They scrambled into the tower, boots pounding over slick stones, the floor streaked with fresh blood. The hoard outside roared like a sea of knives, crashing against the barricades, flooding the courtyard in a churning mass of twisted flesh. Valen shoved his shoulder against the warped wood, trying to bar the door while Nyra turned toward Luken, who was standing too still eyes wide beneath the ridged brow of his Kruul-hybrid illusion, one horn glimmering faintly in the torchlight. The half-shifted look made him seem almost alien, a monster wearing a monster's face.
"Luken," she called, firm but gentle, stepping closer. "Look at me."
He didn't move. His staff trembled in his grip, knuckles bone-white. The faint yellow gleam in his left eye pulsed with every distant shriek from outside.
"It's the same," he whispered hoarsely, breath catching. "It's the same… the same…"
Nyra laid a steadying hand on his shoulder. "No. Listen to me it is not the same. You are not back there. We are here, together."
His eyes flicked toward her, but she could see the ghosts still pulling at him, a thousand shattered memories clawing at the edge of his mind.
Valen stepped up, grabbed Luken's cloak, and yanked him forward until their faces nearly collided. "Snap out of it!" he snarled, eyes hard, voice sharp as steel. "I need you here, wizard. We need you here, not lost in your head!"
Luken flinched, blinking, almost recoiling. His staff clattered against the wall as he gasped, shoulders shaking.
Nyra shot Valen a glare, but he didn't back off. "Look around you!" Valen snapped, pointing toward the stairs winding up into the dark. "You think Nyra and I can do this alone? You think she can drag you the whole way? Get. Your. Head. Straight."
Luken's breathing stuttered. The words hit him harder than any comfort cutting through the fog, slicing right to the bone. He swallowed hard, the light of the yellow eye dimming, and steadied his stance.
"Right," he rasped. "Right."
Valen let him go, stepping back, sword ready. "Good. Then move."
The tower trembled as something massive slammed against the doors below. Somewhere across the compound, another blood-sack burst with a wet pop, spilling fresh horrors into the flood. The stench of rotting meat curled through the cracks.
"Up," Nyra ordered, voice steady. "We get to the top. We find the Archon. We end this."
They climbed Nyra leading, Valen behind her, Luken following with ragged breaths, and Tar bringing up the rear, his hooves cracking against the stone, horns brushing the ceiling in the tighter passages.
The stairs were narrow and steep, twisting through walls of black stone shot through with thin, wormlike veins that pulsed faintly. Nyra's boots slipped on places where dried blood had pooled. Luken kept glancing at the walls, at the half-melted cages bolted along the inner ring, at the bones of things left to rot inside. Valen had to prod him once or twice to keep moving, muttering curses under his breath.
Outside, the pounding of claws and twisted bodies trying to force their way inside grew louder a chorus of chittering, howling, writhing things desperate to follow their creators. Blood-sacks dotted the surrounding buildings, bursting in staggered intervals across the compound, each one spilling fresh horrors into the churning mass.
Nyra paused at a landing, catching her breath, hearing another muted crash from below. "Thal bought us time," she said, voice firm, "but we can't waste it."
Luken gave a shaky nod. "I… I know." His eyes were clearer now, though something haunted still danced behind them.
Valen's tone softened, just a shade. "I know you hate this place, wizard. So do I. That's why we burn it to the ground."
Luken nodded again, a grim spark lighting behind his half-Kruul stare. "Right," he repeated, stronger this time.
They continued upward, the spiral growing tighter, the walls closer, the air rank with coppery rot. Every shadow felt alive, every echo like claws scratching at their minds.
At the top of the flight, the corridor widened, opening into a high hall that looked more like a twisted cathedral than a throne room. Pillars of tree roots coiled with obsidian supported a ceiling resembling the ribcage of some enormous beast. The floor was slick with old blood. Far ahead, past an altar of black stone, rose the tower's central keep a door so large it looked carved for giants, chained shut with metal thicker than Nyra's arm.
Nyra exhaled slowly, resting her axe against her shoulder. "That's where he is," she whispered.
Valen spat to one side, sword still dripping gore. "Then let's knock."
Behind them, a far-off roar trembled through the walls Thal, still fighting, still tearing through the monsters with no sign of slowing. Nyra clenched her jaw, heart tight. She could hear the grief hidden behind Thal's rage, though he'd never admit it, and for a second, she wanted to run back to him. But there was no time.
She turned, meeting Luken's eyes one last time. "Stay close," she said.
