Shared eighty Nine days.

  "It was created by the first Legendary Queen,"

  Nine began without hesitation, her eyes gleaming with ancient knowledge.

  "According to the forbidden art, in a situation where there is no other way—when only two people remain to help each other—the only requirement is blood."

  Nine paused, as if recalling texts written in a forgotten language.

  The weight of these secrets seemed to press down on Nine, yet the voice remained steady, determined to share what few had ever known.

  "First Queen? Forget the First Queen," Amara interjected, her voice cutting through the air like a blade.

  "Blood? What exactly does that imply?"

  "It means the one you wish to save must be your blood relative,"

  Nine explained, Nine's upgraded voice carried the weight of ancient wisdom.

  "That's a relief," Amara breathed, her shoulders visibly relaxing as a flicker of hope crossed her face.

  "Aryan and I are blood relatives—though I don't know how things evolved on Aryan's side."

  She leaned forward, determination hardening her features as she pressed her palms against the cool surface before her.

  "So the requirement is met. What's the process? Let us begin immediately."

  “Of course you wouldn’t know,” Nine said quietly.

  “Only his mother could answer that—and she’s in a coma.”

  “Nine’, get to the point,” Amara pressed.

  "Fine. The most important thing you must understand is this, 'if you use this art, you will share your soul and your life to protect his'."

  "Wait—what?" Amara stammered, her fingers suddenly cold against her palms. The woman who hadn't feared death just days ago, felt her breath hitch in her throat, a chill racing down her spine.

  Her mind reeled with implications as she pressed her hand against her chest, feeling her quickening heartbeat.

  "That can't mean what I think it means," she whispered, her voice barely audible even to herself. The courage that had carried her through countless dangers seemed to evaporate like morning dew under a merciless sun.

  “It means exactly that,” Nine said.

  “Because you are blood relatives, you will be bound by a soul contract. Your remaining eighty-nine days to live will also become his eighty-nine days.”

  “No. I can’t risk Aryan’s life like that,” Amara said, her fists tightening.

  “He and his mother are the only blood family I have left.”

  "I know," Nine said softly.

  "That's why you're so desperate to protect them. You—once the cold-blooded woman who only believed in logic—now driven by raw emotion. The transformation is remarkable, almost beautiful in its contradiction."

  Nine studied her face, noting the subtle tremor in her hands that betrayed her fear.

  "But this is the only way, Amara. The only path to saving Aryan."

  Amara turned away, her shoulders tense. The weight of responsibility pressed down on her like a physical burden,

  remembering the countless times spent searching for answers.

  "What if I can't find the cure?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. The question hung between them, heavy with unspoken fears and possibilities.

  "You've already abandoned the search," Nine retorted with unmistakable irritation.

  "Now the entire universe must be your hunting ground—beyond planets, if necessary. And at this moment, it is absolutely necessary."

  Nine's upgraded voice reflects genuine concern.

  "Look, Amara. The loop is restarting at Aryan's side. You must hurry before his soul shatters into irretrievable fragments."

  Amara turned away, deliberately ignoring Nine's warning despite the cold fear settling in her stomach. She couldn't afford distraction now.

  Dark matter surged through her veins like liquid midnight, a familiar yet terrifying power that made her fingertips tingle with dangerous energy.

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  Her jaw clenched with determination as she forced her Three-Layered Skill to activate one final time, channeling every ounce of her strength into the desperate attempt to shatter the Void Nightmare that had ensnared them all.

  The air around her crackled with tension as reality itself seemed to bend to her will. Yet the void is still there. Intact.

  “Stop!” Nine shouted.

  “If you continue, none of us will survive!”

  “You should know better than anyone, Nine’,” Amara said through clenched teeth.

  “Even if we bind our souls, if we can’t escape this void, we’ll be delivered straight to its creator. And I suspect that the creator is Monarch Markus. The logic fits.”

  “You will have a better chance if you two are soul-bound,” Nine countered.

  “At least Aryan won’t be helpless. He will inherit your strength—he will rise directly to Rank Five.”

