Unbearable pain swarms my entire being and my head feels like it’s going to explode from the excruciating pain. For a moment, I feel like I’m going to black out.

  A gust of what feels like wind brushes up past me. I’m not exactly sure if it was wind, but that’s all I can assume seeing through the darkness. Or it may be because I can’t feel my eyelids. The pain suddenly vanishes and my whole body goes light and cold. I think I can open my eyes now, I can feel them a bit more, but I still can’t see anything. Quite literally what I’m seeing is total darkness, nothing more, nothing less. Well, it can’t be anything else if it’s to- Anyways, there should be something around here if I felt something coming from under me, but I still can’t see even though my eyes are definitely ope-

  An even colder sensation hits me. Oh fuck, I can’t feel my body. Then what the hell did I feel just now? I try talking, but my mouth won’t open, or maybe I can’t feel it open. Then what was that I felt at first? This is confusing as hell. It’s likely my brain was recreating the sensation because I thought I could move and my brain expected as such making a phantom sensatio- I’m overthinking this, calm down. Think.

  My senses trip and I feel something to my back. Ok, so there’s something behind me now, but that might as well be my brain playing tricks on me, but if that is an actual sensation, I now have my rotational bearings set. Another sensation occurs in front of me, and I can see a shining light in white.

  So that wasn’t fake. At least I know I can see now, even though it’s pitch black here, But Where Am I.

  As the thought crosses my mind, more lights start appearing followed by a sensation. I admit their getting a bit overwhelming for my senses but it’s not too bad.

  Even more lights start appearing, and it feels like pins are stabbing against my body; But now, I can feel my body for once. I can perceive my hands, body and nearly everything. I can also tell air moving around me and a small sensation of falling, but that’s it. I become more mobile with every second, and I finally feel my face and my eye’s aren’t open? What th-

  The second the realization struck, my eye’s jolt open…

  “Ok what the actual fuck”

  I'm suddenly in the middle of space with a supermassive black hole in front of me with an accretion disc 3 times the size of itself. Shiver’s run down my spine as the enormously spinning celestial object fills my vision, I am so fucked. I don’t realistically have enough time to even think or make a decision. I have so many questions, like how I can breathe right now, but I’ll keep those for later.

  I take a deep breath in and relax even though I’m falling into the literal description of a Void. A pulsation passes through me and, is that mana? My heart thumps against my chest, but I just barely manage to cancel the sound off. My fear flatlines, but it doesn’t fully dissipate. I’ve been through many scenarios, yet nothing like this.

  One more pulsation hits, and it passes right through my soul core; Except this time, my earlier revelation sets in. Wait a minute, This changes things, I don’t have any mana in my allocate right now and the mana around me is too raw for me to convert into a useful form, but If I’m able to capture that wave, I might just be able to create enough of a defense field to keep me alive through the blackhole; Since escape is impossible right now, I’ll have to keep myself alive in at least this way for now.

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  Another wave passes through me and now I’m sure, it’s mana. I still have all my skills since their all soul-bound, so I should be able to manage something here.

  If I’m not wrong, I saw those lights because of my Awareness skill or maybe because I have a technique to see traces of mana. Either way I have access to my skills.

  My heart is about to arrest from the pressure I’m under, but if I don’t act now, I might as well be dead.

  So how would I capture the wave?

  Thoughts cloud my mind and I can’t think of anything.

  “Shit I can’t think properly.”

  I really am dumb for trying out that damn circle without doing any proper testing. I fucked up bad. On top of that there’s Kida..

  Wait where is she… We should’ve ended up here together if we both were in the circle; There’s no way in hell the circle would’ve reacted differently for her. I even covered her body and made contact with her which would’ve made the circle interpret us as one singular entity. That’s the same logic for teleportation circles, there’s no way that this would be an exception, or would it?

  No no, that can’t be though, sure the circle was a bit advanced compared to teleportation circles, but it wasn’t that complex of a circle to have that many hidden conditions I didn’t account for… or did it?

  My brain’s going to fry over from this. Some shit just has to fucking happen, doesn’t it. Just kill me already I guess.

  A wave faster than before passes through me as the frequency increases. Ok calm the fuck down. If fate hates me this much, I might as well figure out a different path. I’ve worked tirelessly to get to this point and I’m not going screw this up.

  Minutes pass as space warps around me due to the gravity of the blackhole, and an idea pops up and I slow my breathing. My eyes shut as I spread my arms out facing the endless void in front of me. Releasing the knot of a breath that was stuck in my throat,

  I chant,

  “Steady Awareness”

  The heat of the moment made me acquire a new skill. According to Analysis it runs off any form of mana, so putting it simply, this skill was created using the raw mana around me. Somehow as a prerequisite to this skill, I got the ability to convert mana more efficiently, mana transfer, and some other skills going by Creation, Separation and Merge. Gotta say, pretty fucking useful.

  I clearly see another wave of mana incoming towards me. With my arms still stretched out, I point out my index finger and twirl them in a spiral. A white cloud swirls around and flows around my finger. The foggy cloud flows behind me like a tide and continues around my other hand. With the wave and me having a distance of nearly two-kilometers left, I curl the my fists and the cloud merges into a white glowing string and spreads out fast as it cover’s nearly 200 meter’s worth of distance with the span of a one and a half seconds.

  The wave of mana finally makes contact with me and pauses in its tracks as it hits the strings. I can feel the mana slowly entering me, but the mana purity is too much for my core to handle and I can feel me losing my grip. This is bad, my core will fire up and there goes my Actual soul. I have to do something now!

  My short-term memory returns to me and I freeze over as I realize I could’ve just converted the raw mana into a form I can use. Well’s that’s.. I have no words.

  The last bit of pure mana hits my core as I absorb all of it in. At least I can do a much more effective skill execution now. My fall fastens and activate CrimsonBloom along with Soul’s Guard and I brace myself. Magic Circles appear underneath me leading to the blackhole, and some fall in, breaking the rules I used to believe.

  I pass through the circles, and my defense boosts as both skills trigger.

  Space warps as I’m pulled into the black hole and I feel like my body’s getting ripped apart even though I look intact. No skills trigger, No mana flows and the only sensation I have is pure pain. 10 excruciating seconds pass, or what I assume how long it’s been, and I blackout.