

“You didn’t mean that.” Wu shook his head.

“And what if I did?! What else is there for me?!” Rache surged forward past Rote with the Cerberus as Wu was sent up into the air by Lera’s boosts, and he instantly bathed Rote and Rache under the influence of Void Domain. The movement of the Cerberus became rapidly decelerated, and the barrage of shots that followed immediately after found their way into Rache’s armor before he was slammed back onto the ground.

“Tsk!” Rache grunted, rolling around and starting to sprint towards Wu in a zig-zag pattern that avoided his shots at such close ranges before he slashed the broken blade through the air.

That was when everything turned dark and silent around him as Lera unleashed her Void Domain Drown to the entirety of the environment, taking away all senses of sight and touch with Wu deactivating his powers swiftly. Rache came to a sudden halt while Rote charged straight into the darkness from right behind him, trying to attack Lera at the last position she was in.

“What are you going to do?” Rote laughed as he hunted for Lera with every one of his senses cut out, “If Ver couldn’t do anything to me, what did you think you can do?”

“Void Domain Chaos!” Lera commanded as a whirlwind of dark blue stripes rose up from the ground and covered Rote in an instant. The mixing of Void Domain with thenormal Wave created rapid shifts in the local Wave field within and around Rote’s body before tiny pockets of rips appeared over Rote’s skin.

His eyes opened up wide, and he screamed as those tiny wounds burst open with blood jetting out in all directions. However, his screams became immediately swallowed up by Void Domain Drawn everywhere else in Lera’s Cast array.

“I knew it. You are able to resist Void Domain, not because you are conjuring up a shield around you. or that you are strong enough to resist the gradients.” Lera said, creating Vines that bound to Rote’s body and started yanking him down to the ground as he struggled in place to even stand, “You simply held onto your circulation of Wave way deep inside of your body, which meant your skin and flesh are still vulnerable to my attacks!”

Being Lera’s strongest and most brutal attack, she had elected not to use it unless absolutely necessary due to the level of damage it will deal to any individual using the Wave.

“Argh….ARGH…you bitch…” Rote cursed, his breath shallow and sharp as his body glowed even brighter than before like the sun, “You will experience ten times my agony when I get you!”

“Try me.” Lera said, increasing the intensity of Void Domain Drown when suddenly, Rote let it all go.

No more internal circulation of the Wave, no more holding onto his power despite the resistance of Void Domain. He just lets it all go.

As the pooling of the Wave within him became released, more of his interior became damaged and wounded, driving his rage further. He opened his eyes slowly as blood poured out from underneath his fiery mark of Manifest, and he stepped forward. With every step, he imprinted his bloody footprint into the sand.

He reached out with his hands as his body seemingly faded away from existence itself. He growled something unintelligible, and his hands formed into fists before he surged forward, punching for a single inch.

The air in front of his knuckles started to whiten before a bubble of rapidly expanding air pushed outward. Lera’s eyes widened moments before her entire face became enveloped in the whiteness of the explosion with the Void Domain drown being completely blown away by Rote's earthshaking attack.

It also sent Wu and Rache both flying out to the sides as the interior of the Void Domain Shield layer shook violently and looked as if it was about to burst.

Thankfully, this time, it was the shield Cast that took on the majority of the blast.

“Argh argh…Rawr…” Rote leaned forward, planting his fist into the sand and supporting himself on all fours as his eyes turned pure white. He scanned around him, sniffinging the air before catching Lera’s scent and immediately pouncing forward in her direction, ready to transform her into another serving of meatball, "ARGHHH!"

“No, you don’t.” Ver emerged from a Whirlpool Purple through the air just before Rote was about to slam down onto Lera as she helplessly put her hands up and tried to set up another Cast as quickly as she could. Wu fired off another shot of desperation against Rote that was nowhere close with the Cerberus was continuously chasing him down.

Throwing down sets of Void Domain grenades underneath his feet, Wu then used the opening he bought to sprint towards Lera to help her up.

“You seem pretty helpless without me.” Ver said, standing in front of Rote who sniffed the air again, and his distorted face became filled with confusion.

“You scared us.” Lera said, taking Wu’s head before trying to fight a banging headache.

“Yeah, needed a bit of a break to figure some things out…” Ver said, steadying her breathe while channeling her attention internally, “Ready?”

“Yes.” The Kraken replied firmly.

That was when Rote finally recalled the owner of that scent. Letting out multiple roars of anger, he then rocketed forward, blowing right past Ver’s body and heading straight at Lera when suddenly, thin glowing strands of metal looped around his neck and nearly sliced it open as his own speed became his worst enemy.

As his body completely folded around the thin blade, the loop tightened, and Ver slammed the heavy side of the Sky Splitting Sword straight against Rote’s body, the impact rocking the earth as he bounced against the ground with more blood jetting out.

“Is that…” Wu blinked a few times when Rote emerged from the cloud of sand formed from the impact a blood-drenched monster, however, it seemed like he had finally reached the limits of his powers as he jammed his fingers into the loop of the ultra thin blade around his neck, trying to tear it open and only to injure himself further.

“GET OVER HERE!” Ver declared, leaping back with the help of the Kraken’s tendrils before two more sets of tendrils rapidly pulled up, tightening the Water Weaving Sword on their end as it dragged Rote along with them.

“CARGH! CARGH!” Rote struggled, his body trembling crazily as he tried to break free, but the more he struggled, the more the loop of the Water Weaving Sword around his neck tightened.

Then, while Rote’s distracted by the immediate danger of being beheaded and suffocated, Ver beat down on him from all directions with her Sky Splitting Sword. Every time Rote tried to move out of the way of the attack, the Kraken simply pulled with both tendrils and kept the loop tight, and pinned him in place.

“Say…how good was your memory?” Ver asked, reaching towards the coiled up Water Weaving Sword that she obtained from Nana Kata back at the Summer Selections, “I know we decided to shelf the Water Weaving Sword for now, but…we need any sort of advantage we can get. So…do you remember how Nana used it?”

“Perfectly.” The Kraken said, a tendril appearing from beyond the darkness, “But this alone isn’t going to be enough.”

“It will be if you trapped him in it.” Ver said, holding onto the tendril with her hands, “The Water Weaving Sword changes its width and toughness according to the user’s command, and in your hands, it will become the thinnest yet strongest material in this world.”

The Kraken listened closely, and it watched Ver with both of its big eyes as Ver gave the tendril a good squeeze.

“You asked me whether I trusted you…” Ver said, resting her face against the tendril as the Kraken’s pupils started widening, “I do. With my life. So let’s fight together like equals from now on. Sounds good?”

The Kraken blinked before its towering body fully manifested in the darkness of their shared space.

“Let’s go save your…no. Our friends.”