Chapter 72 – The Collapse

Trey’s pupils dilated, his arms shot out to envelop Noah in front of him, his shield following close behind, yet, before either could fully reach Noah, an overwhelming burst of force erupted from Levi.

Like a tsunami, the crushing pressure exploded in all directions, directly pulverizing Trey’s shield that was yet to solidify fully.

As if hit by a truck, Noah and Trey barreled back, slamming heavily into the bullet-proof glass of the Magcart behind them. Trey, who received the brunt of the blow, coughed up blood and fainted on the spot. Noah fared comparatively better; he had the air knocked out of his chest, feeling as if he had been punched straight in the gut; however, though dazed, he retained his awareness.

The uncontrollable flow of force gushed out of Levi, rapidly swallowing the entire station. The street lamp posts deformed out of shape with a metallic screech. The decorative trees bent away from Levi, the grass around them flattening as if something invisible had stepped on it. The less resilient bushes were directly uprooted, rolling on the marble floor like tumbleweeds.

The countless passersby got knocked off their feet, flying and embedding themselves into the nearest wall like cannonballs. With the nearly suffocating pressure pressing down on their chests, not a single person managed to let out a scream. There was only a cacophony of whimpers, grunts, and muffled sobs.

Fynn was the luckiest person on the scene. Since he had just gotten up from his seat in the Magcart, he only fell back into it. Seeing Noah’s and Trey’s pale faces, he attempted to get up and help. However, the gravity-like pressure pressed him back down.

He gritted his teeth, craned his neck to look at the building where the projectile had come from, and used the remainder of the air in his chest cavity to voice-dial 101.

Meanwhile, Noah’s head was spinning. He, half-suspended by the pressure and sandwiching Trey’s motionless form between himself and the wall, shook his head left and right, but couldn’t distinguish up from down. Garbage cans, benches, and street light poles creaked mournfully, but the only thing Noah could hear was buzzing in his ears.

His blurred eyes finally focused on Levi’s hunched figure standing outside the Magcart, mere meters in front of him. On the marble ground around him, hair-thin fissures slowly spread out like a spider web.

“Hurry and soothe him!” Blackie’s panicked voice reverberated inside Noah’s head, “The drug dosage is too much! His mind is starting to collapse!”

Mind…collapsing? At the moment when Noah’s mind registered the thought, his blood ran cold and his black pupils shrunk until they were barely visible among the bright amber.

His heart stopped, the silence deafening.

And then, a long moment later, the still heart finally moved. It let out a powerful thud that resonated through his body like thunder and started to gallop like a pack of wild horses, painfully thrashing against his ribcage.

At that moment, the fog in Noah’s mind lifted. His thoughts converged, running through his head with unprecedented clarity. All superfluous thoughts left him as every fiber of his consciousness devoted itself only to the silent man in front of him.

Soothing power, the likes of which he had never known himself capable of, rushed out of Noah with wild abandon. It drained out of him like water from a cracked pot with no regard to consequences to himself, every drop converging on the mass of chaos that was Astar Levi.

Noah was familiar with Levi’s mental power. The mental power that felt close to him, the mental power that put up no resistance to Noah’s soothing, the mental power that responded to Noah’s like a puppy seeing its owner.

But that mental power Noah was used to was no longer behaving how it was supposed to.

It was overbearing and brutal, thrashing around recklessly as if fighting against a terrible invader.

No! Noah’s heart sped up. It WAS fighting against an invader!

There was something foreign mixed within Levi’s mental power wreaking havoc inside of him!

It stimulated Levi’s mental power into a frenzy and fought back against his soothing.

It took mere seconds for Noah to understand both the problem and the solution. A high amount of foreign mental power had been injected into Levi. His mental power and the foreign mental power mutually rejected each other, causing a violent and intense upheaval inside Levi.

Not only was Levi completely unable to control his own power outbreak, but he wasn’t even conscious! The shock of the invasion had made his mind shut down!

Noah’s soothing was super-effective. It immediately stopped Levi’s mental state from deteriorating further and enhanced the speed at which the opposing mental power was consumed. Noah only needed to persist in his efforts, and eventually, the foreign mental power would be consumed. At that point, even the weakest soothing would be able to fix Levi’s disordered mental power, albeit slowly.

The problem was that the injected mental power was too high in quantity! The speed at which it was consumed wasn’t fast enough! Levi’s Enforcer powers were still running rampant and making it difficult to breathe. It felt as if there was a heavy weight on top of his chest, as if the very air was too heavy, as if he was trying to swim deep underwater.

If he couldn’t consume the foreign mental power fast enough, he’d end up fainting due to the lack of oxygen!

He couldn’t faint! There wasn’t a single other Soother in Concordia capable of soothing Levi’s current condition! If he fainted, not only would everyone present suffocate, but even if the peacekeepers made it in time, they would have no choice but to sacrifice one Levi for the good of many!

Noah gritted his teeth and pushed himself to the brink of collapse. He had to hurry! His soothing needed to be stronger!

Levi, who had been motionless before, stirred, and his power started to fluctuate. The pressure would decrease, then increase, and then decrease again.

Noah pushed himself against Trey, back on his feet. He took advantage of the brief periods in which the pressure lessened to take a step towards Levi.

That one grueling step took everything he had.

Yet, he was still too far away!

Black spots danced in front of Noah’s eyes.

His lungs couldn’t expand to take in air.

He couldn’t hold on for much longer.

But Levi needed him.

“Help. Me.” Noah had no air left in his lungs to speak, but Blackie understood.

Noah didn’t know what Blackie did, but suddenly, a jolt of power rushed through his veins.

His body that had exhausted all its strength for that one step managed to take another step.

Then another. And another.

The closer he got to Levi, the more his bones creaked, the slower his steps.

But he kept walking, struggling to bridge those few steps in between them.

He thought he felt Levi move, but he could no longer see him. His vision had long turned dark.

He could only use the pressure to pinpoint the position of its source.

Mere moments before his spasming muscles gave out, Noah used the last vestiges of his strength to wrap his arms around Levi, entangling himself around him like an octopus.

He let out one final burst of intense soothing.

Before he could even confirm whether that last bit was enough to win the mental fight, before his body could even hit the ground, Noah had already lost consciousness.