---
He felt instant agony all over his body. The pain hit like a freight train, no, a collapsing galaxy, a storm of crushing pressure and tearing force.
Reality folded inward, then exploded outward in kaleidoscopic pulses as the dimensional seam swallowed them.
Kai gritted his teeth as the system's last warning echoed like thunder through his mind.
[Warning! Turbulence Imminent.]
[Warning! Turbulence Imminent.]
[Warning! Turbulence Imminent.]
[Warning: Dimensional Flux is Unstable. Space is folding at unpredictable intervals.]
Every fiber of his Monarch frame shrieked, his exoskeleton flexing and hardening reflexively.
He twisted his arms and shielded Azhara, who was latched onto his back like a leech. A desperate, unconscious, but unrelenting.
Her arms clung around his torso. Her cheek pressed between his shoulder bones. Her legs had wrapped around his waist, her claws digging into the ridges of his armor like body. She was breathing… barely.
