He raised the blade and for a mont considered shattering the shrine outright. But Lyra grabbed his arm. "No, if you break it in a wrong way, the backlash could tear this cavern apart."
Kelvin’s jaw snapped, but he lowered the weapon and asked. "Then what?" "Then we will leave it," she said bitterly. "We leave it, and rember: we have only seen one den and one servant."
Her eyes lifted, dark and resolute. "The Hollow holds worse." By the ti they limped from the cavern mouth, the sky outside had darkened again. The mist was heavier and the air was sharper. Behind them, the skeletal totems still lood, faintly glowing though the Alpha was gone.
At a mont the cavern rumbled. At first, it was a low vibration, that is like the growl of the earth itself. Then the sound deepened, rolling through stone and marrow until dust shook free from the ceiling. The skeletal totems rattled as if it was in salute to the abomination slumbering in the depths.
From the shadows, a pair of eyes snapped open, which was like a molten necrotic fire burning in blackened sockets. Imdiately the Necrobeast Alpha erged.
It was wolf-like only in the broadest sense. Its fra was massive, easily thrice the height of a man, but stretched and malford as though a corpse had been forced to grow beyond death.
Its ribcage was half-exposed, with ribs arching outwards like jagged spears. Within, necrotic fire pulsed with every ragged breath, glowing brighter each ti its lungs heaved. Veins of corrupted Veil-energy was threaded across its hide, which was glowing sickly green.
Every step made the ground to quake. Its claws were not just bone but fused stone, that was sharpened to black talons that scraped sparks when they struck the cavern floor. When its maw opened, it was not saliva that dripped, but threads of smoke and necrotic embers.
And when it roared, the whole place was shaking. Kelvin staggered, and his spear dropped to the ground with a clang as the sound ripped through his skull.
His synchronizing ratio with Xerion shattered in a single wave. The tether that had felt so natural, so steady has now tore and burned, leaving his mind raw.
Xerion stumbled backward, his wings was half-unfurled, his serpentine fra was writhing as if it was struck by invisible chains. The End-Tyrant’s hiss rose into a broken snarl, with his flas sputtering.
Salaris screeched as the necrotic roar battered his wings. He tried to ascend but the air itself warped with the Alpha’s will, slamming him into the cavern wall. Feathers were scattered like black shards in the dim light.
Rhoam dug his claws into the earth and his armored hide was groaning. His shoulders trembled under the weight of the sound, cracks of spiderweb was across his plates. With a grunt, he pressed forward, snarling, even his iron body was bent beneath the pressure.
"Hold!" Darius bellowed, though his own voice was drowned by the roar. He thrust a gem forward, its core blazed white-blue. The gem split and its essence was spilled out into a barrier of sealing runes. The necrotic waves crashed against it, sparks of corrupted energy rained like teors.
But the barrier was thin—too thin. The Alpha’s roar was not rely sound. It was a Veil-saturated command, a tearing force that was ant to sever tar from beast.
The runes quivered, faltering and Darius dropped to one knee, with veins bulging as his body was strained to keep the seal intact. Blood trickled from his nose, but still he roared defiance.
Lyra was the first to recover. Her shadows clung to her like armor, shuddering under the Alpha’s aura. Her knees was threatened to buckle, yet her eyes burned with sothing darker than fear.
"Elara..." she whispered, the na of her sister trembled from her lips. Then, with a sharp gesture, her shadows was solidified. Traps blood across the cavern floor, jagged chains of darkness that was shaped not unlike the runes Elara once favored.
The Alpha stepped forward, and three shadow-cages snapped shut around its limbs. The cavern groaned with the strain. For the first ti, the beast halted.
Kelvin’s head rang. Pain clawed his skull where the synchronization had ruptured, but he forced himself to his feet, picking up the spear. His hand shook on the haft.
"Xerion," he scread. The End-Tyrant lifted his head, with black fire coiling from his maw. The bond between them was fractured, the lines was jagged and sparking but still alive. Kelvin pressed into it, ignoring the sting, ignoring the fire that seared through his veins as mana leaked both ways.
