The underground shook as another shadowy beast slammed against Gideon's guard. The air was thick with the smell of scorched stone, the stench of burning ichor mingling with sweat and blood. Above, distant roars and shouts bled through cracks in the cavern ceiling—Greyspire was fighting for its life on two fronts.
Eliakim's bracelet flared—chains unfurling like living serpents, each link inscribed with faint sigils. They whipped out, coiling around a wolf-shaped wraith and pulling it into the air before slamming it against the ground in a burst of pale light. Two more incoming. Right flank, Gideon growled through the chaos, his voice low and primal in his partial lycan form. His twin axes blazed—one red, one blue—reacting to Kaelvryn's dormant power.
Ezra stood further down the tunnel, her staff a blur as raw mana poured from her, blasting shadow-beasts apart with almost reckless force. Her power was overwhelming—yet every spell sent dangerous feedback rippling through her body. She stumbled once, teeth clenched, but hurled another wave of flame regardless.
Above, the street battle raged. Skyling soared over the rooftops, fire spilling from her beak in great arcs, scattering shadowy forms like dry leaves in a storm. She felt Eliakim's focus spike in her mind—a wordless image of the southern square burning under the weight of shadows.
Skyling. Hold that line. Do not let them pass.
She answered not with words but a vivid impression—streets swept clean by her fire, the shadows breaking apart under her onslaught. She dived low, wings churning the air into a gale.
Adventurers fought alongside her—archers on balconies, swordsmen in the streets, mages chanting from behind barricades. The credit for this night would not belong to any single name—it was being bought in blood by many.
Eliakim sensed another surge from the west. Western anchor. Now.
The heat in his mind swelled—Skyling's acknowledgment—before a mental flash of her banking sharply, diving toward the new threat. He felt the pull of gravity and the snap of wind through her feathers as if he were there with her.
Nathaniel's rose-stem whip sang through the air, its thick, thorned coils biting deep into a shadow-beast's form and tearing it apart in an explosion of black mist. His movements were precise, almost dance-like, each strike cracking with speed.
Gideon, push left, Eliakim ordered. The lycan surged forward, smashing into a hulking brute with such force the creature's chest caved inward. Blood sprayed in a hot arc.
Skyling. Break your rift—now.
From above came a surge of heat—then Skyling's firestorm roared through their shared link. The eastern market's portal cracked and collapsed, shards of dark energy shattering like glass before evaporating into nothing.
The victory was brief. The obsidian creature forced its way through the main underground breach, towering over the fight, its body like a jagged statue of living night.
Eliakim's chains snapped forward, wrapping around its limbs, sigils burning bright against the dark. Gideon's axes cleaved deep, Ezra's mana detonations rattled the earth, Nathaniel's whip sliced away tendrils of shadow trying to reform. Above, Skyling's flame lit the night sky—and somewhere in their link, Eliakim felt her pushing herself harder, burning past her limits.
Pull back to the square.
Skyling's answer came as a fierce, wordless cry in his mind—a shared image of civilians huddled beneath her wings, her fire shielding them from a wave of shadows. Eliakim felt her exhaustion, the edge of pain in her body—but also her refusal to yield.
The Guild adventurers, bloodied but unbroken, closed in. Some fell, some dragged the wounded to safety, but all moved with one purpose—defend Greyspire.
The obsidian giant bellowed and swung an arm the size of a tree trunk, scattering fighters like dolls. Eliakim's chains caught its wrist before it could crush a cluster of defenders. Gideon's roar joined the din, his lycan eyes burning gold as he leapt onto the creature's back.
The fight swelled into chaos—steel, magic, and fire in every direction—yet there was rhythm to it now. Underground and above, man and beast, all striking in a single heartbeat.
And through it all, Eliakim and Skyling moved as one—bonded thought to thought—until the shadows began to break under the weight of their defiance.
The obsidian giant collapsed into dust under a combined strike from Gideon's axes, Ezra's mana burst, and Eliakim's chain constriction. But the victory was hollow—the shadows didn't scatter, they slithered back into the cracks of the earth.
A pulse of cold spread through the cavern, different from the raw malice of the creatures they had been fighting.
"Down there," Nathaniel hissed, pointing with his whip toward a narrow fissure splitting the far wall.
Eliakim's mind brushed against Skyling's. Keep the surface clear. We're going deeper.
She responded with a flicker of worry—an image of streets still writhing with shadows—but also trust.
The party moved quickly into the fissure, guided by Eliakim's mental map of Greyspire's underbelly. The air grew heavier with each step, the tunnels shifting from rough rock to carved stone, marked with curling black sigils.
Ezra's magic pulsed faintly against the walls. "Ritual script," she muttered, almost to herself. "Fresh."
They turned the final corner—and froze.
In a cavern lit by sickly green fire, a man in tattered robes stood at the center of a vast circle of bone and ash. His hands moved in fluid patterns, feeding the swirling black smoke that rose from four altar points—each positioned to mirror a quadrant of Greyspire above.
His face was hidden by a mask carved like a screaming skull.
The shadows writhed around him in human and beast shapes, their forms straining to break free of the circle.
The robed man paused mid-chant. Slowly, his head turned toward them.
The firelight caught the edge of his mask—and a low, cold voice slid through the cavern.
"You're late."