Chapter 7 · The Weight of Silence

"Don't... breathe..." Roxie choked out, her hands clawing at her throat.

Her face was turning a bruised shade of purple. The air hadn't just vanished; it had been ripped out of the room. I felt the sudden, violent vacuum tugging at my own lungs, a cold void that wanted to collapse my chest.

Then came the blade.

It didn't come from a door or a window. The air itself shimmered, condensing into a jagged, translucent spike of solidified gas. It shot toward my carotid artery with the speed of a railgun.

I didn't move. I didn't have to.

*Snap.*

I flicked my wrist, and the gravity in a three-inch radius around my neck spiked to ten thousand times the planetary norm. The gas-blade didn't just stop; it shattered. The impact sounded like a crystal vase hitting a concrete floor, sending microscopic shards of frozen air whistling past my ears.

"Cute," I muttered, my voice sounding distorted in the thin atmosphere. "But I've fought gods who could blink stars out of existence. You're just a glorified fog machine."

From the ceiling vent, a figure drifted down. He didn't fall; he flowed.