The moment the suppressor cuff shattered, time seemed to fracture.
Cold metal shards burned his wrist, a sharp sting instantly drowned by the torrent unleashed within! Alan felt like a volcano plug blasted open after eons of pressure! The Harmony power—suppressed, judged, confined—exploded free like a slumbering dragon awoken! It surged through him, a flood of warmth and vital force, potent and undeniable!
This power was no longer the elusive tingling, the chaotic thrashing in training, the suffocating weight under the suppressor. It was clear, vast, and… obedient! He was its riverbed; his will, its current. A profound sense of control bloomed with the exhilarating release.
Yet, freedom did not bring peace. It was the ultimate provocation.
"SKREEEEE—!!!"
The black book convulsed, its gilt tooling writhing like living things! A denser, more defined mass of darkness tore free! No longer vague energy, it coalesced into a twisted, nightmarish form—a stretched-smoke silhouette with a gaping maw of silent fury where a head should be, filled with churning malice, agony, and freezing despair! The Wraith manifested!
It abandoned the suppression field, the flying books. All its concentrated, soul-freezing power focused into a single, annihilating Psychic Screech! Like poisoned ice daggers forged of pure hatred, it tore through space, aimed unerringly at Alan—powerful, unshielded, and radiating that abhorrent warmth!
This attack eclipsed the previous psychic wave. It was the Wraith's core, its reason for being, condensed into oblivion for this one target!
"ALAN! MOVE!" Lena's shout held raw terror! Still reeling, blood at her lip, she saw the death blow aimed at Alan. She willed herself to act, to intercept, but her body was numb from the earlier hit, the distance too great! Her rune-baton flickered weakly, useless!
Fenrir saw it too. Amber eyes widened with primal fear. The sheer psychic annihilation struck a chord of soul-deep dread in the beast. He took an involuntary step back, a low, uneasy whine escaping his throat.
It's over. On Command's screens, Alan's vitals and Anima readings must be spiking into critical red. Thorne's cold lenses likely already framed the verdict: Asset loss due to catastrophic loss of control.
The icy shadow of death, saturated with despair, enveloped Alan.
Yet, in that sliver of time before the screech shredded his soul, Alan did the unthinkable.
He didn't cower.
He didn't try to block the annihilating force.
He didn't even unleash an instinctive "silence field" like at the gallery.
He… relaxed.
Under the shadow of death, at the peak of his power's eruption, Alan's mind achieved a strange clarity. Grandfather's gentle teachings echoed, cutting through the chaos: "…Anima is water. Flow with it. Force cannot hold; softness cannot guard. Harmony lies in channeling, not damming…" The gallery had been instinct. Now, facing death and riding the wave of liberation, understanding crystallized!
Fight? Mutual destruction! Like damming a tsunami!
Suppress? He knew its agony!
Then… accept! Channel! Like Grandfather's needles guiding blocked energy, like balancing conflicting herbs!
Instinct guided thought! Alan stopped trying to control the surging power. He became a conduit, a vessel! He spread his arms slightly—not in defense, but in embrace! His will guided the warm, vital, harmonious energy within him, not into a shield, but into an intangible, gentle current—flowing towards the oncoming torrent of pure negative psychic force!
Not collision! Contact! Merging!
Huuuuum—!!!
The expected cataclysm didn't happen!
Time stretched!
As the warm, harmonious current met the Wraith's concentrated, icy screech, an impossible scene unfolded!
Like a white-hot brand plunged into snow!
Like a clear stream meeting fetid mud!
The violent, chaotic, destructive black psychic energy… began to dissolve! Not shattered, not neutralized, but as if encountering its natural solvent and purifier! Malice melted like frost under a benevolent sun, hissing softly as it faded and disintegrated! The sharp agony, the freezing despair, the crushing isolation—all were enveloped, soothed, unraveled by the gentle warmth!
The Wraith's silent scream choked off! Its shadowy form convulsed violently! Its edges frayed, dissipated! The soul-freezing screech faltered, replaced by broken, confused whimpers of bewilderment!
"Wh… what…?" An impossibly faint, ancient, pain-filled voice, like a whisper from beyond, drifted from the fading shadow, thick with disbelief and confusion.
Alan's eyes were squeezed shut, brow furrowed, sweat beading his forehead. His muscles trembled under immense psychic strain. Guiding the Harmony power to touch, to unravel the Wraith's fury was like combing a tangle of razor blades and venom with bare hands! Each contact brought searing mental pain and icy corrosion! But he held on, his will a master helmsman, guiding the warm current to gently penetrate, envelop, and smooth the chaotic nodes, teasing apart the strands of malice, pain, and despair.
