Screams echoed through the broken tunnels, mingling with the hiss of steam and the groan of shifting stone. Dust hung heavy in the air, choking every breath. Injured workers and terrified civilians stumbled through the rubble, bleeding, crying, calling out names with growing desperation. Collapsed corridors had swallowed entire sections of the underground complex, and people clawed through debris in search of loved ones.
Emergency personnel, both flesh and metal rushed through the carnage. Human medics and android units worked side by side, dragging survivors free and stabilizing the wounded. The flashing lights of medical drones cast eerie shadows against the broken walls.
Isin moved through the chaos like a man possessed, carefully shouldering through the panicked crowd. In his arms, he cradled Mihr, holding her close as if the world might try to take her away. He shielded her with his body from jostling arms and falling dust, his jacket wrapped tightly around them both.
She wasn't a normal infant. He'd known that the moment he held her for the first time. No newborn should have survived the stress of the past hour. The relentless sprinting, explosions, the tremors, the collapsing tunnels. Even with all that, Mihr slept peacefully.
Her breathing was slow and even, her tiny face serene. It was as though she were tucked away in a nursery rather than being carried through a disaster zone. Her body, though small and soft, had a weight to it. It was a density of power that belied the immense magical energies within her. Isin could feel it, he could feel the mana and aether coursing through her. It saturated her bones and skin like in a way he had only seen in the Divine. It made sense she was at least three-quarters Angel, and probably more.
Her mother had survived decapitation with little more than a temper tantrum. There was no question. Their daughter could handle far more than a little running and dust.
"This way, I think," Isin muttered, glancing at the collapsed corridor ahead. "With so many tunnels—"
He stopped short as he turned the corner only to find another cave-in blocking the path.
"Damn it," he hissed under his breath.
He pivoted and sprinted in a new direction. The weight of Mihr in his arms grounded him, but it couldn't suppress the gnawing guilt growing in his chest. This is my fault.
If he hadn't provoked Nuriel, if he had just held his tongue, bought more time. She wouldn't have used such devastating magic and the mines wouldn't have collapsed. Maybe the dead would still be alive. He couldn't have saved everyone. He knew that. Not right away.
He gritted his teeth and ran harder, the pounding of his boots echoing like thunder through the broken tunnels. He shoved the guilt down, buried it beneath the urgency of survival. Later, he would mourn.
***
Bjorn came too in the air, Failsafe screaming for him or Isin to wake up. It took a moment for him to recognize what was happening. Consciousness hit like a slap. The ground was rushing up fast. His heads whipped around for the lake and what he saw sent shivers through him.
The mayaborn creature was flying directly above him, riding the air like a predator circling prey. It looked almost like a dragon pup. It wasn't large, about the size Bjorn had been when he first hatched, so, no bigger than a large dog. Its wings were leathery, its body wide and flat, more lizard than dragon. Jagged, stone-like scales covered its frame, threaded with glowing, bioluminescent veins. It had far too many teeth for its small mouth.
Identify
Name: None
Species: Níðhöggr
Level: 100
Vocation: N/A
"Dad, hungry." A small voice invaded Bjorn's mind.
"What was that?" Bjorn asked.
The creature didn't seem like it was going to attack him so he turned his full attention to the far more pressing issue. His parallel mind was already working—following Failsafe's instructions to stabilize their descent. They had shifted into a controlled fall, angling toward the lake. The water was coming up but they were going to be short. He focused his magic again trying to angle himself so that he wouldn't shoot himself into the ground.
Once he felt ready he activated Juggernaut Stampede right as he felt something grab onto his back. He shot forward landing then braced himself for impact with the water. It came hard but thanks to the spell it didn't hurt.
He quickly swam to the top prepared to strike the creature latched on to him. His jaws opened but found that it wasn't attacking. It was clinging to his back, curled across his spine, shivering from the cold water like a frightened animal.
"Failsafe?" Bjorn questioned.
"I… don't know." Failsafe answered. "I will analyze it."
"Dad, hungry." the small voice said again. "Hungry."
"Dad?" Failsafe and Bjorn said in unison.
"It isn't attacking, let's focus on surviving first." Isin said.
Bjorn tasted the air to make sure the creature wasn't using some type of magic on him. He expected enchantment, illusion, maybe some form of mental compulsion but there was nothing. The creature clinging to him was A higher level than him, yet strangely frail. Its maya was almost imperceptible, barely a whisper in the storm of power around them. Not enough to threaten him.
"Hold on, Little One." Bjorn said.
He felt the creature tighten its grip on him in response.
Falling through the air normally felt weird. Falling in a lake on a falling skyland was weirder. Under normal circumstances, water wouldn't save them. No lake should be deep enough to soften the impact from a landmass plummeting from miles above the surface. However, nothing in this situation was normal. The landmass retained some of the magic that kept them aloft. That magic was corrupted and interacting with other weird magic in the area. All Bjorn could do was wait for the inevitable crash.
Above them, the sky was being torn apart. Two colossal skylands, each the size of a small kingdom, had begun to collide, ripping into each other with catastrophic force. Flaming forests were hurled skyward like dying comets, mountain-sized chunks of earth split apart in slow motion, gravity and magic both arguing over their fate. The sound was deafening, yet otherworldly, more than just thunder, more than explosion.
