The world shook.
Not just the ground—everything.The sky.The air.The bones inside Vael's body.
The Echo Titan's roar tore through the battlefield like a storm, sending waves of dust spiraling into the dead forest. Broken trees snapped and flew like splinters. The earth cracked beneath its steps, veins of pale light leaking out from the depths.
Vael didn't let go of his blades.
Shadow pulsed beneath his skin, thick and heavy, but still under his control—for now. Artemis's presence pressed against the edges of his mind like a warning.
You are approaching a threshold.
"Not yet," Vael muttered.
He darted forward again.
The Titan's arm came sweeping down, smashing apart a mangled Wraithbound like it was nothing. Its body was a mountain of shifting stone and echo-energy, constantly reshaping itself. Every strike Vael landed cut through it—but not deeply enough.
Not permanently enough.
Lira's arrows hissed overhead, each one exploding against the Titan's joints. Korr's spear clanged against its lower limbs, sparks ripping off like fireworks. Seris and the hunters fought off the Echo Wielders swarming the edges, absorbing the brunt so they could keep Vael alive.
They were all at their limit.
The Titan wasn't.
"Lira! Its core—did you see it again?" Korr shouted, dodging a burst of echo-light that seared the ground behind him.
Lira slid down beside a fallen tree, grabbing another arrow. Her breathing was sharp and strained.
"It shifts… every few seconds," she said. "It's not staying in one place long enough to track."
"That's not fair," Korr muttered. "Even the monsters are cheating now."
"Less complaining, more stabbing!" Seris yelled, slamming her blade through another Echo Wielder's skull.
The forest around them looked like a battlefield from an old legend—craters, shattered trees, bleeding wisps of silver energy drifting through the air. The ground trembled again as the Titan reared back.
Lira's eyes widened."Oh no—"
The Titan surged forward.
Straight toward Vael.
He felt it before he saw it—the air collapsing around him, the shadow flaring in response. The Titan's fist came down like a hammer.
Vael crossed his blades and braced.
The impact launched him through three dead trunks before he finally slammed into a boulder, dust exploding out in a cloud.
His vision blurred. Something cracked in his chest.
He tasted blood.
Artemis's voice whispered, quiet but urgent.You cannot win by matching its strength.
"Then I'll exceed it," Vael said through his teeth.
At a cost you are not ready to pay.
The Titan advanced, each step collapsing the ground in on itself.
Vael rose slowly. Shadows clung to him like liquid night. The crown's mark pulsed down his neck, spreading just a little more.
He didn't try to fight it back this time.
Just enough.Just enough to stay alive.
The shadows sharpened around him.
His heartbeat steadied.
Artemis didn't speak again.
"VAEL!" Lira's voice pierced the haze.
He glanced to the side.
She was running toward him, arrows in hand, ignoring the debris still falling from the sky. Behind her, Korr and Seris were pushing through Echo Wielders to get to him.
They weren't giving up.
They weren't backing down.
Vael stepped forward again.
The Titan raised an arm, echo-light gathering like a storm.
This time, Vael didn't dodge.
He leaped.
Straight toward the monster's core—wherever it was hiding next.
Shadows spiraled off him in long black arcs, his blades glowing with silver corruption. The battlefield fell away beneath him. For a moment, all Vael saw was the Titan's shifting form and the faint flicker of a heart buried deep within the stone.
His eyes narrowed.
His grip tightened.
He aimed straight for that flicker—
—and the chapter ends with Vael descending, blades first, ready to carve into the Titan as the others surge behind him, shouting his name.
The final moment freezes mid-strike.
A breath before impact.
A breath before something breaks—either the monster…or Vael.