The air around Quinn still hummed from the aftershocks of his clash with the shadow creature. He stood over the fragmented remains, his chest rising and falling in slow, steady breaths. The others had regrouped, though the battle had left them scattered and bruised.
"Report," Quinn ordered, scanning each of their faces. His voice was calm, but the faint tension in his jaw betrayed the weight pressing on him.
Ronan wiped the blood from his brow with the back of his hand. "Two injuries—minor. No fatalities. But we're not alone here." His gaze flicked toward the fog that had begun to curl between the jagged stones, carrying with it a low, unnatural hum.
From the far edge of the ruined plaza, Kai emerged from the shadows, his dual blades glinting faintly. "Scouts are gone," he said simply. "Not killed. Taken."
A sharp unease tightened Quinn's gut. Taken meant something worse than death. The enemy had a plan—capture, corrupt, convert. He'd seen it before.
Behind him, Seris knelt beside a shattered pillar, tracing a hand over strange etchings half-hidden beneath the rubble. "These markings… they're not just warnings. They're instructions. A ritual—one meant to merge realms."
"That's what the shadow thing was guarding," Quinn guessed.
Seris nodded. "And it's only one part of the sequence. If they complete the others…" She let the sentence die, but the meaning was clear: the worlds would bleed into each other, and chaos would spill unchecked.
A cold wind tore through the square, carrying with it a whisper that wasn't meant for mortal ears. It slid into Quinn's mind like a knife. You can't stop what's coming.
Quinn ignored it, focusing instead on movement at the perimeter. Shapes in the mist—tall, spindly, wrong. They moved like predators, deliberate and silent.
"Positions!" Quinn barked, drawing his blade in a single smooth motion.
Ronan and Kai moved to flank the eastern approach while Seris retreated toward the center, beginning a counter-chant to unravel the remnants of the ritual. The air thickened, the fog pressing closer as if alive.
The first creature stepped into view. Its body shimmered between solid and spectral, limbs too long for its torso. It tilted its head unnaturally, as though studying them with an alien curiosity.
Ronan's blade flashed, cleaving through its midsection—only for the thing to dissolve and re-form behind him.
"Not solid!" he shouted.
"Then make it solid," Quinn snapped, already in motion. He struck low, his weapon dragging light from the ground itself. The steel flared, and when he slashed upward, the creature shrieked and shattered into fragments of black smoke.
Kai smirked. "Guess we just needed a little firepower."
Before Quinn could reply, three more emerged. And beyond them, the mist churned as though something far larger stirred in its depths.
Seris's voice rose in urgency. "Almost there! Keep them off me!"
Quinn moved without hesitation, cutting through two more of the creatures while Ronan and Kai handled the rest. Every strike required precision—hit too shallow, and the things slipped through steel like water.
The ground trembled, the pillar beside Seris cracking under unseen force. She gasped as a black tendril shot toward her, but Quinn was already there, intercepting it with a strike that split the air with a deafening crack.
The moment the tendril recoiled, Seris's chant reached its climax. The etchings flared, then exploded in a wave of light that blasted the mist outward, leaving the plaza eerily still.
Silence.
The enemies were gone. The hum had vanished. Only the cold remained.
Seris collapsed to her knees, panting. "That's one ritual site destroyed. But there are two more."
Quinn's jaw tightened. "Then we move before they finish the second."
No one argued. They knew the stakes. And as the team disappeared into the fractured streets, the mist began to creep back—patient, relentless.