The silence after godbloodshed was a lie.
Ash drifted through the ruined forest like black snow, settling on shattered trunks and scorched earth. Elira knelt where the god had fallen, breath tearing in and out of her chest, every muscle screaming. The shadows around her twitched restlessly, unwilling to fully withdraw, as if expecting retaliation.
It came.
The ground buckled without warning.
A裂裂裂—deep, violent—split the earth beneath the clearing. Elira barely had time to gasp before the soil erupted upward, flinging her aside. She rolled hard, pain detonating across her shoulder as a massive shape clawed its way out of the crater.
Not godsent.
Something worse.
A beast of fused bone and light hauled itself free, its body stitched together with divine sigils that bled radiance. Multiple arms ended in blades grown from its own skeleton. Its faceless head tilted, sensing her.
The King reacted instantly.
He surged forward, shadows hardening into armor as his blade met the creature's descending strike. The impact sent a shockwave rippling outward, flattening the remaining trees. The King skidded back several paces, boots gouging trenches into the earth.
"Move!" he barked.
The beast screamed—high, metallic—and lunged again.
The alien guard intercepted from the flank, leaping with mechanical precision. Its remaining weapon punched into the creature's side, detonating shadow inside bone. The beast barely flinched. One skeletal arm whipped out, impaling the guard through the torso and hurling it into the wreckage with crushing force.
Elira forced herself up.
Her legs trembled, but the chain between her and the King burned hot, steadying her. She raised her hands as the shadows answered—slower than before, heavier.
Exhaustion.
The beast sensed it.
It turned toward her, abandoning the King mid-fight. Sigils across its body flared as it charged, the ground shattering beneath its weight.
"Elira!" the King shouted, breaking after it.
Too far.
Too slow.
The beast leapt.
Elira didn't retreat.
She planted her feet, pain roaring, and drew the shadows inward instead of outward. They compressed around her arms, dense and screaming with pressure.
At the last second, she thrust forward.
A spear of pure darkness tore from her hands, punching straight through the creature's chest. Light exploded outward in a blinding flash as the beast crashed to the ground, convulsing violently.
It wasn't dead.
It was changing.
The sigils burned brighter.
And deep beneath the ruined earth, something else began to stir in answer.
The creature screamed as its body began to tear itself apart.
Cracks split through its bone-plated torso, light pouring from within as the sigils carved into its flesh flared out of control. Elira staggered back, shielding her eyes as the darkness spear lodged in its chest pulsed violently—feeding, corrupting, rewriting.
"Get away from it!" the King shouted.
Too late.
The beast convulsed and then *collapsed inward*, its form folding grotesquely as divine light imploded. The ground detonated in a violent burst, hurling Elira through the air. She hit the earth hard, rolling until something solid slammed into her back and knocked the breath from her lungs.
The King was suddenly there.
He hauled her up by the arm, dragging her behind the shattered remains of a massive tree as shards of bone and light rained down like shrapnel. A jagged fragment slammed into his shoulder, punching through armor.
Elira cried out as pain mirrored across her own flesh.
"I'm fine," he growled through clenched teeth, though blood soaked his sleeve. "Focus."
The crater where the beast had been was no longer empty.
Something was rising.
A column of twisted light spiraled upward from the depths, thick with writhing shadow and fractured symbols. Within it, shapes moved—half-formed, screaming, clawing at reality itself.
"Residual divinity," the King muttered darkly. "They used it as a vessel."
The column collapsed outward.
Creatures poured free—smaller than the beast, faster, their bodies unstable masses of bone, light, and shadow. They skittered across the battlefield on too many limbs, shrieking as they charged.
The remaining alien guard limped forward, weapon recharging with a strained whine. It fired in controlled bursts, punching holes through the swarm, but the creatures kept coming, crawling over their fallen, tearing themselves apart just to reach Elira.
The King surged into them.
His blade carved wide arcs, shadows ripping through the swarm, but for every creature that fell, two more lunged from the crater. One latched onto his back, claws sinking deep.
Elira felt it—sharp, searing.
"No!" she screamed.
The shadows around her snapped taut.
She rose, exhaustion screaming, and swept her arms outward. Darkness flooded the ground, spreading like liquid night, swallowing the swarm's legs and dragging them screaming beneath the earth.
But the column of light pulsed again.
Deeper.
Stronger.
The ground trembled violently beneath Elira's feet, the pull of it dragging at the bond, tugging at something ancient and dangerous inside her.
The King staggered back to her side, breathing hard.
"This is not an attack," he said grimly, eyes locked on the glowing pit. "It's a summoning."
The light surged upward in answer.
And something vast began to force its way through.
The earth split wide.
A roar tore free from the pit—deep, layered, wrong—shaking the clearing as something colossal forced its way upward. Massive claws of fused bone and shadow punched through the soil, hauling a towering form into the open night. It was not divine, not mortal, but a blasphemous convergence of both.
The King swore.
"That's a Warden," he said. "They were never meant to wake."
The creature rose fully, easily twice the height of the beast before it. Runes burned across its torso like open wounds, leaking corrupted light. Its head turned slowly, locking onto Elira with predatory certainty.
The chain between her and the King went taut.
It lunged.
The ground shattered as the Warden charged, each step collapsing the earth beneath it. The King met it head-on, shadows flaring as he leapt, blade striking deep into its shoulder. The impact rang like a bell struck by a god.
The Warden barely slowed.
It backhanded him with brutal force, sending him crashing through two dead trees before slamming into the ground hard enough to crater it. Elira screamed as pain ripped through her spine, nearly dropping her to her knees.
"No," she gasped, forcing herself upright.
The alien guard moved first—launching itself onto the Warden's back, blades driving into glowing runes. The creature roared, thrashing violently. One massive hand reached back and crushed the guard in a single, sickening squeeze.
The King staggered to his feet, blood streaming, shadows flickering unstable around him.
"Elira," he shouted, voice strained. "If it reaches full cohesion—"
She didn't wait.
Elira stepped forward as the shadows answered her call, not surging outward, but *folding inward*, compressing around her like a second skin. Power screamed through her veins, raw and unforgiving.
She reached for the Warden—not its body, but the runes binding it together.
And she pulled.
The runes flared, then shattered.
The Warden screamed as its form destabilized, cracks racing across its body as darkness tore into the corrupted light. It staggered, clawing at itself as pieces began to tear free.
The King charged one last time.
Together, shadow and will struck as one.
The Warden collapsed inward, imploding into a violent storm of light and darkness that tore the clearing apart.
When the shockwave faded, Elira dropped to her knees, gasping.
The forest was gone.
And in the sky above, the rift did not close.
It widened.