The struggle was titanic, like navigating a storm in a paper boat. His internal reserves poured out, draining rapidly. Yet, he felt it—the dark core thinning, calming. The biting cold, the suffocating despair, receded like an ebbing tide!
Finally!
As the last stubborn thread of black malice dissolved under the persistent warmth, the shadowy mass shuddered violently! Its form shifted utterly!
The nightmarish smoke vanished.
In its place stood a translucent figure—an elderly man in worn but neat 19th-century scholar's robes. White hair, gold-rimmed spectacles, an air of profound weariness and deep confusion clouded his bookish face. He looked down at his ghostly hands, then around the wrecked reading room. His gaze settled on the scattered tomes, finally resting on the now-ordinary black book that had anchored him. A long sigh, heavy with infinite regret and profound release, escaped his insubstantial form.
"My… books… knowledge…" the scholar's phantom murmured, his voice a wisp of smoke. His eyes swept over Lena, poised but stunned; over Fenrir, utterly bewildered; and finally settled on Alan, eyes closed, body limned in a soft, pearlescent glow. There was no hatred in that gaze, only profound gratitude and the peace of final release.
The phantom inclined its head slightly towards Alan, a final, gentlemanly gesture of thanks. Then, like mist pierced by dawn light, it rapidly faded, dissolving into countless shimmering motes of pale light that drifted silently, merging with the library's paper-scented air.
Thump.
The black book slid off the table, hitting the floor, its gilt tooling now dull and lifeless. The biting cold vanished as if sunlit. The mist dissipated. The force field dissolved. The scattered books lay still. The sconces burned steadily, illuminating a space reclaimed by quietude.
Silence.
A profound, absolute silence fell over Reading Room D.
Only Alan's ragged breathing and the blinking yellow light (indicating severe energy depletion) on his chest monitor disturbed it.
Lena stood frozen, her rune-baton hanging loosely, its glow extinguished. Her ice-blue eyes were locked on Alan, wide with shock, disbelief, and a deeply buried, unsettling flicker of awe. She had witnessed the soul-freezing screech *melt* before a tide of warmth. She had seen the nightmare Wraith become a lost scholar and find peace! This defied every tenet of Anima combat! This wasn't destruction or binding. This was… purification? Release?
Fenrir looked petrified. His amber eyes were wide saucers, jaw slack, fangs exposed, face a mask of bestial incomprehension and… a nascent, grudging respect. That furious Wraith, impervious to his claws, had been… sent away by this weak human pup? Using a method so… gentle? He made a low, confused rumble deep in his chest, his aggressive stance unconsciously relaxing.
The pounding on the door had ceased, leaving only the heavy quiet.
Alan slowly opened his eyes. He felt hollowed out, weak, legs trembling. The burns on his wrist throbbed, his head felt like cracked stone. He ignored it. He looked first where the Wraith had vanished, then at the innocuous book on the floor, finally meeting the gazes of Lena and Fenrir.
He saw the frozen shock in Lena's eyes.
He saw the bewildered incomprehension on Fenrir's face.
He had done it? He had truly… harmonized the Wraith? Not destroyed it, but… released it? A complex wave of emotion hit him—post-battle exhaustion, relief at surviving the edge of control, a fragile spark of triumph at wielding his power, and a deep pang of sorrow for the lost scholar.
He opened his mouth, but only a hoarse croak emerged.
London Wardens Headquarters, Command Nexus.
The massive main screen displayed split views:
The restored calm of Reading Room D.
Alan, exhausted and drained.
Close-ups of Lena and Fenrir, faces etched with shock.
And… the playback of the brief, impossibly clear energy signature captured by high-sensitivity sensors during the contact—a warm white current, like deft fingers, gently unraveling and pacifying the tangled black storm of hostile energy.
The Nexus was utterly silent. Technicians stared, slack-jawed. The assessment team, including Master Arnold, gaped at the screen, faces a mixture of academic fervor and shattered paradigms.
Oliver Thorne stood on his private observation platform, back to the screens. He held a cup of long-cold tea, knuckles white. Behind his lenses, eyes as deep and dark as the abyss reflected Alan's weary form and the miraculous energy signature.
His face was an impassive mask. No shock. No approval. No anger. Only an unfathomable, light-devouring… depth. It was the look of a collector appraising a unique artifact revealing its true worth, or a strategist assessing a variable of incalculable potential, newly escaped its cage.
He slowly raised the cold tea to his lips and took a small sip. His hand was steady. Perfectly steady.
The screen's light reflected off his cold lenses as two points of impenetrable, calculating ice.