The first scream came from the clouds.
Not human. Not animal.
The sky above the city twisted inward, folding like burned paper. Streetlights burst one after another as shadows poured down between buildings, stretching, tearing themselves free from the air.
"The Eclipse," Caelum said, already moving. Lightning cracked from his hands into the streets below, forming a living grid. "They shouldn't be this close—"
"They followed him," Nyra snapped, pointing at Lys.
Lys didn't argue.
The Dragon inside him had risen to the surface, coils of fire pressing against his ribs, wings unfolding in his mind. His eyes burned brighter—gold fractured with white, a halo of light forming around his pupils.
The first Eclipsed struck the street.
They weren't husks anymore.
These were hunters.
Tall, jointed things wrapped in living shadow, bodies outlined by broken armor that pulsed like veins. Their faces were empty hollows, save for a single crescent mark glowing sickly violet.
Caelum vanished.
Thunder followed.
He reappeared above the nearest Eclipsed, driving a spear of lightning straight through its core. The creature screamed as electricity ripped it apart from the inside, shadow unraveling into ash.
More fell.
Too many.
They climbed walls. They flowed across asphalt like spilled ink. Cars lifted into the air as gravity buckled under their presence.
Nyra engaged at ground level, blades singing, each strike burning with runic light as she carved through shadowed limbs.
"Lys!" Elda shouted. "Hold the center—don't let them circle!"
Lys stepped forward.
The street melted beneath his feet.
Heat radiated outward in waves, glass softening, metal warping as the Great Well inside him opened—just enough.
The Eclipsed hesitated.
Then the sky split.
A massive Eclipse entity descended—wider than a city block, its form like a collapsed star wrapped in shadow. The air screamed around it, time stuttering with each movement.
Caelum froze mid-air.
"That one's anchored," he said grimly. "Fire alone won't—"
Lys already knew
The Dragon within him surged, ancient and furious. Memories flooded his mind—choirs of light, wings of flame, judgment not born of wrath but of clarity.
"No more," Lys whispered.
The seals on his chest shattered.
Light erupted from his lungs—not fire, not lightning, but something purer.
The Seraphim Breath.
A column of radiant force tore through the city sky, white-gold and screaming with harmonic resonance. The sound was not an explosion but a chord, as if reality itself had been struck.
The Eclipse entity didn't burn.
It unraveled.
Shadow peeled away in layers, screaming as time corrected itself, as corrupted souls were torn free and reduced to drifting motes of light.
Every Eclipsed caught in the wave froze—then collapsed into ash and fading memory.
The storm above the city dispersed in an instant.
Silence followed.
Lys dropped to one knee, smoke rising from his shoulders, blood at the corner of his mouth glowing faintly gold.
Caelum landed beside him, eyes wide—not with fear, but awe.
"You used it again," he said quietly. "Do you know what that means?"
Elda approached slowly. "The Seraphim Breath isn't just destruction," she said. "It's judgment."
Nyra looked at the empty street, the ash dissolving into nothing. "And now the world knows," she muttered.
Above them, cameras flickered back to life.
Screens across the city replayed the moment the sky broke open with light.
And far beyond sight, in the space between seconds, the Time Dragon smiled.
The Fire Dragon had chosen.
And time would answer.