The Alpha lunged forward. It ripped through the first shadow cage with a shattering sound, black smoke and splintered runes was scattered everywhere. The chains recoiled like broken serpents.
Xerion roared in return, voice serrated and filled with fury. Black fire burst across the cavern, slamming into the Alpha’s exposed ribcage. Necrotic flas hissed as the End-Tyrant’s void-fire battled to consu them.
The cavern beca a storm fire, shadow, sealing light, and the monstrous pressure of the Alpha all colliding. Kelvin tightened his grip, the glaive’s edge flaring as Xerion’s flas wove into the blade.
He charged, with the heart hamring, every nerve scread at him to flee. But there was no flight, only fight.
The Alpha’s charge was like an avalanche given flesh. Its claws carved trenches in the cavern floor as it lunged, the weight of its body was shaking the ground beneath the Crest’s boots.
Every muscle, every patch of rotted hide, stretched over an unnatural fra of bone and necrotic fire. Its ribcage was an open furnace, ribs splayed outward like the bars of a monstrous cage, and within them burned a heart of greenish fla which was churning with Veil energy so thick the air tasted like ash and copper.
Each pulse from that furnace was echoed in the cavern walls, loose stones was cracking and raining dust, stalactites trembling above their heads.
Kelvin t the beast halfway. His spear glead with Xerion’s black fire, a jagged ribbon trailing behind like a scythe stroke against the night.
He swung upward with all his strength, sparks was exploding as steel and necrotic bone collided. The blow shook his arms to the shoulders, and for a heartbeat he thought that the spear might snap under the weight of the beast’s claws.
The Alpha’s answering strike ca with such force that the ground buckled beneath Kelvin’s boots. The talons were not just physical, they carried a necrotic wind, a cutting wave that peeled moss and stone alike from the cavern walls. Kelvin twisted aside at the last possible instant, but the blast grazed his shoulder.
Agony ripped down his arm. Flesh blistered, with smoke rising where the necrotic energy clung to his skin like oil. His grip was faltered for the briefest mont, and the glaive nearly slipped from his hand.
"Kelvin!" Lyra’s voice cut through the roar, though it was sharp with fear. Her shadows surged at once, reacting to her panic. The cavern floor cracked open with tendrils of darkness, which was weaving together into jagged spears that burst upward.
They skewered into the Alpha’s flank, plunging deep into the gaps of decayed muscle. The traps tightened, runes were glowing faintly with a pattern that mirrored Elara’s, the sister she had lost to the Veil.
Lyra’s chest rose and fell in rapid bursts, her lips was trembling as the mory threatened to surface. But her hands did not waver. Not this ti. My runes will hold and my runes will not fail her na.
Above them, Salaris descended. The raven’s wings beat with the sound of splitting air, shadowfla spilled in his wake.
Each feather was glead with Lyra’s runes, catching faint violet fire that shimred like stars falling into darkness. With a piercing cry, he raked his talons across the Alpha’s skull. Sparks flew where claw t bone, leaving deep gouges that was glowing faintly with runic burns.
The Alpha staggered, montarily blinded. But its retaliation was imdiate. The roar that followed wasn’t rely sound, it was a storm. The cavern walls split and groaned.
Veilstones was embedded in the ground that cracked open, spilling necrotic mist. Salaris was caught in the backlash mid-flight; his wings buckled as the force struck him. He spiraled downward, with feathers scattering like a blizzard of black snow.
Lyra’s heart made an unusual movent. She slashed her hand through the air, her shadows was wrapping into a cushion that caught Salaris before he slamd against the rock. Even so, he crumpled into the shadows, trembling, his chest was rising in shallow heaves.
"Stay with , Salaris! Don’t you dare fall here!" she cried, her voice was breaking. The Alpha inhaled sharply, it’s ribcage rattled like a monstrous drum.
Its chest swelled unnaturally, and necrotic fire was built into a core-shattering glow. The green flas seeped into its veins, bulging across its limbs like glowing rivers.
"It is not good," Darius said. He whipped two sealing gems from his belt and slamd them into the ground.
Imdiately light bursted outward in jagged lines, tracing a do around the Crest. The Alpha unleashed its core-blast a heartbeat later.
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