*Rumble...!!!
The very ground beneath their boots convulsed and trembled with mounting intensity, shaking as if the world itself recoiled from what they had done.
With each relentless pulse, the Rods of Jivrel continued their invasive descent,
*Crack!
*Rumble!!!
drilling deeper into the crust of Chasmratt and injecting it with torrents of saturated, highly volatile Eidra.
That much power—infused with such surgical precision—had only one possible outcome.
Awakening.
It would wake the thing that slumbered beneath.
At the epicenter of the battlefield, where ash fell like snow and the sky churned with fire-tinted clouds, the three Battlemasters stood motionless, unflinching, unwavering.
Each of them held their weapons drawn, all of them thrumming with coiled energy, the Eidra within their cores so condensed it distorted the air around them in shimmering waves.
Their gazes remained locked ahead, tense and sharp as the edge of the blades they carried.
There was no fear in their expressions—only the calm before the storm, only the sharp anticipation that lingered before all hell broke loose.
Their senses were honed to the limit, every muscle prepared to respond in a heartbeat.
The final battle was about to begin.
*Bang! *Bang! *Bang! *Bang! *Bang! *Bang!*Bang!
A final wave of rods fired.
The ground split with a booming crack, steam rising from the fresh tears in the earth.
Then—
for a moment—
there was silence.
.
.
.
A blanket of oppressive quiet fell upon the battlefield, as though time itself had paused to take a breath.
And that's when it began.
The whispers.
Insidious.
Faint at first.
But they slithered like worms through the air, not through ears—but through minds.
They pushed in uninvited, like poison soaking into a wound.
⫷⚍⟒⋉ Ϩ⊑Ϟ⧗ ꖦ⟟ ⫺ ⟊⨁Ϩ ⩎⚏⩵⋐⧃...
"D-Did you hear that…?" a soldier whispered, his voice barely audible, already frayed by panic.
⧇⧃⋙⧣ Ϩ⩮⚍Ϥ ⧩⧆⧈⩤⧨ ꖦ⩶⋒⪓ϫ ⩎⚏⩵⋐⧃...⋉ Ϩ⊑Ϟ!!!
"I-I can feel it… inside my head…!"
Voices.
⧇⧃⋙⧣ Ϩ⩮...
Not one, not two—but hundreds.
No...
Thousands.
⧃⋙⧣ Ϩ⩮⚍Ϥ ⧩⧆⧈⩤⧨ ꖦ⩶⋒⪓⩵⋐⧃⧃⋙⧣ Ϩ⩮⚍⚍Ϥ ⧩⩮⚍Ϥ ⧩⧆⧈⩤⧨ ꖦ!!!!!!!!
All layered atop one another.
Some screamed, some laughed, some whispered ancient curses in tongues that had no place in the world of the living.
They stabbed at consciousness like needles, sharp and invisible, worming their way deeper into the minds of those with the weakest resistance.
It was not just psychic—it was personal.
The beast below did not just speak.
It violated.
And even from just this first taste, it was clear—it held command over corrupted Eidra far beyond that of any corrupted spawn they had fought before.
This was no brute.
No mindless monster.
This was something else.
The Battlemasters, seasoned and tested by countless wars, held their ground with grim focus.
The whispers, while discomforting, were little more than passing irritations to them.
Their Eidra was too potent, too refined to be so easily breached.
But for the soldiers—it was a nightmare made real.
Their Eidra, while trained and disciplined, could not compare.
It was diluted, vulnerable—like a dam holding back a flood that had already begun to leak through every crack.
ꖦ⩶⋒⪓⩵⋐⧃⧃⋙⧣!!!
"Urgh—get out of my head!" one soldier screamed, his knees buckling as he collapsed.
"Aghhh!" another wailed, his body convulsing.
Grunts of pain, gasps of panic, and the sound of helmets hitting the dirt rang out across the field as entire squads were brought to their knees.
Some clutched their skulls with both hands, as if trying to rip the voices out by force.
Others froze in terror, eyes wide and unblinking as blood dripped from their noses.
The psionic pressure was unrelenting.
It clawed.
It chewed.
It laughed.
"Erenhold!" Mezra's voice snapped like a whip.
Her tone held no panic—only urgency.
Without a second's hesitation, Erenhold reached into the folds of his coat and withdrew a thick scroll sealed with a dark violet insignia.
Its surface shimmered with a strange, almost metallic texture.
This was no common field artifact.
Crafted not by artificers—but by the Eidrics of House Nythrael.
A rare bloodline infamous for their terrifying control of Eidra in its most volatile, raw forms. The Nythrael family were not known for generosity, nor mercy. That they had parted with this relic was not a gesture of alliance, but of debt.
As Erenhold cracked the seal, his fingers crackled with residual energy.
*Crack!!!
The moment the wax was broken, a deep violet light erupted from the scroll's surface, expanding outward in a pulse of raw energy that rippled like a heartbeat through the smoke-filled air.