  “There will be backlash,” Amara snapped. “The pain alone could make someone want to die.”

  “Then you must survive,” Nine said.

  “Both of you. If you live, you can train him quickly using your multiplier effect. You remember it—he will inherit that too.”

  Their words collided in sharp bursts as fractures spread across the Dark Matter barrier. The temporal loop Amara had painstakingly made it pause, is now cracking before her eyes, its delicate structure giving way to chaos.

  "Amara!"

  Nine's voice cracked with desperation.

  "There's no time left."

  Nine seeing the cracking barrier.

  "If you don't act now," Nine continued,

  "he won't even survive until the teleportation completes." She stared at the fractures spreading through the darkness and finally clenched her fist.

  “Fine,” she said. “Tell me how.”

  "Summon both bodies," Nine said, voice cutting through the haze of the nightmare. "Your soul and body must cease to be separate entities if you wish to survive this."

  Amara closed her eyes, concentrating on the sensation of her physical form waiting beyond the boundaries of this dark realm.

  With a deep breath that seemed to pull at the very fabric of reality, she summoned her physical body from outside the nightmare.

  The air shimmered and crackled with energy as she pulled it—and Aryan—into the teleportation field.

  A rush of sensations flooded her consciousness as her soul merged fully with her body, the weight of her limbs, the steady rhythm of her heartbeat, the cold sweat beading on her forehead.

  For the first time in what felt like hours, she felt whole again, though the lingering effects of the poison still coursed through her veins like liquid fire.

  “Now dispel the poison using your Dark Matter,” Nine instructed.

  “It is dangerous, but your body can withstand it. Years of ruthless training prepared you for this.”

  Amara complied.

  “Now do the same for Aryan,” Nine continued.

  “Because you share blood, you can act on his behalf.” She did. Amara exhaled, her voice low and steady.

  “Now what? How do we complete the soul bind?”

  Status is soul bound.

  "Draw blood from your palm,"

  Nine commanded, the voice vibrating with a frequency that voiced the gravity of the ritual.

  The void nightmare around spun like a splinter of a broken mirror, shards of the nightmare flaking away to reveal absolute darkness. Nine continued,

  "Deep enough to draw your Life Essence, not just the physical blood."

  Amara gripped her dagger but hesitated, her eyes fixed on the distant, frozen figure on the cliff.

  "What about Aryan?"

  "He is still trapped in the loop you have paused," Nine replied, the calculation speed audible in the hurried tone.

  "Right. Logic dictates that since I have used my Dark Matter to forcibly stop the flow of time in Aryan's nightmare loop, the connection is already established," Amara reasoned, her mind working through the tactical geometry even as the world collapsed. "My blood... can it travel through the Dark Matter to reach him?"

  "Indeed. That is the only law that holds true here,"

  Nine confirmed.

  "The spatial distance between you is infinite—you cannot walk to him. But blood calls to blood. It will flow where you cannot step."

  "That explains why the demons doubled the moment I slew them,"

  Amara muttered, the realization clicking into place.

  "They were reacting to the bloodline resonance."

  Amara didn't hesitate any longer.

  She raised her obsidian dagger.

  The blade, usually thirsty for the essence of enemies, now hovered over her own skin.

  "I will not apologize for this, Aryan,"

  she whispered to the boy frozen miles away in the grey static.

  "If you have grievances about the cost, you can try to kill me yourself after we find a cure."

  Slash.

  She dragged the razor-sharp edge across her left palm.It wasn't just red fluid that welled up.

  In the physics-defying atmosphere of the Void Nightmare, her blood was heavy, carrying the density of a Rank Five Hunter.

  Amidst the crimson, streaks of blinding white light pulsed—her raw Life Essence. She ignored the stinging fire in her hand. With surgical precision, she thrust her palm forward, willing the offering toward her brother.

  The blood did not fall.Caught in the suspension of her Dark Matter, the droplets floated, then accelerated.

  The crimson liquid, laced with the white luminescence of her soul, shot across the grey abyss like a comet.

  It struck Aryan.

