In particr, his most vulnerable areas, like his eyes, nose and mouth were the most prone to this scalding. Thankfully, Alex raised his hand to protect his nose and mouth before it managed to reach them, but his eyes werepletely open to it, and his eyelids offered little to no protection.


    As one of the few areas of his body where his armour offered no protection, this was quite a devastating result for Alex.


    It left him temporarily blind. If not for his spatial perception, he would bepletely unable to detect any of the Lux''s iing movements.


    The Lux didn''t disappoint.


    It appeared in front of him in nearly an instant, with its speed far outshining Alex''s own. Alex barely managed to raise his sword in time to block the downward strike it had prepared for him, and the sheer force of the impact drove his feet a few metres deep into the ground, digging an impromptu hole that sucked the both of them into.


    However, something quickly felt very wrong to Alex, and the wasn''t the only one who noticed this.


    ''Why haven''t I stopped falling yet??''


    Even though the hole he had created should have only been a few metres, he stil felt his body rushing through the air and being pulled by gravity. It gave him a great feeling of deja vu, reminding him of back in the Primordial Expanse where he had to jump from the floating inds, tens of thousands of kilometres above the surface, just to make his way down to the ground.


    ''What the fuck is going on!?''


    With hisck of eyesight, Alex only had his spatial perception to rely on to find check his surroundings.


    However, despite his hundreds of kilometres of range, all he could detect around himself was empty air!


    ''What the fuck is this? I never felt something hollow beneath the ground back when I was on the surface? Not even once did I feel something like this. In fact, now that I think about it, this entire feltpletely solid… This itself is wrong… How can a bepletely solid, with no cave systems or deep ravines whatsoever?''


    Alex quickly developed a bad feeling, but his mind was still focused on the fact that he was falling.


    It wouldn''t be such a bad thing, since this was outside the primordial Expanse and terminal velocity existed here. He wouldn''t even break any bones uponnding, so he wasn''t too stressed about being injured.


    However, if he was falling, then so was the Lux.


    But the strange thing was that he couldn''t detect it anywhere around himself?


    Until now, at least!


    Poof!


    Seemingly out of nowhere, the Lux appeared within his range once again, a few kilometres above himself, falling at a slightly slower speed than himself.


    ''So that''s why I couldn''t detect it. It weighs less than me so it took longer to gain momentum.''


    Alex guessed right and maintained his perception on the Lux closely.


    They were both at their most vulnerable moment right now, but Alex was worse off thanks to hisck of eyesight, so he wanted to make sure it didn''t pull any funny moves on him. With this, he prepared his body and braced for impact, changing the properties of his Phoenix mes to focus on healing him the moment he made contact with any sort of ground.


    He felt the rush of air getting heavier, and his instincts told him that his descent might finally be nearing its end. Despite his blindness, his spatial perception painted a hazy picture of his surroundings – an abyss stretching endlessly in all directions, void of anything tangible except the Lux above him, still descending, at the same speed now.


    Then— BOOM!


    Alex crashed into the ground with tremendous force, and the Lux joined him a few seconds after. The shockwave rippled outward like a meteor strike. Dust and debris quickly filled the air, and thanks to the fact that he was underground – somewhere – the air simply stilled and the dust never dissipated.


    Despite the brunt of the impact being absorbed by his body, he only sustained a few bruises and aching in his legs, and his healing Phoenix mes soon got to work on fixing even that.


    But he was left gasping for air regardless, thanks to the cloud of dust that surrounded hisnding site.


    Pain shot through him as his Phoenix mes rearranged his body and organs back to their original ces, but Alex quickly forced himself upright, with his spatial perception working overtime.


    ''Something is wrong — very wrong!''


    The surface beneath his feet was cold and smooth to the touch, unlike any cave floor he had felt before. It wasn''t stone, dirt or metal. It was something entirely foreign. Even worse, he could no longer sense the familiar mass of the around him. The atmosphere felt… hollow. Empty.


    However, despite this clearly unknown and unexpected situation urring for the both of them, the Lux still seemed entirely focused on killing Alex.


    It ignored all of the strange and unexpected phenomena that it had just experienced, and darted at Alex.


    Gritting his teeth, Alex let out a groan and pushed back, switching the focus of his Phoenix mes from healing to something much more sinister.


    Soul fire.


    All of a sudden, the scarlet mes that surrounded Alex and provided the only source of light in this darkness that surrounded him, disappeared. To the Lux, it might have first seemed that he had deactivated his ability, but this wasn''t the case at all.


    Instead, his ability had only be much more terrifying, and this environment had just coincidentally be much more favourable for him.


    Alex was like a lighthouse, a guiding light that gave away his position for miles and miles in this dark, underground space when he had his Phoenix mes roaring and covering his body.


    But now, that was gone.


    The Lux had been pushed into the same disadvantage that it had forced on Alex with its earlier waternces.


    Blindness.


    Now, they both only had their other four senses, and their perception to rely on.