Luken nodded, drawing a shaky breath. "Close," he echoed.
Valen and Tar approached the door together. The Minotaur set one massive hand against the iron, bracing the other against the wall. Valen nodded to him. "Together."
They shoved. Valen's muscles strained, Tar's bulk drove forward like a battering ram. The chains trembled, creaked, then snapped with a brittle scream. A second shove cracked them apart, shards of dull runes scattering across the black stone.
The doors groaned open on a sigh that felt like the tower itself giving up.
Beyond lay a vast ritual chamber, floor carved with twisting marks that seemed to move if stared at too long. Sickly roots pulsed across the ground, feeding into an altar of black stone.
And before that altar stood a figure, hunched yet horribly alive with intent. His joints bent backward natural to the Kruu'Strata, not broken propped by a fused staff that had become part of his mangled hand. Two horns curved upward from his temples, sharp and black as obsidian. His eyes were pits of black sclera surrounding glowing red irises that fixed on them with ancient contempt. Red hair hung in limp ropes around his shoulders, stark against the pallor of his skin. A segmented exoskeleton spine armoured his back, chitinous plates locking together down to a rigid tail that scraped against the stone with a sound like knives.
"So," the Archon rasped, voice impossibly clear, "the vermin finally scratch their way to the summit."
Valen's lip curled. "You're the Archon of Rot."
The Archon's red eyes flicked to Valen's sword, then back to his face, dismissing both with a glance. "I am Othamar. The last true son of the Kruu'Strata. You name me rot because you lack the stomach to understand transformation."
Nyra stepped forward, shoulders squared. "You made this horror the blood pits, the twisted beasts."
Othamar's gaze settled on her, heavy with centuries of scorn. "I made weapons from the refuse your kind left to die in the dark. I took the broken and gave them purpose." His eyes narrowed. "You carry steel and think yourself righteous. You are simply less… creative in your butchery."
Luken shifted, his illusion flickering. The Archon's red eyes snapped to him, seeing through the Kruul mask instantly. "And you," Othamar hissed, tail lashing against the stone, "you wear my brother's face like a child wearing his father's armor. Does it help you sleep, little mage? Pretending to be the monster instead of the coward?"
Luken's knuckles whitened on his staff, but he stepped forward, meeting that glowing red gaze. "I don't need to pretend to be a monster to recognize one," he said, voice steadier than his hands. "I've seen what you do to them. The 'purpose' you give. It's not salvation it's slavery with better lighting."
Othamar laughed, a sound like grinding stone. "Bold words from something shaking hard enough to drop his stick." He leaned forward, exoskeleton spine clicking as it flexed. "You think your disguise grants you understanding? You are an insult to the blood you wear. A shadow trying to lecture the sun."
Valen barked a humourless laugh. "And that justifies this?"
"There is no justifying," the Archon replied, his backward-jointed legs shifting with a wet pop as he straightened to his full height, "only surviving. And you have already failed at that."
A hiss of breaking glass echoed through the hall. Green light sliced the air near the dais, and from the rift stepped a woman in deep purple robes, her wide-brimmed hat casting a mocking shadow over sharp emerald eyes that glittered with mischief.
Nyra stiffened, axe tightening. She didn't know this woman but everything about her felt wrong.
Valen bristled, sword coming up. "Who the hell are you?"
Zara tilted her head, examining her fingernails as if bored. "Me? I'm Zara," she said, the name dripping from her tongue like honey laced with arsenic. When she looked up, her smile was thin and cryptic. "But does it matter? You're here. I'm here. Isn't that arrangement delicious?"
"No jokes right now," Valen snarled, the humour that usually coloured his voice nowhere to be found. "Why are you here?"
"Straight to business?" She laughed, a sound like silver bells shattering. "But questions are so much more interesting than answers, don't you think? If I told you I was your salvation, you'd distrust me. If I told you I was your death, you'd fight harder. Where's the sport in that?"
Nyra shifted her weight, blade ready. "You're with him."
Zara's eyes danced with cruel delight. She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "With him? Beside him? Inside his head?" She gestured vaguely at the air. "I'm simply… passing through. Though I must say, the entertainment value has exceeded my expectations."
"You're mad," Nyra said.
"Or perhaps you're simply dull," Zara purred. "I do so love watching little mice scurry. Will you run? Will you bite? I can't wait to see which."
