The drums were getting weaker but so was he. The sharp, pounding beats washed under the loss of his lifeforce. All of the noise in his head was dampened to dull thuds like pebbles shifting against each other under the sway of sea water. Yet, the weakness wasn't the scariest thing to him. It was whether the sound in his head were the drums that plagued his existence or his own heartbeat. All he could know now was that he couldn't stop from here. He couldn't leave anything behind, not with so much spent.

He was still mostly functioning in the fight. Still, his energy blasts of lifeforce directed at the gargantuan Guardian were hardly considered "functional." They seemed to only reflect from the hide of the dark creature as it covered Ansem in its own shadow. Why did this seem so odd?

When his steps finally decayed into negligible shuffles, he was forced to drop to a single knee from the gravity of his own lapse. That still did not deter him from continuing his blasts, though the luminescence in his hands was quickly fading. And he's just standing right behind him. Has he moved?

The worn soles of his shoes lost all their traction and he slid to the ground. The blasts had stopped. Wait, that's it! It was in front of my face the whole time! He worked his way to his stomach and pushed out one more blast that seemed to fizzle before it could even reach the Guardian.

All at once, the drums got louder than they ever were before. The sound was deafening within his head and he drew his pale, weak hands over his head. Then, The Master felt his eyes rolling back.