bye bye tobes

Hey, no worries.
She is a dungeon-crawl-character.

She'll respawn after this death at the last checkpoint or the start of the dungeon. :)

Damn, okay. I guess we're down a protagonist now.

I'm sure she'll be fine

Tobi or not to be, that is the question.

Nooooooooooo

So, illusion? Someone else's skeleton? Maybe we it turns out that Tobi has video game (slash ghoul-like) respawn powers?

So... Heusten also fell into the black water despite being sorta capable of flight? And we are looking at his bones while Tobi is diving of panel?

wellllll, that looks quite terminal.

She's gonna respawn.

By the colours of the page... this was the water or Heusten powers ?

By the colours of the page... this was the water or Heusten powers ?

AS A PLAYER HAS LEFT THE GAME, THEIR SECRET WILL NOW BE SHARED.

THERE IS ONE CONTESTANT WHO IS EXEMPT FROM ALL RULES REGARDING KILLING.

Look at those ripples. Now go back to the previous page.

First panel, where Tobi splashes into the black water? Ripples.

Second panel, where Heusten arrives above the black water? Flat. The ripples are gone.

Now this page. Ripples again. Those are not Tobi's ripples, they're Heusten's ripples. He fell. That's his skeleton, not Tobi's.

Yeah thats way too big for Tobi. Its Heustens skeleton.

I guess that solves the endless pursuer problem

0-0

That's Heusten right? I didn't realise he was moving so fast that he'd fall in. He should have been a bit more chill with his murderous pursuit.

...If we change chapters now I'm gonna riot :P

@someone

I don't think that's Heustens bones.
Heusten as a phantasm can fly/float (https://www.neorice.com/hoh_tobi_4203). So it isn't very probable that he had fallen into the Fluid.

Besides we don't know if phantasms still have bones at all.

NOOOOOOO!

Don't get me wrong, people are suspecting this might be Heusten and I will admit I haven't been watching close enough to say if their logic holds up or not, but...

Phantasms have been contextually compared to "ghosts" or "spirits" by Mr. Green, right? He's one of the ones who studied such creatures to the extent anyone has that we know of in-comic.

Most ghosts or spirits in works of fiction don't have bodies to leave behind. No bones, at least not outside a grave somewhere. We don't know he WOULD leave bones, and he seemed to be able to walk through walls when they sealed the door to the chamber they first met him through. I don't think he's corporeal at all... so would Black Water really hurt him?

Then again, just narratively, you could say him stepping in a puddle of it during the train game might've been foreshadowing his death by falling into it, if what some people are speculating is true. So maybe?

But still, we can't rule out Tobi's death here, by my best guess. So I will say again:

NOOOO!

Maybe phantasms dissolve when they loose their goal. His main target was Toby and he believes her to be dead.

Yellow’s Bones?
Mariah‘s Bones?

I guess his shoes weren't waterproof enough for this much water.

@A_voice_from_the_shadows

There's no sound effect, but the water "splashed" a second time, and Heusten isn't in the panel anymore. Tobi was also upside down when she dropped, while the bones are right side up.

I'm gonna guess Heusten was choosing to drop down rather than fly in order to keep up with Tobi, and didn't slow down in time for the black water he wasn't expecting, but we don't see a speed effect because it wouldn't show up well with the phantasm effect.

If Heusten indeed melted instantly, then Tobi is "probably" OK in black water, based on the one panel we see of her. And I'm assuming a pile of bones isn't going to keep following her.

I concur with KsCope's proposition.

Sopo... Change of scene to Noah? Maybe Burk?
Let it hang in the cliff.

I think it was Heusten. He was moving at full speed to get to Tobi, he thought he could see the future which probably involved him catching and killing Tobi, so when reality didn't match his vision he didn't have time to stop before slamming into the black water.

Mr. Green said that Phantasms are created after a person's death. He never mentioned that they just materialized so its probably the corpse getting back up. I wonder, if a ghoul is a pandemonium spirit possessing a dead mage could a Phantasm be a dead esper (he wasn't one at the start but maybe he was newly awakened due to everything that happened) possessing a pandemonium spirit?

Ah. Having read back, I believe Lurker has the right of it. The threads of prophecy have been cut.

I think it's also possible that this skeleton is Heusten's, and that we're seeing how he actually died before becoming a Phantasm. And by chance Tobi wound up in the same predicament, hence the Phantasm's confusion.

However, I think it's more likely that this is Phantasm Heusten "dying" from being immersed in the black water.

Actually, on second thought, I have to agree with @someone's interpretation. The Phantasm may have been charging at Tobi, seen the black water, and was briefly confused before being immersed in it.

No way that's it. Looking forward to the twist.

Considering we've had Noah survive a literal nightmare apocolipse, I'm very surprised.

In saying that it will be intreging what will become of Tobi, will she respawn?

If Ghouls are the result of Tobi's people making it into 'Rational' reality without using the Temple, they need to hijack a corpse since they were whatever they are, magic digital people? Then the Temple can convert them from whatever they are into a body, and Tobi happens to run off the same rules without having a corpse as a ride because she showed up the correct way. She might be able to respawn because she has the same ruleset.

From a meta-standpoint, it doesn't make sense for it to be Tobi, as she was only just stated to be the future ruler of the desolate wastes of the world after it ends.

From a what-we-can-see standpoint, the corpse lack's Tobi's Goggles, the head is the wrong way around, and the environmental static that indicates the presence of a Phantasm nearby is not only in the air, but also throughout the Black-Water.

The question this raises is, while Tobi is hopefully unaffected by the Black Water due to whatever makes her the King of Ghouls, Heusten's Phantasm may end up possessing it or changing it in some manner. Which may be beneficial or detrimental to Tobi being submerged in what is effectively liquid-death.

Ahaha, everyone is so optimistic. I do instead believe that Tobi has dissolved, and that she will saved in some other way.