A faint, echoing crack followed, and the green portal widened. From its edges stepped soldiers black-steel armor polished to a mirror shine, boots hitting the ground without wasted motion. No banners. No battle cries. Only the sound of metal on metal, like tools prepared for butchery.
Nyra's knuckles went white around the bone haft of her axe. She didn't freeze. She burned.
Those shapes. Those blank masks. The precise, clinical way they moved.
Her vision narrowed to a red-tinted tunnel. They were here. The same steel that had drunk her village's blood, that had silenced the screams, that had left her grip tightened until the bone creaked, until her fingers numbed against the familiar smoothness. No tears. No paralysis. Only a cold, murderous rage that turned her breath to frost in her lungs.
Valen shifted toward her, sensing the tremor in her arms, not with fear, but fury barely chained. "Nyra?"
"I see them," she said, voice flat and terrible. Her thumb traced a worn notch in the haft. "Let them come."
The Archon watched her recognition with a predator's interest, his exoskeleton tail scraping the stone. "Ah," he rasped, red eyes gleaming. "You remember them. Good. Die with that memory fresh."
Zara stepped closer to the ritual circle, emerald runes blooming at her fingertips. "Do try to last more than a few minutes, my dears. I'd hate for the climax to come too soon."
Valen shifted, lips peeling back in a grin. "Try me."
The ritual began to glow, roots quivering as a deep heartbeat echoed from the black stone.
The soldiers advanced, weapons drawn.
Nyra raised her axe. "No mercy."
Valen flexed his shoulders. "Not today."
Tar rumbled forward, horns glinting in the green light, smashing into the first rank with earthshaking force.
Luken trembled but lifted his staff, blue sparks flaring.
Zara turned back to the ritual, dismissing them already. "Shall we begin?"
Othamar nodded, his ruined body shuddering as the circle's magic wrapped around him.
Nyra gritted her teeth. "They die," she growled, "or we do."
Valen grinned, savage. "One way or another."
They stepped forward into the green glow.
Nyra barely dragged Luken back before another soldier lunged, blade slicing where his throat had been. The thing moved with monstrous calm no breath, no battle cry, only clinical precision. She shoved Luken behind her and swung her axe hard, biting into the soldier's shoulder, cleaving through but the wound barely slowed it.
Valen was on its back a heartbeat later, stabbing between its neck plates, twisting with a grunt. The soldier staggered, emerald light flickering at the wound. For a moment, Nyra thought they'd done it but then the portal behind it pulsed, and the light solidified, seamless, the soldier straightening as if nothing had happened.
Tar crashed through two more with a roar, horns spearing them like toys, but they only dissolved into emerald mist as three more stepped fresh from the portal's glow.
"Luken!" Nyra barked. "They're coming too fast!"
Luken lifted his staff, trembling, sending a wild burst of searing flame at another soldier. Its body burst apart in a hiss of emerald fire. But as the smoke cleared, the portal pulsed again, and another stepped through, identical, perfect.
Valen's mouth worked. "What," he managed, voice raw, "what the hell are these things?"
No answer.
Zara, beside Othamar, did not glance their way. She half-smiled, eyes aglow, drawing spirals through the air as more soldiers poured from her portals silent, tireless, an endless tide.
The Archon leaned on his fused staff, lips moving in counterpoint to her quiet recitation. His backward-jointed legs shifted with a wet pop, but he stood unwavering, exoskeleton tail scraping the stone in rhythmic contempt.
Nyra's blood went to ice. They didn't even care.
Tar smashed one through a wall with a bellow, but from the haze of green light, another emerged, the same blank mask, the same pitiless stance.
Valen spun, taking its head clean off. "Stay down!" he snarled but the body stepped forward, headless, while the severed skull dissolved into mist and reappeared on its shoulders, reformed from the portal's energy.
"They're endless," Luken breathed, terror edging his voice. "There's no end to them."
Another rushed Nyra, blade aiming low she twisted aside, axe chopping its arm off at the elbow. But the portal flickered, and the arm grew back from emerald light, silent and unshaken.
"THERE'S TOO MANY!" Valen shouted, desperation leaking through.
Nyra looked for Zara, seeing the woman's calm grin, the flick of crystals swirling like knives around her. She was feeding them conjuring them from will like tools, and every death meant nothing so long as her spell wove them whole.
"Luken!" Nyra barked. "Break her line! Break her magic!"
He hesitated, staff flickering. "I…I don't know if I can…"
"You have to!"
They surged forward, Tar lowering his horns, crushing through one after another, buying fractions of ground. But behind them, more stepped from the portals, blades singing.
