“Miles!” A shout woke Miles up. He dashed to the lower floor as soon as he could as he recognized the voice.

“MILES!”

“What happened?” He opened the door and looked at Maya, who was looking back at him in worry.

“Alex—” She started but couldn’t continue. Miles’s face paled as he imagined.

“What happened?!” He asked as he held Maya by her arms.

“He is hurt.” She said and took a step back. “He is in hospital.”

“Lead the way.” Miles dashed out and followed Maya. Soon, they arrived at the hospital. Alex was lying on the bed with a heavy wheeze. His whole body was bandaged up, and he was unconscious.

“What happened?” Miles walked to Alex’s side and asked Milosh, who was there.

“Nothing I had seen before.” Milosh looked at Alex on the bed with dread as he explained. “When he arrived at the portal, he was covered with lightning and heavy wounds. At first, the workers thought it was his own element, but when he passed out, he was carried away anyway. But the guards carrying him were also infected with the same lightning. Although they dropped him to the ground, they couldn’t get rid of the lightning affecting them.

One of them was Extol-Rank, so luckily he survived until I arrived, but the other was just an intern in Form-Rank. He perished there and then.”

“What kind of lightning was it?” Miles asked with bated breath. He already had a guess, he was just hoping he was wrong.

“It was endless. It was recreating itself with the energy it could suck from the atmosphere. I asked Alex what had happened, but he only said, ‘Miles knows.’ I had no time to fetch you, and had no way to fix him.” Milosh looked at Miles and sighed, “With quick thinking, I carried the guard and Alex to the Ignis Alloy room I built years ago in case I needed it. Luckily the attack stopped after it couldn’t suck more energy but Alex was already injured too heavily.”

Ignis was an Alloy made from Void Elemental Core. On Earth, only Mercer and Malcolm could melt those cores. They were super rare. It was a miracle for Milosh to have some.

“So, tell me what this is?” Milosh asked with a questioning gaze.

“Alex tipped me off about an ant with a lightning element. I needed armor, so I wanted to hunt those little bugs but I encountered the queen. It attacked me once but the attack was endless. It was sucking energy from the atmosphere to feed itself. If it wasn’t for my ultimate producing void elemental from the lightning it sucked, I would be dead.” Miles explained. Only the altered part about how he got rid of it.

“Then?” Milosh asked.

“I told Alex what happened and he said he would want to see that endless attack. I warned him to be careful but he said lightning wouldn’t hurt him.” Miles said with regret. He really felt bad for Alex.

“Little piece of shit. Arrogance is the worst enemy. Have I fucking taught you nothing?” Milosh cursed in anger as he left the room. “He is lucky to be alive.”

Miles sighed and sat beside the bed. As he was thinking about what to do, the mattress quaked slightly. He raised his head to look and saw Alex staring at him.

“You are a damn lucky son of a bitch.” Alex hardly said. “Your ultimate, if it failed to create Void Element, you would be dead.”

“I know.” Miles smiled then his face fell. “I am sorry.”

“It is not your fault.” Alex coughed. “I was too arrogant. I thought no lightning could hurt me. But it was so strange. The queen’s power was sucking away my lightning to feed itself. I never felt like it before. It was also marvelous. It was a lot like my ultimate.”

“Don’t talk.” Miles warned but Alex wasn’t listening.

“I summoned my ultimate and had it suck the lightning around me. So we entered a stalemate. The attack was sucking my energy to feed itself. My ultimate was sucking the lightning from the attack to feed itself and I was sucking the ultimate’s excess energy to survive. If it wasn’t for that, I would be dead. Dead Miles! Dead, by lightning. That is ridiculous. Haha! Cough, Cough!”

“Easy buddy, easy.” Miles grabbed the glass of water by Alex’s bedside and helped him drink. “I am glad you are alive but don’t be reckless next time.”

“Don’t worry. I think I can find a way to copy that power. It is very similar to my ultimate, so it wasn’t all bad. I will invent this juicy attack that feeds on others’ energies. It will be an endless attack.” Alex said with zeal. Miles didn’t want to break his hopes, so he didn’t answer. Alex’s ultimate was only sucking lightning energy from the atmosphere and the process was extremely slow. The queen’s attack on the other hand was changing the natural energy to the lightning element to feed itself.

He doubted Alex could come up with a solution to that. It wasn’t easy to change the natural energy after all. He was lucky to be able to change his energy in the first place and by studying the queen's attack, he was able to copy it. But Alex couldn't do the same.