The entrance to the caverns beneath Elraen Hollow looked like a wound in the earth—slick with pulsing black veins, leaking faint violet mist. The scent of rot and static filled the air.
"Rift energy's unstable," Geoffrey muttered, his Relic gauntlet glowing. "Something's poisoning the leyline core."
Tyrese stepped forward, his Vyrmspire ready. "And I'm betting it's that Cursed Eidolon."
Marcus felt Orenmir's presence intensify as they crossed the threshold. The blade materialized beside him, hovering with a low hum. The deeper they went, the heavier the atmosphere grew.
In the belly of the cavern, time itself began to warp—echoes of past footsteps reverberated twice, sometimes in reverse. Marcus blinked and saw visions: Geoffrey dying, Tyrese screaming, his own body bleeding from unseen wounds.
> "This is illusion-born time distortion," Orenmir whispered—yes, whispered—into Marcus's mind for the first time.
"You spoke," Marcus gasped.
> "Only where the veil is thin enough. You are close now…"
Then the screaming began.
A humanoid figure chained to a pulsating crystal core stood at the center of a collapsing altar—the Cursed Eidolon. It had once been a warrior, but now it was fused with rift matter, with elongated limbs, weeping time cracks on its face, and a sword made of black spiral energy.
"Don't let it touch you!" Geoffrey barked. "It corrupts your memories!"
The creature lunged—reality bent in its wake.
Tyrese engaged first, launching Vyrmspire in a wide arc. Geoffrey chanted suppression runes, locking the chamber in a time-stasis field. Marcus moved last—Orenmir responding with faster swings, each strike cutting not just flesh but moments of the creature's attack pattern.
> CLANG! SLASH! THRUMMM!
But it wasn't enough.
The Cursed Eidolon screamed, and a wave of Temporal Decay surged across the floor. Marcus froze as images poured into his mind—a thousand timelines where he failed, where his friends died, where he gave in.
His body collapsed.
> "Are you afraid of your fate?" the creature rasped.
"No…" Marcus whispered. "I'm afraid of wasting it."
Orenmir flared in response—glowing white with black lightning swirling along its edge.
> "Then prove it."