Merilyn narrowed her eyes, immediately recognizing its signature.
"This Eidra…" she muttered under her breath, watching as the glow spread. "It's Nythrael's."
She turned toward Mezra, lifting a single brow as a sly smile tugged at her lips.
"House Nythrael isn't exactly known for sharing their toys."
Mezra scratched her scalp absently, sighing with a grimace. "Let's just say… I'll owe them a favor."
The scroll pulsed again—
*Whirrrr!!!
this time louder, brighter—
*Bang!
and then exploded in a dome of light that washed over the army like a rising tide.
And the voices stopped.
"I-It's gone…?" a soldier gasped, blinking as if surfacing from a dream.
"Thank the gods…" another whispered.
"Damn this fucking beast…" someone muttered, still shaking.
A moment of clarity returned.
And with it—
retaliation.
"Now, commanders—charge it to the maximum!" Mezra barked, her voice laced with ferocity.
The Rods of Jivrel, already pulsing with power, began to hum louder.
*VRRRRRRR!!!
The commanders obeyed without pause, cranking the devices past their limits.
The ground quaked even harder beneath their boots.
*VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!
The veins of Eidra energy screamed beneath the surface.
"Take this as payback, fucker!" one of the officers growled through gritted teeth.
*VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!
The earth could no longer withstand it.
Cracks snaked across the plains, massive fissures splitting open as the Eidra saturation reached critical levels.
Beneath their feet, the rumbling intensified—deep, ancient, and furious.
Then—
*BOOM!!!
The ground exploded upward.
A massive, grotesque hand erupted from the depths, each finger a spindly mass of twitching tendrils.
Its skin was the color of bruised flesh, dotted with hundreds—no, thousands—of tiny blinking eyes that looked in every direction and none all at once.
It slammed down with earth-shaking force, just meters from the closest line of soldiers.
"There it is!" Merilyn shouted, eyes wide with awe.
"I've never seen one this massive. How amazing!"
*BOOM!!
A second impact followed—another arm—equally grotesque.
Then, slowly, horrifically, the rest of the creature began to pull itself free.
It wasn't just large—it was wrong.
A body made of constantly shifting tendrils, sliding across each other like wet ropes.
Its head—or what passed for one—was a massive pulsating orb, a single vertical eye blinking slowly.
Hair-like fibers writhed around it, trembling with each guttural breath.
Half of its body still remained beneath the surface—but Mezra knew they had no time to wait.
She raised Flarethorn toward the sky, the flames swirling around it brighter than ever.
The blade pulsed with heat, golden and crimson serpents dancing across its edge.
"Now—ATTACK!!"
The command struck like lightning.
"AYE!!"
*Bang! *Bang! *Bang! *Bang! *Bang! *Bang! *Bang! *Bang!
Energy blasts, artillery shots, and a storm of Eidra projectiles lit the battlefield.
The soldiers fired in perfect unison, unleashing everything they had.
Meanwhile, the three Battlemasters surged forward—weapons drawn—closing the distance in an instant.
Merilyn leapt first, her glaive spinning in a whirlwind of crimson wind.
*Fwooooom!!!
As she flew upward, the storm around Zaepherax intensified, coiling tighter, roaring louder.
The air bent around her, pressured by the immense Eidra she channeled.
*ROAR!!!
The beast roared—a noise so deep it made the sky shake—and lunged at her.
Its arm lashed out, tendrils snaking toward her like grasping vines.
But she twisted mid-air, spinning just past its reach.
"Haha! Come on then, show me what you're made of!" she shouted, her voice crackling with thrill.
In that moment, her motherly demeanor disappeared—replaced by the fire of her youth.
She had once hunted creatures for sport, for glory, for thrill.
Monster hunting had always been her first love.
Now, standing before a beast born of madness and corruption, that passion burned anew.
"Ah gods, there she goes again…" Mezra muttered, rubbing her brow.
Erenhold simply smirked, then followed suit—diving into the fray beside his sister.
Together, under the blood-red skies of Chasmratt, the siblings of House Sorellia clashed with the monstrosity that rose from the dark.
Weapons flashed.
Eidra screamed.
Blood spilled.
Zaepherax tore through flesh like a blade of wind given form.
Erenhold's chain-blades cracked like lightning, slicing and grappling with brutal grace.
Mezra's Flarethorn burned through tendrils in sweeping arcs, fire trailing behind every strike.
And the soldiers behind them kept firing—holding the line as the corrupted titan howled.
For a moment—
it seemed like they might win.
But then…
beneath the chaos…
beneath the light and sound…
a pulse emerged.
Not audible.
Felt.
A slow, steady heartbeat.
*thump... *thump... *thump...
Ancient.
Endless.
Watching.
Waiting.
A presence deeper than this monster—
darker than its mind.
A child of Ikrax…
had awoken.