The bind shattered in an explosion of jagged ice.
Aether surged in its maw, and then- Frostbreath.
The freezing cone blasted forward, catching Ash mid-air. His fur crackled, skin instantly numb. He hit the ground hard, sliding through frost.
’Move!’
He rolled, just narrowly avoiding a claw that crushed the ground beside him.
The Frostborn Tyrant didn’t relent.
A tail like barbed glacier swung toward Ash. He ducked low but was a tad too slow.
It clipped his shoulder, sending him tumbling once more into the fractured dust. The impact jolted through his bones, ice forming in the seams of his armour and fur.
His limbs are trembling, not just from exhaustion, but the creeping cold biting into his nerves.
’It’s not giving a second. Not even one...’
The tyrant charged forward once more, hoarfrost blooming in its wake. Ash flared his claws with shadow again, but the energy sputtered, thin and unresponsive.
’My aether- dammit- it’s slowing. Freezing.’
With grit alone, he sprang sideways, using a large pile of rubble as a launch point. Shadow Sprint burst beneath his feet, launching him above the beast’s skull. He aid for a blow.
Eclipsing fang!
The shadow energy blazed from his jaw but before he managed to attack, the tyrant had twisted its body with unnatural agility.
A frozen tendril from its mane whipped upward, slamming into his side mid-air.
Ash smashed into the arena wall with a sickening crunch. He felt his breath get torn away from his lungs as he crumpled into a heap.
He coughed, blood flecking the stone.
Then- everything slowed.
Sound dulled.
His heartbeat beca thunder in his ears, a steady drum pounding against the silence. The world around the edges of his eye beca soft, too soft and the colours beca cold.
’This is not good...’ he thought as he tried to force himself up but as he tried, he found sothing else.
His limbs stopped responding. He couldn’t feel his tail. Couldn’t feel his claws.
He blinked once. Twice.
Frost had begun climbing up his side, crystalising the edges of his vision.
’I can’t move...’
A mory then pierced the haze...
Flas.
Screams.
Daryl, the great hero of Eldoria, stood bloodied and defiant against the looming shadow of a dragon whose body darkened the heavens. Ash rembered the grand hyper contrast of that final stand.
He recalled the hopelessness.
The weight of futility pressed against Daryl’s spine even as he roared in defiance. He saw the dragon’s breath descend, saw a sword charge straight towards it- not in victory, but in sacrifice.
Ash gasped suddenly. The pain brought sensation back, but only barely.
Then another mory- his own mont. Smaller, colder.
Bound by magic in a ritual circle. The feeling of aether being drawn out of his very bones. Used. Broken. A tool for others.
Helpless.
He himself through the eyes of both his human and beast form.
’That sa hopelessness...’
The Frostborn Tyrant advanced slowly now. Deliberately. Like a beast savouring its dominance.
’I can’t keep dodging forever. I have to... I have to out-think it.’
He dragged himself up, one claw trembling as he used a nearby stone to stand.
A tendril was sent flying straight towards him.
He feinted left, dashing between the shadows- but the tyrant had predicted it, catching him mid-step with an open maw. Ice surged in its throat once again.
Frost Pulse!
The blast struck point blank.
Ash’s vision whitened, pain cascading through every nerve like liquid knives. He scread as the frost consud his leg and part of his side, locking muscle and sinew.
He dropped.
It stepped closer.
Closer.
Each impact of its feet cracked the ground like slow thunder.
Ash tried to crawl. Shadows flickered weakly at his claws. He reached for Umbral Bind again—but the spell collapsed before it ford. His own body was shutting down.
’I’m completely immobilised now...’
A loud resounding laughter rang out...
Not from the Frostborn Tyrant. But from the arena.
The crowd, once silent, erupted into a cacophony of howls, growls, and guttural chuckles. Beasts bared fangs, so pounded their claws against stone. The scent of blood stirred their hunger.
Ash laid his head on the floor, his eyes staring straight at what lay above him. At this mont, he saw sothing that he had failed to see before.
Above all the beasts that sat around the arena, on the north side, there was another viewing platform. It was darker, more secluded, and far grander in design- etched with old emblems and draped in shadowed banners.
