The air inside the mountain felt ancient, thick with the scent of cold stone and something metallic—like the taste of blood on a copper coin. As they descended deeper, the vibrant, forced life Lys had created outside vanished, replaced by the suffocating weight of the deep earth.
"Stop," Lys rasped, leaning his shoulder against a damp wall. His breath came in shallow hitches. "My arms... they feel like they're being filled with molten lead."
Sora paused, the blue light of her Phoenix spear casting long, flickering shadows against the ceiling. "The seals are vibrating. You're hitting the resonance frequency, Lys. If we don't get you to the Forge, the Shin Dragon isn't just going to break out—it's going to turn you into a human supernova."
"I know that!" Lys snapped, his eyes flashing with a sudden, golden intensity. "I can feel it mocking me. It's not a 'power,' Sora. It's an entity. It wants to be unmade as much as it wants to unmake everything else."
Kael, who had been carrying the unconscious Valerius over one massive shoulder, set the man down heavily. He looked at Lys through the eye-slits of his weirwood mask. "The Dragon is the law of the beginning and the end. It doesn't have a temper, boy. It just is. You're the one providing the anger."
"Easy for you to say," Lys muttered, clutching his forearms. "You just have to carry a shield. You don't have a star trying to eat its way out of your ribs."
The Hall of the Forge
They reached a massive set of bronze doors, etched with the history of the First Age. As they pushed them open, the room roared to life—not with fire, but with a low-frequency hum that made the marrow of their bones ache. In the center sat the Aetheric Forge, a floating anvil of white stone surrounded by rotating rings of gravity.
"Wait," Lys said, staring at the pedestal. "The Monks said this would harness the power. They didn't say how."
Sora stepped toward the Forge, her Phoenix-glow dimming in the presence of the superior artifact. "Because they didn't want you to hesitate. To harness the Shin Dragon, you have to give up the very thing that keeps it contained."
"My seals?" Lys asked.
"No," Sora said softly, turning to face him. "Your distance. Right now, you treat the Dragon like a prisoner you're guarding. To use the Forge, you have to let it touch your soul directly. You have to let it change your biology. You won't be entirely human anymore, Lys. You'll be a living conduit."
Lys looked at Valerius, who was pale and sweating on the floor, then back at Sora. "And if I don't do it?"
"Then the next time you fight," Kael rumbled, "you'll win. But there won't be anyone left to congratulate you. You'll erase the enemy, the mountain, and us along with it."
A Moment of Truth
Lys walked toward the floating stone. He could feel the Dragon inside him surging, pressing against the third seal, eager for the contact.
"Is that why you carry the Phoenix?" Lys asked Sora. "Because you gave up being 'human'?"
Sora looked away, her grip tightening on her spear. "I gave up my silence. The Phoenix is a scream that never ends. It keeps me sharp, but I can never truly rest. Every time I sleep, I see the world burning and rising from the ashes. It's a heavy price for a little bit of fire."
Lys took a deep breath, standing before the Forge. "I spent my whole life being told I was a savior. But standing here... I just feel like a fuse that's gotten too short."
"Then change the fuse," Kael said,stepping up behind him like a guardian statue. "Stop being the cage. Start being the weapon."
Lys reached out. As his fingers touched the white stone of the Forge, the third seal didn't just glow—it shattered.