Some Difficulties

Looking at the glowing ball of blue and black swirling around with her senses Althea heaved of breath of relief at the sight. "I should have the advantage here with fire." At the very least it might make things a tad bit easier than it normally would have but what intrigued her the most was the bits of black she saw swirling along with the blue. "Dual elements and a rare one to boot...This is useful." She didn't know too much about Astral Darkness herself but quite a few of her Clansmen had it themselves back in the day so she might be able to learn some information about it for future use.

"Hold still."

Feeling her grip on him loosen as he struggled in pain she locked him down harder as she grabbed his shoulder to help keep him in place. "This is better for both of us, trust me." If she made a mistake because of his sudden movement then even she was in for some backlash and she didn't want that. Slithering her Energy forward she watched as a strong ice barrier formed in front of her fire as some darkness seeped into it. "First barrier." Turning up the heat a bit she made sure to stop herself from burning Xilo's insides as she slowly started to melt the ice in front of her as it lashed out at her with small tiny ice daggers that could even hurt Xilo. "Annoying." Burning them to the best of her ability she tried to protect herself and Xilo as a couple fo them passed by her digging into Xilos body.

"Dammit."

Seeing small ice spikes start to pile up she scoffed as she struggled more with this then she had initially thought. "Why is it so strong..." She knew he was strong and this was hard but she was putting her all into this and still couldn't do much. "I need to get stronger still..." Focusing she felt some sweat begin to drip down her face as an hour passed while the ice started to finally begin to show signs of breaking meanwhile Xilo felt like he was being boiled in flames as he felt his body temperature through barely opened eyes. "...." He couldn't even taste his saliva as his whole body felt like it was on fire. He so badly wanted some kind of relief in this moment but he couldn't even fall unconscious.

"Ow." Gritting his teeth together hard he heard the sounds of them beginning to crack as he tried to move his body anyway he could but it was pointless. He was stuck there and there was nothing he could do. "stop...." Feeling his Astral Energy begin to disappear he began to panic but soon a wave of silent relief flooded his mind that said otherwise. "Maybe this isn't so bad..." If he didn't have any power anymore then he wouldn't have to worry about hurting anyone anymore nor would he have to fight. However his body had other thoughts unfortunately, it screamed out in pain and rage while it fought back with whatever it could regardless of the damage it was causing him.

"Alt-."

Trying to mumble her name he stared at her face as she inflicted some of the worst pain he had experienced since his blades were snapped one at a time by that old man. However unlike him she didn't seem to be enjoying it nearly as much as he did, in fact she looked a little sad to be doing it. ".....Weirdo." He couldn't get an accurate read on this woman called Althea and it was beginning to bug him. He just didn't get it. For someone that made herself out to be big and tough she sure wasn't acting like it at the moment. "Don't get fooled..." Telling himself that he tried to find ways to distract himself from the pain but besides the boring grey walls that surrounded him currently there was nothing to even look at.

"Just me and my thoughts then..." However his thoughts led him into a spiral of depression when he remembered his family. "It's not my fault." Telling himself that he tried to run from the guilt and disgust he felt within the pain he was currently feeling. Anything was better than remembering that day, where his world came crashing down and everything changed. "I'm a monster." He could still remember the look on his small town's faces as their screams of terror were the last things they ever did before being sliced in half within seconds. "....Stop..." At this moment he wanted to feel more pain, maybe it would help him stop thinking about it but it never came as he slowly got used to the feeling.

"Mother...Father...Sister."

all sorts of faces flashed by in his head but none were happy with him. all he saw was fear and disgust as they were ripped to pieces by his bare blade that day and there was nothing he could do to stop it. "I hate this.." Finally melting a big enough hole to slide a decent amount of her Astral Energy in after a couple hours she quickly got to work on breaking the core now. "That was the hard part so this should be easier hopefully." Now that she was past the main defense she would only have to deal with some smaller resistance and snap his core in half, leaking all his Astral Energy if everything went normally and from the looks of it they weren't. After getting past the ice barrier she watched as the darkness detached from the core and started to swarm her energy attacking the small part of her soul she had connected to it as she recoiled in pain.

"Dammit, how did it find me so quickly. That shouldn't be possible."

feeling her soul take some damage she retreated a little bit as she tried to analyze the situation as best as she could.