# Chapter 688: The Weight of Will
The avatar took a step forward, the ground cracking under its weight. Its featureless face swiveled, the vortex within it seeming to focus on Nyra. A low, guttural sound emanated from it, a sound that was not a voice but a feeling—pure, undiluted hatred for the life she represented. Kaelen drew his sword, its steel gleaming in the shard's pulsing light. "Wardens, form a line! Protect the Sableki!" he roared, his voice a bastion of order against the encroaching chaos. The avatar raised its obsidian scythe, the black ichor dripping from its edge sizzling as it hit the ground. The fight was here. The gambit had paid off, and now came the bill.
The first charge was a thing of terrifying speed. The skeletal effigy moved not with the lumbering gait of a golem but with the fluid, predatory grace of a panther. It closed the distance in three ground-eating strides, its scythe arcing through the air in a silent, deadly swing. Kaelen met it head-on. His blade, a masterwork of Crownlands steel, clashed against the obsidian weapon. The sound was a shriek of tortured metal, not the clean ring of a sword-on-sword parry. Sparks flew, but Kaelen grunted, his arms buckling under the impossible strength. The scythe's edge, coated in its corrosive ichor, began to eat away at his blade, turning the polished steel a dull, pitted grey.
"Brace!" he yelled, shoving the avatar back with a desperate heave. Two Wardens flanked him, their poleaxes jabbing forward. The wooden shafts splintered and blackened on contact with the avatar's body, the corrosive nature of its form spreading like a disease. One Warden screamed as the decay crept up his weapon and onto his gauntlet. He dropped the poleaxe, stumbling back and frantically trying to tear off his armor as it flaked away into ash.
Nyra watched from behind their hastily erected barricade of rock and scrap metal, her body a canvas of agony. Every nerve screamed. The Cinder Cost was no longer a mere price; it was a raging fire consuming her from the inside out. Her vision swam, the edges blurring with a static grey. The fused shard in her hand felt impossibly heavy, a leaden weight tied to her soul. She could feel Soren's presence within it, a faint, stubborn ember of will that refused to be extinguished. It was that ember she clung to, a single point of focus in the overwhelming storm of pain.
*The construct is a physical manifestation, but its form is unstable,* the Valerius-AI's voice stated calmly in her mind, a stark contrast to the chaos outside. *It is a conduit for the King's power, anchored to this reality by the fissure. Its physical resilience is not absolute. It is a pattern of energy held together by will. Disrupt the pattern.*
"How?" Nyra rasped, the word scraping her throat. Her voice was a dry whisper, lost in the din of battle.
*The joints,* the AI instructed. *The energy is most concentrated there. A focused burst of resonant energy at the articulation points will cause a temporary cascade failure. It will not destroy it, but it will create an opening.*
An opening. She could barely lift her arm. To channel a focused burst of energy would be like trying to cup a star in her hands. The thought alone sent a fresh wave of nausea through her. The cost would be astronomical, a withdrawal from a bank account that was already overdrawn. She looked at the shard, its light pulsing in time with her own frantic heartbeat. She could feel Soren's stubborn determination, his unyielding refusal to quit, even in this state. It was a familiar feeling, one she had witnessed a hundred times in the Ladder arenas. He never feared the cost for himself, and he certainly wouldn't fear it for her.
A cool hand touched her arm. Elara. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with terror, but her voice was steady. "Nyra, you're white as a ghost. Don't. You can't."
"I have to," Nyra whispered, her gaze locked on the fight. Kaelen and his Wardens were being pushed back. They were brave, disciplined, but they were fighting a god with sticks and stones. One Warden was caught by a sweeping blow from the scythe, his chest plate dissolving into a cloud of rust and powder. He fell without a sound.
Elara's grip tightened. "Look at me. What would Soren say if he saw you doing this? Killing yourself for a ghost?"
Nyra finally tore her eyes from the battle and met Elara's gaze. The raw concern there was a balm on her burning soul. "He would tell me to stop being sentimental and win the fight," she said, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. "He never feared the cost for us, Elara. Not for a second. He walked into fire for his family. I can do no less."
The words were a vow. They solidified her resolve, hardening the molten core of her will into something sharp and unbreakable. The pain was still there, a roaring inferno, but now it had a purpose. It was fuel. She turned back to the AI, her mental voice firm. "Show me where."