Nyra's chest burned as a sword grazed her thigh. She stumbled, screamed, and hacked the soldier's arm off.
"STAY DOWN!" she howled but it only raised another arm, blank emerald eyes fixed on her without fear.
They were trapped in a nightmare of unending soldiers but Nyra locked eyes with Valen, refusing to yield.
"Keep going," she panted. "Through them."
Valen's grin was feral through bloodied teeth. "Wouldn't dream of stopping."
They braced, battered and breaking, and hurled themselves back into the emerald blades.
Tar, seeing no other way, bellowed a roar that made the walls quiver. He charged Zara directly, hooves pounding, horns levelled for a killing blow.
Zara turned her gaze lazily toward him, faint smirk curling her lips. She raised one hand in a graceful, bored gesture.
"Down, pet," she murmured.
Emerald force burst from her palm, catching Tar square in the chest. The air shrieked with arcane power, and the Minotaur was lifted clean off the ground. He slammed into the far wall with a bone-shaking crash, stone cracking beneath him. Dust rained down, burying part of his horns as he sagged, dazed.
Nyra's heart lurched, but she had no time. Another soldier lunged, blade aiming for her throat.
"Tar!" Valen yelled, dragged back into the brawl as three soldiers closed around him.
Zara didn't look at Tar again. Her attention returned to the ritual, spinning green runes, swirling emerald bleeding into the floor like veins.
The Archon continued his chant, power pooling around him thick enough to taste of iron and rot. His backward joints buckled, but he did not stop.
Valen cursed, sword singing as he carved through another soldier. "Nyra! We need to break their focus!"
She slammed her axe into a soldier's chest, but it simply reformed from the portal's light. "THEN MOVE!"
They charged, Tar hauling himself up, forcing himself to stand despite the blood running from his snout. He nodded once to Nyra, lowering his horns as another wave advanced.
Zara's smile was thin, cold. "Let them exhaust themselves," she said softly, almost to herself. "They will break before we do."
The soldiers obeyed, relentless, flawless.
And the group braced, battered and bloodied, to meet them no choice but to fight until their arms gave out.
Outside, the courtyard had become an abattoir. The flood of creatures showed no sign of breaking. Blood-sacks burst across scattered buildings the chapel spilling twitching, half-formed things with too many limbs; the granary vomiting forth chitin-plated horrors that screamed with human voices; the barracks disgorging a tangled mass of sinew and bone that crawled on bloody stumps. They came in waves, and Thal met each one with the same terrible, tireless efficiency.
He stood knee-deep in the dead, his massive chest rising and falling in steady rhythm, golden eyes fixed on the horde. Gore red and black and viscous yellow painted his arms to the elbows, matting his short black hair into sodden clumps.
A creature with the head of a boar and the torso of a man charged him. Thal caught its tusks and twisted, snapping its neck with a wet crack. It fell, and two more took its place a pair of skeletal things with ribcages split open to reveal rows of teeth where hearts should be.
"No," Thal rumbled, catching one by the skull and crushing it like an egg. "Not like this."
The second latched onto his forearm, teeth scraping against his iron-hard skin. He barely felt it. He smashed his elbow down, driving the thing into the mud, then stomped its skull into paste. His breath came in great, steady gusts no burning in his lungs, no tremor in his arms. The Nephilim did not tire from mere slaughter.
From the chapel steps, a bloated monstrosity waddled forth seven feet tall, skin translucent and quivering, showing the churning organs beneath. It raised arms that ended in bone-saw blades and shrieked a name that might have been a prayer or a curse.
Thal advanced to meet it.
They collided with a crash that shook the ground. The saw-blades scraped against his ribs, drawing lines of fire. He ignored the pain, wrapping his arms around the bloated torso and squeezing until the thing's insides sprayed out in a fountain of green and red. He dropped the twitching carcass and roared, a sound of pure, defiant grief that echoed off the tower walls.
"Is this what you wanted?" he shouted at the dark windows above, at the silent tower, at the memory of the friend he had failed. "Is this your legacy?"
A blood-sack ruptured directly above him, drenching him in amniotic fluid and gore. A fully-formed beast landed on his shoulders, claws digging for his eyes. Thal reached back, seized it by the spine, and hurled it into the advancing pack, bowling over six of its kin.
He waded deeper into the flood, becoming a storm of destruction knees shattering ribcages, palms crushing throats, his massive frame moving with terrible precision. He broke a beast over his knee and used its corpse to bludgeon three others. He tore the arm from a Kruul-hybrid and beat its brother to death with the wet end but still they came.
