The crowd of the Kawah Tempur remained silent, heat hanging heavy over the limestone bleachers. Guntur, his breath still ragged, looked down at his outstretched palm. It felt… normal. Not like a world-ender, not like a disaster waiting to happen. Just a palm. He saw the unconscious Kresna Bangga beyond the ring’s perimeter, a crumpled heap of crimson fabric and shattered pride. A small, six-legged creature, Bolo, chirped happily from Guntur’s hair, nudging his ear with a tiny, furry head. Bolo was fine. Kresna was fine, well, mostly. The island was fine. Maybe there really was a different way. “Remarkable, Guntur! Such… *control*. A true display of latent power, barely contained! Now, let’s see how long you can maintain this delicate balance against your next challenge.” Guru Badai’s voice, a silk-edged blade, cut through the quiet. Guntur flinched. The brief relief in Guntur's chest withered at Badai’s sneer. *Barely contained*. Badai knew. He always knew. As the next combatants were called, Intan appeared at Guntur’s side, her expression a mix of fierce determination and a concern she rarely showed. “That was… reckless. And brilliant,” she muttered, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the bustling thoroughfare. “We need to talk. Now.” She led him to a secluded corner of the Academy grounds, a small, vibrant garden known as Taman Senyum, where bioluminescent blossoms cast soft, shifting hues on the verdant foliage. Bolo, sensing the urgency, scampered down Guntur’s arm and huddled at his feet, his many eyes wide. “Show me,” Intan commanded, her voice low. “Show me exactly what you did with Kresna. Try to replicate it. Gently.” Guntur nodded, his brow furrowed in concentration. He raised his hand, focusing on the memory of that precise, almost delicate impact. He imagined striking a target, not to shatter it, but to displace it. He breathed in, then out, trying to channel the power, not unleash it. But the terror of the Mirror of Truth still gnawed at him. The images of a fractured Nusa Indah flashed in his mind, and the precise control wavered. [IMPACT ENERGY EXCEEDS STRUCTURAL TOLERANCE. CRITICAL HIT MULTIPLIER INITIATING: 2X] A faint shimmer flickered from Guntur’s palm, raw and unrefined. Before Guntur could panic, Bolo, with an excited squeak, launched himself at Guntur’s hand. The critter latched on like a greedy leech. The shimmer receded, absorbed into Bolo’s surprisingly plump form. Bolo then let out a contented burp, a puff of iridescent dust escaping his mandibles, and plopped back onto the grass, looking immensely pleased with himself. Intan’s eyes gleamed. “Do it again!” she urged, a spark of scientific curiosity overriding her usual stoicism. Guntur tried. And again, as his control threatened to slip, Bolo was there. Each time, the little creature would pounce, soak up the nascent burst, burp, and swell just a fraction larger. His carapace, originally a dull earthen brown, now sported faint, swirling patterns of emerald and gold. His chirps became deeper, more resonant. “He’s… he’s eating it,” Guntur whispered, marveling. “The bad part. The ‘critical hit’ thing.” Intan paced, her mind racing. “It’s not just eating,” she said, pacing. “He’s siphoning off kinetic stress before the multiplier triggers.” She knelt, examining Bolo, who, now the size of a small melon, happily gnawed on a discarded leaf. “Your attacks are like a coiled spring, Guntur. Bolo releases the spring harmlessly, without the snapping rupture. He’s a living nullifier.” Guntur’s hope rekindled, brighter this time. “So, if Bolo is with me, I can… I can punch again?” His voice was full of desperate longing. Intan rose, a plan forming. “Not just punch. You can fight. But we need to understand his limits. And yours.” Their impromptu training continued for hours. Guntur would focus, try to control, and when the subtle tremor of an impending critical hit began, Bolo would eagerly intercept, growing steadily. By the time the moon hung high, Bolo was the size of a sturdy rainforest cat, his patterns glowing faintly in the dim light. The next morning, brass horns blasted across the central plaza. “Attention all aspirants! The third trial of the Puncak Langit Entrance Exam will commence immediately: ‘The Maze of Echoes!’” Whispers rippled through the gathered students. The maze was notorious: an underground crucible built to conjure an initiate's worst terrors into tangible mirages. Guntur felt a cold dread settle in his stomach. His deepest fear? The nightmare vision of Nusa Indah splitting apart into cosmic dust. He clutched the small, now cat-sized Bolo close to his chest. Bolo chirped, sensing his unease. Guru Badai, standing before a cavernous maw carved into the bedrock, watched with sharp amusement. His sleeve brushed an array of tuning needles sunk into the archway. A faint thrum vibrated through the stone floor, spiking the chamber's enchantments. “Enter, aspirants! Confront your echoes!” Badai boomed. “Only those who master their own shadows are worthy of Puncak Langit.” Guntur followed Intan past the threshold. Cold subterranean draft rushed over them as the path wound downward between glowing moss-streaked walls. Other aspirants around them began to falter, their faces contorting in fear as their own personal nightmares began to materialize – towering spiders for one, a vision of failing their family for another. Intan, though visibly unsettled by her own emerging fears, kept her focus, her gaze fixed on Guntur. Then, the stone corridors twisted violently around Guntur. The phosphorescent walls began to crack, not with illusion, but with genuine fissures. The ground trembled. From the cracks, not monsters, but swirling vortexes of pure, raw spatial distortion erupted. The air crackled with the faint, sickening scent of ozone and pulverized stone. [PLANETARY CORE RESONANCE DETECTED. CRITICAL HIT MULTIPLIER INITIATING: 10,000X] [IMPACT ENERGY EXCEEDS PLANETARY STRUCTURAL TOLERANCE. RECOMMENDATION: CEASE.] This was no phantom trick. Badai's manipulated runes had dredged up the cataclysm itself. The spatial tears merged into a howling vortex centered on Guntur's chest. It pulsed, grew, and pressed in, threatening to tear him apart. “Guntur! Fight it!” Intan yelled over the roar of the storm, her voice strained. She struggled against the invisible pressure, reaching for him. “Don’t give in! Don’t move!” Guntur, paralyzed by the sheer, visceral terror, felt his own power surging, threatening to respond to the external chaos with an even greater internal release. His vision blurred, the world around him beginning to buckle under the strain. This was it. The Reset. He heard the outer crags groaning as support strata began to shear. “Bolo!” Intan screamed, her voice cutting through the maelstrom. “Trust him, Guntur! Let him take it!” Guntur released his grip on Bolo, whose pelt buzzed like a hive of hornets. He loosened his fists, resisting the desperate instinct to strike back. Bolo leaped directly into the maelstrom, jaws unhinging wide as his hide expanded to the girth of a bull. With one monstrous snap, the beast swallowed the localized spatial tempest whole. Complete stillness fell over the cavern. Bolo, now the size of an armored war-wagon, loosed an earth-shattering belch that blew sparkling powder against the walls. His compound eyes glittered above emerald skin plates. Guntur, still trembling, stared at his sidekick. Bolo had saved them. He had saved the world. But then, a new, unsettling tremor began to ripple through the very ground beneath their feet. It wasn’t a destructive tremor; it was… a rumble. A very, very loud rumble, coming from Bolo’s enormous stomach. [CRITICAL ENERGY ABSORPTION: COMPLETE. WARNING: BIO-MASS EXPANSION EXCEEDS STABILITY PARAMETERS. IMMEDIATE FUEL INTAKE REQUIRED.] Bolo gave a plaintive whimper that rattled the stalactites. His swollen belly flared bright violet, pulling chips of gravel across the floor. He needed ballast. And the nearest mass was the floating rock itself.

Energy Eater