*The left knee joint. In three seconds.*
Kaelen was driven back, his sword now a notched, ruined thing. He parried another desperate swing, the force of the impact sending him skidding backward. The avatar advanced, its scythe raised for a final, killing blow. It was the moment.
Nyra raised the shard. Every cell in her body protested. It felt like her skin was tearing, her muscles unraveling. She poured every ounce of her will, every fragment of her love for Soren, into the crystal. The shard flared, not with its usual warm light, but with a brilliant, searing white beam that shot across the crater.
The beam struck the avatar's left knee joint dead center. There was no explosion, no sound. For a fraction of a second, the joint simply… unmade itself. The energy pattern collapsed. The leg gave way. The avatar, mid-swing, stumbled, its balance completely thrown. Its scythe bit deep into the ground, sending a shockwave of cracking earth toward them.
"Now, Kaelen!" Elara screamed, her voice amplified by the comm unit.
Kaelen didn't hesitate. He was a warrior who understood opportunity. He abandoned his ruined sword, drew a heavy-bladed dagger from his belt, and lunged. He didn't aim for the torso or the head; he aimed for the staggering construct's other leg, the right ankle. He drove the dagger in with all his strength, burying it to the hilt. The obsidian-like bone cracked. The avatar went down on one knee, its vortex-face swiveling toward Nyra, its hatred now a palpable, crushing force.
A cheer went up from the remaining Wardens. They had wounded the beast. They had proven it could be hurt.
But the victory was short-lived. The avatar planted one hand on the ground, and the fissure from which it had emerged flared with a sickening green light. Energy, raw and potent, flowed from the fissure into the construct. The crack in its ankle sealed over. The damaged joint in its other leg began to knit itself together, the energy pattern reasserting its dominance. It was healing.
"It's drawing power from the fissure!" Elara yelled into her comm, her fingers flying across a portable data-slate. "Talia, are you seeing this? It's tethered!"
*Confirmed,* the AI's voice cut in, directed at both of them. *The fissure is its anchor and its lifeline. As long as the connection remains, the avatar is functionally immortal. The only way to neutralize it is to sever the tether.*
Sever the tether. It was a hundred yards away, across open ground, guarded by a monster that was now fully aware of their strategy. The avatar rose to its feet, its movements now more cautious, more deliberate. It knew they knew its weakness. And it would not let them get near it.
Kaelen retreated back to the barricade, breathing heavily. He looked at his remaining men—only four left, including himself. He looked at Nyra, pale and trembling, her hand still clutching the glowing shard. He looked at the avatar, standing like a silent sentinel between them and their only chance of victory.
He scoffed, a harsh, bitter sound. "You're all going to get yourselves killed." He gestured with his head toward the fissure. "You think you can just walk over there and pull the plug? It will cut you in half before you take ten steps."
He turned as if to leave, to abandon this suicide mission. But he stopped. He looked at the ruined bodies of his men, at the pitted, useless sword in his hand. He looked at the sheer, unyielding will in Nyra's eyes. He was a pragmatist, a survivor. But he was also a soldier. And soldiers didn't run from a fight just because the odds were bad. They ran when the fight was lost. This one, impossibly, was not.
He let out a long, weary sigh. "Wardens, reinforce this position. Double the barricades. I want overlapping fields of fire. We're not going anywhere." He didn't look at Nyra as he said it, but the message was clear. He wasn't leaving. He was digging in. It was a silent, grudging acknowledgment of the coming fight, a testament to the sheer force of will she had just displayed. He was a bastard, but he was a bastard who knew a winning hand when he saw one, even if it was a hand that would likely burn the dealer to the ground.
Nyra felt a flicker of something other than pain. Gratitude. Respect. She looked from Kaelen's broad, armored back to Elara's determined face. They were with her. They were a team. And they had a plan. A terrible, suicidal, impossible plan. But it was a plan nonetheless. The weight of it settled upon her, heavier than the shard, heavier than the Cinder Cost. It was the weight of will, not just her own, but the will of everyone who had chosen to stand with her against the dark. And for the first time since she had activated the beacon, she felt like they might actually have a chance.