The ruin shook with the weight of clashing steel and ragged cries, yet the rhythm faltered. Blades wavered mid-swing. Raiders glanced past their enemies, their gazes drawn, compelled, toward the boy in the center. His every breath set the glyphs beneath his feet smoldering faintly, as though the ruin itself acknowledged him.
Every flicker of his shard-blade sent men recoiling, their knuckles whitening, their courage unraveling. Each pulse of ember-light in his eyes carved fresh trenches of fear into their hearts. Already, some had stepped back into the shadows, weapons lowered, muttering curses and broken prayers to gods who did not answer.
The captain saw it. Rage twisted her scarred face, veins straining in her neck.
"Cowards!" she bellowed, voice cracking like thunder across the ruin. She struck her own man with the edge of her blade, splitting his cheek open and sending him stumbling forward. Blood dripped onto the stones, smoking faintly where it touched the glyph-lines. "Fear him and you die anyway. Fight, and maybe you'll live!"
Her words lashed them raw. The raiders' eyes, wide with terror, hardened into something brittle. They still shook, but they gripped their blades again, driven by a fear fiercer than death.
Sofia's voice rose above the chaos, sharp as the scar burning red across her cheek. She herded the guards together, forming a wall of battered shields and bodies around Leo, Evelyn, and the boy. Her sword pointed unwavering at the captain. "You've already lost. Walk away with what's left of your pride."
The captain bared her teeth, lips curling back like a feral beast. "I'll walk away with his head!"
She charged.
And with her, the raiders screamed and surged in one last desperate rush.
The ruin erupted.
Steel clashed like lightning striking stone. Sparks leapt through the dust, torches toppled and rolled, their smoke twisting upward into the half-lit glyphs. The air itself shook with the weight of fury and fear colliding.
Leo found himself face-to-face with the captain again. Her blade descended in brutal arcs, her strikes wild with hatred. There was no grace, no restraint, only fury sharpened into steel. Leo's shard-blade screamed in his hands with every clash, raw power bleeding into his arms until they burned.
Her snarling face pressed inches from his. "You're a curse wrapped in flesh! You'll kill them all in the end, "
"Then I'll bear it!" Leo roared, voice torn raw. "Better me than you!"
He shoved, and the shard answered.
A pulse tore through the ruin floor, a heartbeat of stone turned to violence. The ground split, shards of masonry bursting upward like jagged spears. The captain was hurled back, her weapon spinning from her grip, clattering uselessly into the dust.
The shockwave rippled outward. Raiders were thrown from their feet in waves, bodies crashing into broken walls. Some shrieked and fled into the night, terror finally devouring the captain's hold. Others scrambled to their knees, blades forgotten, staring at Leo with hollow eyes as though he had become something other than human.
The captain clawed her way up, blood streaking her brow, one eye nearly swollen shut. She heaved for breath, chest rising and falling with fury that no longer disguised her fear.
She spat into the dirt at his feet. "This isn't over. You can't hold that power forever, boy."
Her whistle split the air, sharp and commanding. The surviving raiders broke, retreating into the ridge in stumbling haste, their footsteps echoing into the night until silence reclaimed the ruin.
The battle was done.
The caravan guards lowered their weapons one by one. Some collapsed onto the stone, groaning, bleeding, but alive. Evelyn sagged in relief, clutching her chest, tears burning her eyes as laughter and sobs warred in her throat. The boy still clung to Leo's wrist; his small fingers wrapped around it as though anchoring him to life itself. His gaze was fixed, unblinking, filled with something like reverence.
Owen scribbled furiously with trembling hands, his voice a hoarse, reverent whisper. "He didn't just survive it. He wielded it. Saints… saints, what have we found?"
Sofia sheathed her sword slowly, her scar faintly glowing in the last flicker of glyph-light. She said nothing, her eyes fixed on Leo, unreadable, as though weighing the boy against the ruin's judgment.
Leo staggered. The shard-blade flickered in his grip, cracks racing its length before it dissolved into drifting dust. His knees buckled, his chest heaving as if every breath tore open his ribs. Sweat stung his eyes, but he forced his voice past his raw throat.
"I-, I'm still me."
The words wavered, yet they held.
The ruin, dim and cracked, seemed to listen. Its silence was not empty. It was watching. Waiting.
And in that silence, the boy who had risen stood, not untouched, not unscarred, but unbroken.