Arthur's world became a blur of motion as he shot forward at over ten times the speed of sound, straight down through Wovan's portal beneath his feet, and then through Mysha’s, where his trajectory was altered and made longitudinal. Arthur didn’t so much as see what happened as he did feel it.All his momentum, speed that his enhanced brain could hardly perceive, abruptly came to a stop. There was no gradual slowdown, no deceleration to speak of whatsoever. One moment, Arthur had been in motion, and the next instant, he was stationary. All his momentum had to go somewhere, though. His soul spear broke first, disintegrated really, and then all that force reached his feet.Everything below his hips simply ceased to exist, bones, flesh and tissue exploding into nothingness as the energy equivalent to a small nuclear bomb rushed through his body. Arthur’s intestines popped like overfilled balloons, his ribcage crumbling like dead wood under an axe. His heart stopped beating, quite an apt response to over 90% of it being destroyed. The only part of him to survive the impact was his enhanced skull and spine. It was the most damage Arthur had ever taken, enough that he’d be dead in the next few seconds if he didn’t do something fast. There was no time for conscious thought, no time for careful ether manipulation. Arthur let his healing green flames wash over him just as the poisonous energy from his attack exploded outward.Surprisingly, Arthur wasn’t sent flying backwards. Instead, he was suspended in place as the energies from his own attack ravaged his body once again. Arthur was caught in a vicious loop, where poisonous ether fuelled his skeleton, which in turn fuelled his healing and kept him stubbornly clinging to life.Two minutes later, the deadly ether storm finally subsided enough for Arthur’s eyes to fully regrow. Whatever strange magic had held his body aloft left, and he dropped to the ground with a dull thump. Arthur was (...)