The granary doors burst open, and a tide of smaller creatures dog-sized things with the faces of children and the bodies of centipedes poured out, hundreds of them, chittering and weeping.
Thal's eyes blurred with tears that had nothing to do with pain. He waded into them, each step crushing shell and bone, his fists rising and falling like pistons until his hands were numb, until the mud beneath his feet had become a soup of blood and ichor. Still his breath remained steady, his movements unflagging, the teeth in his shoulders glittering like perverse ornaments in the dim light.
He stood in the centre of the courtyard, surrounded by a ring of the dead twice his height, and still the blood-sacks pulsed and burst, still the horde advanced.
"Why…" he whispered to himself.
A horn blast cut through the chaos.
Thal's head snapped up. Through the smashed gates poured the Lionsgate army hundreds of soldiers in battered mail, led by Commander Eric on a mud-spattered horse. They flooded the courtyard, shields raised, torches blazing, slamming into the rear of the horde with a crash of steel and screams.
Eric reined in hard, staring at the carnage, at the giant standing chest-deep in gore and monsters. The commander's face paled. Thal was a vision of primal slaughter short black hair plastered to his skull with blood and brain matter, bare chest heaving beneath a sheen of red and black, the brown kilt hanging heavy with fluids, teeth embedded in his shoulders like macabre decorations. He looked less like a man and more like the very creatures they are seeing.
"What in the gods' name?" Eric breathed.
Thal moved toward him like a thunderclap, scattering the last of the circling beasts in his wake. "Form your lines!" he roared, voice shaking the stones. "Burn everything that crawls! Hold the southern court!"
Eric hesitated a heartbeat then wheeled to his men with a harsh nod. "DO AS HE SAYS!"
Soldiers poured forward, lighting torches, raising spears, steel ringing as they slammed into the half-born. Behind them, Elira appeared, face streaked with dried blood and soot, eyes sharp as a blade.
She stepped right into Thal's path, boots splashing through blackened mud. "Giant!" she shouted.
He paused, towering over her, breathing hard but steady.
"Where are you going?" she demanded, pointing her glaive toward the tower that loomed above them, ribs of bone and iron stretching skyward.
Thal stared at it, golden eyes simmering. "To end this."
She frowned, sweat and grime running down her cheek. "Can you even get through all that?"
Thal exhaled, a slow, burning sound. "I don't intend to go through," he said, voice heavy with finality.
Elira blinked, studying the giant, then gave a tight, almost respectful nod. "Then go. We'll keep the way clear."
Another monster lunged toward them, its misshapen jaw gaping, and Elira cut it down in a single brutal sweep of her glaive.
"Try not to die," she barked, stepping back.
Thal managed the faintest ghost of a smile. "You too."
Then he turned, boots sinking for an instant into the churned mud and with a bone-deep rumble, he crouched low and leapt.
Thal soared upward, a mountain of wrath, wind howling past his ears. He crashed through the high-arched window at the tower's peak not climbing, not creeping, but exploding through the stone and root frame in a rain of shattered debris.
He landed in the ritual chamber with an impact that cracked the floor, rising to his full height amid the green glow and the clash of steel.
For a moment, he stood there, framed by broken moonlight a titan painted in gore, short black hair matted with blood and entrails, shoulders studded with broken teeth, brown kilt dripping onto the stone. Blood ran in rivulets down his chest, his arms, his face. He looked like vengeance made flesh, like the end of worlds given form.
Then he saw him.
Othamar stood hunched at the ritual circle, staff fused to his twisted hand, green light pulsing across warped flesh, his exoskeleton spine clicking as he turned.
"Why?" Thal rasped, voice low, breaking. "Why take it this far?"
Othamar's one good eye black sclera and glowing red iris snapped to him, filled with ancient, smouldering hatred. "You left us," the Archon snarled, voice cracking like rotted wood, "and this is what became of your mercy."
Before Thal could answer, a glint of purple and emerald caught his attention.
Standing beside Othamar like a queen at a court of nightmares. Her gaze locked onto Thal and widened, her lips parting slightly, the mockery draining from her face to be replaced by something darker, hungrier. Her eyes roamed across his blood-slicked chest, the teeth embedded in his shoulders, the raw, terrible power radiating from every inch of his slaughter-stained form.