For the second time in Bjorn's life he witnessed the scream of reality breaking. A sharp electric buzz filled the air. It was the death rattle of natural magic. Bjorn recognized it instinctively. It wasn't just noise, it was the spiritual feedback of a natural spellform unraveling. Not one cast by a mage, but a massive, self-sustaining lattice of power that balanced air, gravity, life. Nature's magic.
Its collapse mirrored magical backlash felt when a mage lost control of a spell, only on a planetary scale. Skylands weren't just floating rocks. Well they were but, they were also miracles that were held aloft by a delicate equilibrium.
Now, that miracle was shattering. The sky itself wavered, like a curtain fluttering in a storm. For a heartbeat, Bjorn thought he saw something beyond it. Then came the light.
Explosions of raw mana cracked through the storm like heavenly fireworks, painting the mana hurricane sky in bursts of impossible color. It looked like the aurora had gone to war with itself. There were flashes of pure creation, fractal blooms of power dancing in the upper atmosphere.
It was terrifying.
It was beautiful.
It was like watching a god bleed diamonds across the firmament.
Then there was darkness.
***
Bjorn woke up completely fine. Just wet, filthy, and buried head to tail in debris and mud. He lifted his heads and counted to make sure there weren't any more or any less. One, two, three, four… five?
A small body, breathing softly was nestled against the curve of one of his necks. It was the creature, the hatchling from the maya egg. It was curled up like a cat, sharing warmth as if he were a mother hen. When he stirred, so did it.
"Hungry." The creature spoke.
The voice was weak and this time not in Bjorn's head. It spoke in the same hissing language Laxy spoke to communicate with him. Bjorn looked at the small creature. It had the same smell as a demon. No surprise there given the fact that maya ran thick through its veins. There was something else too. Something he had not felt in a demon. Something he only saw in himself and in his parents. A presence without end. A life without death. He knew just by looking at this small hatchling it was a True Immortal.
"What do you eat little one?" Bjorn responded.
"Roots." the níðhöggr responded. "Daddy, smells of delicious roots."
"Roots?" Bjorn echoed. "Wait, you don't mean mana tree roots?"
"You're not going to give this thing any of the mana tree roots right?" Isin snapped.
"Huh? What is going on, are you talking to her?" Failsafe questioned.
Bjorn forgot that Failsafe never heard the hissing language so he couldn't understand it.
"Kind of." Bjorn said. "Wait her? She is a female."
"Yep," Failsafe replied, sounding proud. "She's been so close to us for the past few hours I was able to analyse her while you slept." He paused. "Also, I have news you aren't going to like."
Bjorn narrowed his eyes, but his gaze dropped back to the hatchling. She was shivering now, trying to stay warm against him. She didn't look dangerous. Something in him shifted. Despite how far he felt from his memories of Mihr and Isin, they were still his memories. This little one had come into his life at the exact moment he was most vulnerable.
He sighed a long hissing rumble.
"We have enough to make a thousand Angel Cores." Bjorn said.
"You can't be serious." Isin said.
"We won't miss a few." Bjorn said fangs bared.
"Fine." Isin grumbled and turned his head away. "Hope we don't end up regretting this."
Bjorn knew he had more than what he needed, There had been a forest's worth of roots and he had mined every bit of the mana tree roots he found in the tunnels.
The scent of the root was potent and would attract monsters so he placed his body over hers and activated shadow concealment. A moment later a small bundle of mana tree roots appeared from his inventory in front of her. Her eyes widened at the sight and she let out a chattering noise as she opened her mouth and started eating voraciously.
"You said there was bad news?" Bjorn asked, not looking away from the hatchling.
"Yes-yes, while we were underground, I think the maya was manipulating time." Failsafe said his head was looking up at the few visible stars. "We should have only been in the caves for forty-two days."
"Stop pausing." Isin said. "What's wrong?"
"It's been two hundred and ten days." Failsafe finally said.
"Is that why we suddenly got all of that experience and that wave of emotions?" Bjorn asked.
"Yeah, the maya's influence blocked everything until we broke out. But once we were free, it all hit at once." Failsafe said.
"I have heard that from the people the Angels sent into the void. There were off-world extraction sites." Isin said. "The angels called it aetherlag. Time fractures. When you move faster than the world. Or when you're exposed to absurd levels of Higher Plane energy."
"That is a dumb name. It's called time dilation." Failsafe said flatly.
"How could you know that and we don't?" Isin asked.
"How do you know the term hourfold and I don't?" Failsafe questioned.
Bjorn growled, frustrated. "I don't care what it's called! How long do we have before the world explodes?"
"Um… let's see. Seven months thirteen days." Failsafe said.
He pulled on his connection to Tanisha and felt the direction to return to the Alpha extraction site. He turned to the hatchling and spoke in the hissing tongue.
"Little one, on my back. We're leaving."
She scarfed down the last of the roots and leapt onto him, small claws digging in gently as she nestled against his spine.
"Ready." She said contentedly. "Daddy fast."
Bjorn started running in the direction of home