Light fractured into a thousand shards around Sorin as the portal hurled him and his team into a realm torn between beauty and violence. Above them, the sky rippled with crimson and gold, like a wound bleeding light. Beneath their boots, the ground was a shifting mosaic of molten glass and black stone, hissing and cracking underfoot. The air carried the metallic tang of iron and the acrid smoke of charred things, each breath heavy with the realm's memory of war.
A roar split the air—deep, guttural, close. From the warped horizon surged glassfangs, beasts with translucent hides that refracted the bleeding light. Claws struck like hammers, jaws glittered like cut diamonds. Spiral fire burned in their eyes.
"Form up!" Sorin commanded. Bone Flame coiled in his ribs—not only heat, but memory and will. This was the sound he had learned to answer.
Dren's Spiral-forged shield flared, hurling the first charge aside. Bram planted his bulk, arms a living barricade. Liora loosed an arrow that pierced two glassfangs in a white flare. Kaelith danced between enemies, blade precise. Arienna's twin swords carved arcs that smoked.
Sorin closed with a beast, the Spiral's rhythm threading through the chaos. He read its beats—one step, feint; two, break in the flank; three, the opening. His blade struck, white-gold fire bursting. The beast's scream shattered into the sky.
From the haze, Valrik's Obsidian Fang appeared—mercenaries with cold steel and cruel intent. They sought the relic, competition be damned.
The ground bucked from portal magic; shards sprayed like rain. Dren's shield cracked, Bram grappled a beast, Kaelith's blade whispered death. Sorin fought with silence, guiding allies by gesture, listening to the Spiral.
Then it came—an elder glassfang, hide studded with crystalline plates that drank the light. Its breath stank of scorched bone. Each step split the molten earth.
Bram met its charge, shield straining. Kaelith slashed a tendon, earning a bleeding shoulder. Arienna's blade flared heat, staggering the beast. Sorin waited, counting heartbeats. He struck at the moment the beast faltered, his sword biting deep.
The howl was sky-splitting. Molten glass rained. Sorin rolled clear, pressed his palm to the beast's flank, and silence spread—a stillness that froze friend and foe alike. In that breath, Liora's arrow and Kaelith's blade finished it. Bram hauled it down. The beast's death left a scent of rain.
The cost was steep. Bram's arm hung twisted, Dren's shield was broken, Liora's breath was shallow, Kaelith bled. Valrik's men retreated only because the ground itself turned on them, splitting to reveal rivers of fire that swallowed the slow.
They paused only long enough to bind wounds, the realm's oppressive heat stealing their strength. Above, the bleeding sky deepened, clouds roiling like predators circling prey.
Exhaustion pressed on Sorin. The Bone Flame dimmed, but the Spiral pulsed with warning. The realm shifted, roots and serpentine shapes rising at the scent of blood, their movements whispering promises of fresh slaughter.
"Move," Sorin ordered. They regrouped, battered but unbroken. The portal above still gaped—an eye that promised more enemies.
"We go deeper," Sorin said. "We find survivors, then push to the glinting ridge. The relic will not fall to mercenaries."
They moved as one, a frayed but unyielding braid of will. Each step sank into glass and ash, each breath tasted of metal. The deeper they went, the more the realm itself seemed to lean toward them, hungry. Somewhere ahead, the ridge shimmered faintly in the distance, like a blade waiting for a hand to claim it.
Behind them, the air twisted. The realm's teeth had only begun to show. The Convergence had tolled; the trial had truly begun.