"Something's happening outside..." Said the girl.
Short Ochre brown hair, brown eyes with long black horns dyed red around the top sticking out of her head.
A small bandage rested over the top of her small nose and in terms of height, she was the shortest of the group, standing at a little under 155 cm in terms of height.
But her sense of hearing on the other hand... It excelled in comparison to all others.
"What's wrong?" The Duke asked as he came to a stop.
They were currently lost in one of the Airship's vast halls. The group of five horned ones had successfully taken out all the Kessho's they'd encountered.
The invasion had gone successful as of far and the Duke couldn't feel the presence of any other Kessho's around so he wasn't sure as to why she stopped her.
"Did you hear something?"
She gave a quick nod, cold sweat flowed down her face.
"Something's moving around outside... It sounds like... Air being dragged and pulled around. I can't tell based on the sound only but it sounds bad...!"
"We're inside, that's out there. Why should that matter?" The other horned one spoke.
Short blonde hair, with dark yellow eyes black horns sticking out of her head. The top half of the horns were red, she too was a noble, and a rather masculine one at that.
Despite her looks, she has more of a tomboy personality than any other.
She slammed her gauntlets together with a grin. "All we should worry about is killing all the bastards in here."
"That's because... It's getting closer! The sound of air being sucked in... It's- Everyone step away from the wall!
The five of their faces grew pale as the sound of gears crunching grew louder.
In an instant, the wall beside them cracked open from all the pressure.
"WHA-" The blonde haired girl was taken by surprise whilst simultaneously jumping away.
Despite doing so, she wasn't able to escape the vacuum's pressure and pull as it quickly sucked both her and the other four out.
Fortunately, they all came to a stop mid-air as a mysterious force caught them.
[Invisible Hands.]
They could feel it, the Duke's large invisible arms wrapped around them, whilst they all floated outside.
But neither of them had the opportunity to think about it, they were all distracted by the gigantic expanding black hole ahead of them.
The few remaining tall buildings were collapsing, pieces of debris were spinning around in the air before being sucked into the large dark sphere.
Just looking at the sphere made them feel like they were burning their eyes but they found it impossible to look away.
All the colours had completely left the city, countless objects were being sucked into it as it expanded.
They who were on the further Airship away, could only watch as the black hole tore apart the Airships around, causing an even greater destruction.
The five who were barely resisting the pull thanks to the Duke's arms were running out of time, his Arms which were holding onto pieces of ship were slowly losing their grip.
"What the fuck is that!?" The Duke asked, as he looked around.
"That sphere... What is-" The vacuum over them increased, causing a few horned ones to fly in the direction of the large black hole which had manifested, whilst interrupting them in the process.
"S-Someone G-Grab my hand, pl-"
Before they could grab his hand, he was dragged away by the strong pulling force, disappearing into the distance in seconds.
Ruby who watched her comrades and ships being pulled in by the black hole grew increasingly more nervous.
She was managing thanks to Charlotte's manipulation of the air current but there was no telling how much longer Charlotte would be able to last.
"Damn it... It screwed over the enemy's forces even more, I doubt they'll be able to attack now, but at this rate..."
"If we don't stop that from growing, it's going to consume all of us!" She claimed.
Whilst barely holding on, she racked her brain hoping to come up with a suitable solution but was coming up empty handed.
[Blood Manipulation...]
She slashed her shoulder creating a small cut for blood to flow out.
[Crimson Butterflies.]
The blood which poured out took the shape of butterflies which were dragged towards the black hole.
It was little but she wanted to get a better view of the situation and this was the only way she could do so without approaching it.
"Charlotte... Gather up the other nobles, the barrier was destroyed so we'll have to link our ships and abilities together to lock everyone in place or retreat so they don't get dragged off."
Charlotte who heard this, nodded before looking over at the ships with the nobles.
The nobles were holding off fine, but the commoners were having a hard time.
"The marquess's ability [Link] will be really useful in this situation. Stay here, I'll be back."
Charlotte's figure vanished a split second leaving behind a trail of wind after saying such.
"Auroraaaaaaaa!" Violet cried out. "I'm sorryyyyy!!!" She continued.
"W-Why are you crying violet!?" Aurora replied, both confused and frightened.
The two were currently levitating in the air, slowly flying away from the black hole.
Its pull was unfortunately too strong, causing them to move only a few centimetres with every second.
With the speed of that it was expanding at, it would without a doubt consume them.
Violet was doing her all but she couldn't move any faster.
"I know this isn't the right time... But since we're going to die anyway, I figured I should just tell you... I'm sorry..."
"Just say it!!" Said Aurora as she too began to tear up. "And we're not going to die!"
Violet who had her arms wrapped around Aurora tightened her grip and said. "I... I slept with Gray..."
Aurora's eyes widened and her ears twitched as she barely managed to hear it.
Violet continued to talk but msot of what she was saying could barely be made out by Aurora due to the Black hole's exceedingly large size.
Within just minutes since it's manifestation it's diameter had grown to a total of one hundred meters.
The space around it was getting bent and distorted. The sound waves no longer had a medium to travel forcing any noise to vanish.
They couldn't hear anything nor could they breathe.
instead, they could feel their skins burning and heart pounding from all the adrenaline.
Violet was putting her all into flying them away, their bodies were coated in a purple aura and veins were bulging out of her forehead from all the pressure she was using.
But even all that pressure wasn't enough to escape the Black hole's gravitational pull.
Had she not been exhausted from fighting all the Kessho's previously, she may have had a bigger chance at escaping.
Aurora was also too exhausted to use her powers and it was taking her all just to block the incoming flying objects and debris while Violet focused on escaping.
The situation couldn't have been any worst.
"Ahh... Fuck..." Gray cursed whilst he slowly got up.
The moment he did, his body was dragged in towards the large black sphere before him.
[Pause Level ???: Incomplete Time Stop.]
[Update: Level ??? Identified as Level Four.]
[SKILL: PAUSE LEVEL UP!]
Gray lowered one brow in a frown while raising the other.
[Skills]
[Pause Level 4: Incomplete Time stop.]
He was suspended in the air, time had come to a stop once again.
Despite the urgency of the situation, he couldn't help but find himself questioning what just happened.
"So, let me get this straight... Incomplete Time stop, the skill I used without the help of the system allowed pause to level up?"
[Affirmative.]
[It is more of a process of the system recognising the ability as a level up.]
"Then I can level up skills without converging with an ability orb as long as I use it enough times and unlock features of it without the System's help?"
[...Affirmative.]
With time still stopped, Gray couldn't help but scratch the back of his head.
'A lot of confusing things have been happening recently... It's getting hard to keep track... Why can't you just summarize it all at once system?'
[...I am adapting to the chances alongside you.]
"...Right.."
Gray looked over at the large black mass ahead of him.
He had stopped time and fortunately since there wasn't another one, it too had frozen just as expected.
"Activate the second stage again... It's best to deal with this before it gets any more out of hand. Also buy a very strong potion after so I can heal myself."
[Mark Of The King Second Stage: Activating...]
The puzzle quickly manifested and solved itself in front of Gray's forehead before a golden halo emerged and surroudned it.
Strange runic patterns ran down his face and neck just like before.
Gray's figure which was once suspended was now heading right towards the black hole as he had leapt off a paused platform towards it.
'It sucks that I have to enter the second stage and only have a minute... I'm starting to get trauma from the after pain.'
"But it's fine... As long as I can finally rest once all of this is over..."
Gray's eyes flashed open wide, he stretched his arm out towards the frozen black hole.
[Pause.]
