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The Devourers swirled with increasing fervor. They were nearing their target. Vanderberk needed to keep enough distance from them so that they didn't turn on him, but he also had to stay close enough to either see or sense the opponent when they finally revealed it for him.

When they began lunging, he knew that was the cue. He readied one of his most powerful techniques, the helium of his body beginning to bristle like needles with anticipation.

Before he could finally pinpoint where to attack, however, a flash of light cut through the sky, so bright and massive that it seemed to be rending the entirety of the Living Inferno in two.

The beam fell upon the collective of Devourers, making them howl and try to wriggle away--but they were stuck fast, as if being held in place by the light.

And then they began to change.

From their shifting forms that were little more than vague shapes and body parts... into something crystalline. And glowing, as if having absorbed the light into themselves. Legs and bodies became more obvious, more stable. Heads, too. Even faces, though they still did not look human.

And wings. Great crystal wings emerged from their backs.

Vanderberk looked on in disbelief.

The changed Devourers, if they could even be called that anymore, turned on the unchanged ones. They started slashing through them with their rocky, crystalline bodies--with claws and wings and horns and beaks. And their sunken eyes came alive with even more light, shining brilliantly as luminous boxes appeared around the unchanged Devourers, imprisoning them en masse.

Vanderberk was stunned on two fronts. The first because he had never seen something like this before, and the second because he could feel that the Living Inferno itself was shaken. Its desire was always made known to him, and right now, its desire was to flee. To panic.

And yet it was also asking him for permission. Never had the Inferno felt more timid. It was like it was hoping he would protect it. Rescue it, even.

Vanderberk shook the Inferno's fear off. He couldn't let it infect him. And he attacked.

The crystal Devourers had to be subdued. That much was obvious. In an instant, he imprisoned them with pressurized helium coatings. With their movements sealed, they would be much easier to deal with--but apparently not neutralized.

Their eyes still glowed--and they all turned toward him at once.