And from behind its veil of mist and elevation, a singular presence watched. Unmoving. Observant. Though unseen by most, its gaze had been fixed on Ash long before the battle had reached this point.
Sothing about it pressed down on the arena like a tide held at bay- heavy, inevitable, watching.
Ash had not realised it until now. His vision trembled as he looked up from the blood-streaked floor. The tyrant lood ever closer, tendrils rising like serpents ready to strike. And still, that sa dread remained- deep, familiar, and far too calm for what was coming.
’The feeling of dread is the sa...’ he thought to himself as he turned his gaze to the tendrils.
’It’s the sa... and yet, this ti, it doesn’t hurt as much...’ Ash told himself... as he could feel the numbing of his senses, similar to what he felt in the void.
A final thought clung to the edge of his mind like a cliff ledge:
’This... this is where I die...’
Just as Ash gave up completely... a voice... his voice... clear and sharp... filled with spite suddenly rang out.
"Tch! Pathetic... you are useless... as a human and also as a beast... you aren’t a person, you do not qualify to be a weapon either."
Then-
A low hum.
A flicker.
The arena stone beneath them glowed faintly. Lines of old sigils, long buried under blood and ice, ignited.
A single crack. Then another. Then-
Boom!
The center of the arena erupted.
Aether, fla and shadow collided in a cascade of force that hurled Ash and the tyrant apart.
The air tore with the sound of aetheric backlash and dust swallowed the arena.
Ash slamd into the opposite wall, dazed, semi-conscious.
From the hole that appeared in the center of the arena from the explosion, shadows twitched as unfamiliar shapes erged.
From the smoldering crater at the heart of the arena, shadows stirred—coiling, flickering—until shapes began to erge, one after another.
From behind a huge tile thread with black moss and silver fungi that had broken off and sank into the hole, a creature stepped forward. Lean and coiled for speed, its muscles rippled beneath fur darker than the mist curling along the ground. Violet eyes shimred in the gloom, intelligent and unreadable.
Then more arrived.
They poured in through the ruined archways and fractured stone corridors—twenty in total. So strode upright, others slithered or crept low to the ground. Not fully beast, not truly human, their forms were cloaked in woven veils of moss, bark, and glimring strands that shimred like insect wings. Each bore a different silhouette, but they moved with shared purpose—quiet, fluid, synchronized in eerie stillness.
Their eyes glowed faintly in the gloom—so gold, others blue or green—but all pulsed with sothing old. Not malice. Not rcy. Just presence. Primal. Watching. Waiting.
The mist thickened around their feet as they gathered at the edge of the shattered arena, silent sentinels in the aftermath of battle.
Ash didn’t recognise them.
’What... are... those?’ was all he managed to think.
One figure stepped ahead of the others, staff crackling faintly with green aether and bioluminescent fungus. As it raised a hand, the air pulsed- and the shadows coiled to its command, as if the arena itself listened.
With a sudden surge of motion, the shadows beneath the Frostborn Tyrant sprang upward, thick tendrils of living dark, slamming into its limbs. The beast snarled, montarily frozen, its limbs encased in twisting shadow.
Ash, broken, bloodied and barely hanging onto consciousness, watched with wide dazed eyes as the beast struggled. The bindings trembled, not from weakness, but from the sheer strength they tried to hold.
Then, without warning, one of the cloaked figures appeared beside him- silent as mist. Their presence carried the scent of wet stone and sap. Their voice, when it ca, was quiet, deep, and final.
"You are safe now."
Ash blinked, lips trembling as he tried to speak, but no sound ca. Relief crashed over him like a wave too vast to contain. Just those words were enough.
And for the first ti in what felt like lifetis, he allowed his head to fall back against the blood-stained stone.
The tendrils holding the tyrant shuddered once again.
But for now... it was enough.
The beast, now seeing that Ash had now fallen unconscious, let out a small smile before using its limbs to pick up the fainted hyena and turning to the others.
"Retrieval is done!" he said to them.
"Well done, Tholn. Now return with Varn and Raal."
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