197 Eclipse (1/2)

Li, his arm raised towards the sky, the fusion energy compacted into his hand, unleashed the killing blow.

”[Fusionboost: Moonbeam]”

A pillar of orange light, so bright that it was almost white, shot upwards from his hand. The light pierced through the dark smog, punching straight through the dome of smoky darkness above.

It was as if the sun itself had been unleashed into the midst of night, and when that light dimmed as the pillar faded away, the smoke in the skies completely parted away. The smog of the smoke had gathered so strongly that it was hard to even remember that it was, in fact, day. But in an instant, night became day, the azure blue skies and golden sun of Soleil revealing themselves.

For what must have been the first time in nearly fifty years, natural sunlight fell onto the Chattering Woods.

But day broke for only a moment.

White smoke so hot that it warped the air shimmered from Li's hand as the fusion energy waned, but now that the pillar of energy had been released, he no longer felt the burning damage of the fusion seed within him.

In fact, he could feel the seed dying, crumbling away into golden specks now that it had exhausted itself.

All that energy, so potent that it could break apart even Li's form, had gathered into a celestial event.

As the seed crumbled apart, the bright sun of Soleil began to darken. From one end to another, darkness began to creep over the sun. Everything began once more to darken, but not with the all-consuming, devouring darkness of the smog, but instead with the faint, natural dark of night.

Or, more specifically, the dark of a solar eclipse as the moon covered the sun.

The Dark beast arm by now had only begun to regenerate its hand, but it suddenly froze. It looked up, eyes growing on its wrist as they beheld the eclipse. It looked at the moon, visible for the first time since the darkness of the smog had covered the lake, and it seemed to be spellbound, the many eyes widening in surprise.

Li brought his hand down, towards the dark beast creature, and the moonbeam fired.

Unlike regular moonbeams that came from his own body, this one instead came directly from the moon. From the heavens, it looked like divine judgement was laid down, a great pillar of silvery white light beaming down onto the amalgamation.

The amalgamation did not shriek or scream. Instead, as the moonlight illuminated its body, rapidly burning and disintegrating it, it seemed almost to try reaching out to gently grasp at the moon. It closed its eyes in content, the purifying moonlight reducing its immense stature to rapidly dwindling nothingness.

Li exhaled as he brought himself down to the ground with his wings. The solar eclipse ended, cutting off the moonbeam, and as the moon slid away from the sun, light came back to the world, and with it, bursts of color. He saw as grass began to grow around the now cleansed soil. The corrupted trees were renewed with pure life, their blackened leaves slowly becoming greener.

With the dark beast rot gone, the forest was returning back to its natural state.

Li smiled, feeling untwisted life grow unfettered around him.

Now, there was only the matter of linking to the heart of the forest here. Though purified now, it would still have a record of the dark energies that once flowed through it. A scar that he could look at and, hopefully, use to attune with his eldritch side.

”It's…over?”

Li turned around to see the heroines emerging from the forest.

Faye had Launcelot's unconscious form around her back while Ava and Celeste were looking around, astounded at the changes in the forest not only in appearance, but in presence as well: gone was the oppressive feeling of foreboding, giving way to the gentle kind of stillness that was familiar to forests.