The giant puppet of Dark Magic and Earth Magic towered over the shattered district like a nightmare given form. Its body was a patchwork of shadow and stone, every limb layered in thick, writhing darkness. From the ends of those limbs, Dark Pulses began to gather, dense, spinning cores of corrupted energy that humd with deadly force.
When the first volley fired, the air itself seed to tear.
The pulses scread forward in wide arcs, smashing into the defensive spells of the mages scattered across the Underside. Shields of wind, fire, and earth rose in panic, but the Dark Pulses ripped right through them, dissolving magic like it was mist and turning flesh to nothing. One mont, mages were shouting orders and incantations. The next, they were gone, no bodies, no blood, just empty space where people had stood.
Alen felt the shockwave from one of the blasts even from a distance, the pressure punching the air from his lungs. He slid back over cracked stone, boots scraping dust, and dug his heels in with a growl as he forced himself upright again. They had been holding the line. They had actually been doing well, buying ti, protecting the Shelter behind them.
That illusion was over.
Several of the Dark Pulses slamd into the Shelter’s outer barrier. The reinforced walls, strengthened by earth magic and layered spells, buckled under the impact. With a deafening roar, stone and tal warped and tore apart. Sections of the wall exploded inward, and the screams that followed from inside cut through Alen more deeply than any spell.
Londo’s expression turned grim as he watched the oversized puppet raise its limbs for another barrage. The thing had been dangerous before, but this was sothing else. Its sheer presence warped the battlefield. Trying to get close to Harvey now, with that monster shielding him, was nearly impossible.
As Londo squinted up, he noticed sothing strange happening at the puppet’s core.
Thin, whip-like tendrils of Dark Magic uncurled from its body and wrapped around Harvey’s fra. At first, it seed as if the puppet was shielding him even more, but the tendrils continued to wind around him, tighter and tighter, until Harvey’s body sank fully into the mass of darkness. The giant puppet absorbed him completely, swallowing him until only his face remained visible, half-subrged, like a twisted emblem on its chest.
The sight reminded Londo of Ibairn’s colossal wind construct during his breakthrough, a mage becoming one with his magic. But this fusion felt far more sinister. Where Ibairn had seed like a force of nature, Harvey looked like a curse given shape, nested at the heart of sothing toxic and hungry.
"This is bad," Londo muttered under his breath. "Really, really bad."
Any fantasy of taking Harvey out with a well-tid strike evaporated. They would have to get through the puppet first, and judging from how easily it shrugged off attacks, that was laughable.
"Help the people escape from the Shelter!" Alen shouted, pulling everyone’s focus back to the one thing that still mattered. "We need to move them now!"
His voice snapped mages and Underside fighters out of their shock. They dashed toward the fractured Shelter entrance, dodging falling debris and stray spells. The civilians inside were panicking, many of them pressed up against the broken walls, so too stunned to move. Children cried as parents tried to shield them with trembling arms.
Alen’s allies went straight to work. Earth mages reford the stone at the back wall, not to trap anyone, but to punch out a new exit. Fire and wind cleared rubble while water users cooled sparking tal and flickering flas. They created a rough corridor, a narrow path leading deeper into the Underside and away from the direct line of the puppet’s blasts.
But even as they carved a way out, the next wave of Dark Pulses landed.
The blasts tore through the shattered Shelter again, ripping chunks out of the structure and obliterating groups of people caught in the open. Screams cut short mid-note. Shapes vanished in flashes of corrupt light. The Dark Pulses didn’t care who they hit, combatant, civilian, Dark Guild mber, or ally, they all disappeared the sa.
Up above, Harvey watched from inside his monstrous construct, his small face set into a cold, unreadable expression. To him, it must have looked like progress. To Alen, it looked like a massacre.
"We can’t take Harvey down, and we can’t protect everyone in this Shelter..." Alen muttered, fury tightening his jaw. "It’s already lost."
He didn’t want to say it out loud, but part of him knew the truth. They were too late to save everyone here.
Harvey, on the other hand, seed utterly unfazed by the carnage.
"Change of plans!" his voice bood out, projected through the puppet like a twisted announcent. "Rush to the other Shelters! Tell them to get out and escape. Drive them up to the world above. Let the Underside run!"
The words carried across the battlefield and down ruined streets. For anyone still listening, it sounded like a command given by the enemy, yet there was a grim logic to it. Aboveground might be dangerous, surrounded by hostile forces and traps left by Gizin’s side, but staying down here, under the puppet’s shadow, ant certain death.
Kelly and Londo appeared beside Alen with Sophie close behind, all three breathing hard, clothes scorched, hair battered by wind and dust.
"What do you want us to do?" Kelly asked, eyes fixed on the giant puppet still growing in the distance.
"We slow him down," Alen said. "Buy as much ti as we can. That’s our priority now, not winning, not revenge. Just ti."
None of them argued. They all knew he was right.
The remaining Dark Guild mbers who had defected from Harvey’s side had already started spreading out, forming smaller groups that dashed down different streets. It forced the puppet to choose where to focus. Its many limbs swiveled, tracking movent, but it couldn’t cover everything at once. That tiny gap, that narrow window of divided attention, was the opportunity they needed.
ssengers were already sprinting toward the other Shelters, shouting, waving, grabbing anyone they could reach and dragging them along. There was no room left for patience or persuasion. Those who hesitated would die.
While the evacuations began, Alen, Londo, Kelly, and a few others pushed forward toward the puppet. They wove through crumbling corridors and shattered plazas, sticking close to cover where they could, stepping out only when they absolutely had to. Dark Pulses streaked past them, turning walls into dust and leaving rippling scars in the stone.
None of them wasted mana casting long-range spells at the puppet. They knew it would do nothing. Every bit of energy they had left went into mobility, dodging, sprinting, sliding away just before a blast hit. If they stopped, even for a heartbeat, they’d be wiped out.
Their strategy worked, for a while.
Once most of the remaining Dark Guild mbers in the area had been vaporized, and fewer distractions remained, more of the puppet’s limbs turned toward Alen’s group. Thick, dark tentacles extended from its sides and back, lashing downward with brutal force. For every arm they avoided, another slamd into the ground nearby, sending shockwaves through the street.
"We’re not going to make it if we stay clustered!" Londo shouted. "Spread out!"
They broke apart, darting down different avenues, leaping over ruptured stone and fallen beams. The puppet advanced through the Underside, its hulking body scraping against overhanging structures. Wherever its dark surface brushed stone, tal, or reinforced supports, the material disintegrated, dissolving into drifting fragnts of dust and shadow.
It wasn’t just killing people anymore. It was erasing the Underside itself.
The remnants of the first Shelter crumbled completely as the puppet moved over it. The last few inside who hadn’t escaped in ti were engulfed by the Dark Pulses that followed, their lives burning out in an instant. The creature didn’t even slow down.
By the ti Alen, Kelly, and Londo had regrouped farther away, panting and scorched, there was almost nothing left of the original Shelter. A few shaken survivors staggered along the evacuation route, helped by whatever fighters still remained. For everyone else, it was already too late.
"We have to reach the other Shelters before that thing does," Kelly said, her voice low, hands clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
"And we still don’t know how to stop it," Londo added. He swallowed, feeling his throat dry. "Even slowing it down feels like asking for a miracle."
Alen stared at the distant shape of the puppet as it continued to move, an unstoppable blot of darkness against the ruined city.
What do we do? he thought, his chest tightening. How do you fight sothing that kills everything it touches, and turns every death into more power?
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