She took a half-step forward, almost involuntarily, emerald eyes gleaming with naked, predatory desire. Her tongue darted across her lips, and when she spoke, her voice had dropped an octave, thick with arousal.
"Well," she breathed, "isn't that magnificent."
She raised one graceful hand, not to wave, but to trace the air as if memorizing the lines of his body, the blood, the brutality with the other hand on her breast. Then she pursed her lips and blew him a slow, teasing kiss but this one lingered, her eyes half-lidded with unmistakable lust.
"Don't disappoint me, giant," she purred, voice husky, vibrating with need. "I'd hate to miss the finale… or the encore."
Then the ritual ignited.
A blossom of vile emerald light burst from the floor, blinding. Jagged runes surged upward like grasping claws, snaring Othamar's frame, binding him as raw magic forced itself through his flesh.
Othamar's scream human and not was drowned by a roar from below as the tower itself began to tear apart.
Deep in the earth, a vast rumble surged upward, shaking stones like a giant's heartbeat. Cracks split the tower from its base, crawling upward in pulsing lines. Then the earth ruptured, and a monstrous spear of blackened wood shaped like a twisted tree trunk sharpened to a point shot up with bone-shattering force, impaling Othamar straight through the chest.
The impact pinned him against the wall, a grotesque crucifixion of fused flesh and rotting power. Othamar's body convulsed, green energy spraying from his mouth as the ritual surged, refusing to let him die.
Far below, the city screamed. The ground tore open, collapsing into hungry black pits as something ancient forced its way up. A stench followed rotting moss, old blood, scorched copper.
Then the hand emerged.
Enormous and gnarled, each finger twisted like maddened roots, it clawed through the earth with impossible slowness, tearing chunks of the Weeping Spire's broken defences away as if they were paper. Filth and squirming maggots rained down in sheets.
Within that terrible silhouette, Othamar's body continued to change, skin splitting and hardening into bark like plates, merging with the Harbinger's essence.
The tower already failing began to collapse from the ground up, floors folding in on themselves, stones crashing down in thunderous bursts as the fused horror consumed its own foundations.
Through it all, Zara stood at the heart of the ritual circle, untouched, her gaze still fixed on Thal with that hungry, feverish intensity.
"Try not to die, dear Thal," she called over the deafening ruin, her voice throaty with desire. She blew him one final mocking kiss, her body dissolving into a storm of emerald light and razor-sharp crystal, vanishing as the tower gave its final scream.
"GO!" Thal roared.
Nyra flinched but didn't argue. Thal caught her around the waist in one massive arm, hauling her against him. Tar was already close, gripping Luken and Valen by their arms like ragdolls.
The tower's last supports snapped, the entire structure folding like a dying beast. Chunks of obsidian and root rained down as the monstrous spear of tree wood pinned Othamar in place, his scream lost to something far worse.
With a final bellow, Thal leapt straight through the crumbling arch, Nyra held tight, wind tearing past them as they burst into open night. Tar followed with a mighty jump, carrying the others, as the tower's walls caved in behind them, burying everything in a howl of stone, blood, and impossible green fire.
The fused Harbinger's hand rose from the earth, enormous and terrible, its twisted fingers clawing upward. Mud and filth rained down in a vile tide, coating the ruins.
In the courtyard below, Elira stood frozen, eyes wide as the tower convulsed. She watched roots explode through walls, watched the entire upper half fold in on itself, swallowing balconies and spires.
Beside her, Commander Eric barked frantic orders, trying to pull the soldiers back.
"Get them OUT!" he shouted, raw fear in his voice. "Form ranks! Get them OUT OF RANGE!"
Elira ignored him, her gaze locked on Thal launching from the collapsing ledge, Nyra clutched in his arm, vanishing into the night.
"Thal…" she whispered.
Then the tower gave its final scream. The walls bowed outward, caving from the ground up as roots twisted through every stone. Massive beams of obsidian cracked and fell, slamming into the earth. The green ritual light burst from every seam like a dying sun.
High overhead, Othamar's warped body thrashed on the monstrous spear as the Harbinger's power devoured him.
Elira drew a shaking breath, forcing herself to move.
"Regroup!" she roared, slamming her glaive against her shield. "REGROUP!"
Commander Eric turned to her, sweat streaking his face. "What in the gods' name was that?!"
"I don't know," she spat. "But it's only beginning."
She didn't wait for his reply, racing through the broken ranks toward where Thal had landed. Somewhere up there, beyond the ruins, beyond the green flames, was their last hope of stopping this nightmare before it swallowed the world whole.