  The impact was silent but violent. The blood and essence seeped into his skin, glowing with a pure, blinding white light that illuminated the dark world.

  Aryan’s body, previously slack in the suspended animation of the loop, suddenly went rigid. His brows, which had smoothed out when the time stopped, now knitted together in a mask of concentration.

  "Now!"

  Nine shouted, abandoning all pretense of calm.

  "Command it!

  Use your Voice of Power! Say,

  'Press my blood and life essence into Aryan’s.'

  Force your Matter to recognize his.

  Force your souls to bind!"

  Amara gritted her teeth, sweat mingling with the blood on her skin.

  She shoved her hand toward him, channeling every ounce of her Platinum Rank will.

  "Bind,"

  she commanded, her voice resonating with ancient power as her eyes locked onto Aryan's rigid form.

  "In life and death, we are one."

  It didn't feel like healing. It felt like a head-on collision.

  Her Dark Matter, refined and volatile from the Greed Demon’s essence, rushed into Aryan’s fragile Rank One veins, like a tidal wave crashing into a narrow canyon.

  Aryan’s eyes snapped open. He saw nothing. His eyes rolled back into his head, showing only the whites, as a scream tore from his throat—a sound of raw, absolute agony that shook the nightmare to its foundation.

  “System Alert!”

  Sam’s voice exploded in both their heads, the sign that their soul bind is in progress and that it is working, glitching and distorted by the sudden intrusion.

  “Critical... Issue... Detected. A... blood... relation... blood relative is recognised.”The voice shifted, struggling to process the influx of high-level data.

  “Source identification is in progress. Source identified. Hunter class. Amara. Compatibility is checking... Bloodline match is confirmed. Initiating symbiosis protocol.”

  The grey world turned blinding white.Amara gasped, her back arching. She felt a metaphysical hook sink into her chest, dragging something vital out of her ribcage and stitching it violently into Aryan. Strength left her legs.

  Both of them collapsed to their knees simultaneously, mirroring each other across the void.Through her blurred vision, Amara watched a new holographic window materialize above Aryan’s glowing body.

  "The targeted subject is Aryan.Rank is adjusting to Rank five. Status is Soul Bound.Warning. Backlash is imminent. Life expectancy is updating……"

  The numbers on the screen flickered rapidly, a countdown speeding toward doom.60 Years... 40 Years... 10 Years…

  Then it stopped.Remaining life expectancy is 87 Days. 23 Hours. 59 Minutes

  "It is done,"

  Nine whispered, the voice sounding digitally exhausted.

  "The distance paradox is broken. You are the same entity now. Go to him. You can reach him now because of the soul bind, the nightmare can not stop you."

  Amara forced herself up. Her limbs felt heavy, drained of the vitality that was now keeping Aryan alive.

  She took a step.

  The miles that had separated them vanished. The infinite stretch of the nightmare compressed.

  With each difficult step she took, the space between them folded.

  One step. Two steps.

  She is here.

  With Aryan, now.

  She collapsed to her knees and seized Aryan, who had also crumpled from the excruciating pain.

  Drawing his luminescent, quivering form against her, Amara positioned herself back-to-back with him, their spines aligned like twin pillars in the chaos.

  "I've got you," she screamed out, her fingers digging into his arms as the earth beneath them disintegrated into a cascade of digital fragments.

  The warmth of the siblings knowing Aryan is safe for now, provided a strange comfort to each other, amid the dissolution of reality around them.The Void Nightmare shattered.The

  "Teleportation" that Monarch Markus had set as a trap is now finally voiced as the destination is nearing.

  But Markus hadn't calculated this step, he was not prepared for this step and error. The trap Markus laid for Amara and Aryan now working against him—the monarch Markus.

  The trap is not pulling two weak victims anymore. It is pulling a volatile, fused entity of infinite wealth and Platinum-grade violence.

  A robotic voice, cold and indifferent, echoed from the darkness of the teleportation tunnel.

  “Energy Overload is detected.”

  “Destination is Monarch Markus' Palace.”

  “Arrival Velocity and the destination is Lethal.”