The battlefield was unrecognizable now. Cracks spread like spiderwebs across the endless tiles, and the void seeped through, swallowing whole sections of the board. The black tower pulsed at the center of it all, tall and jagged like an obsidian fang piercing the sky.
Its hum was not sound but absence. Every beat it emitted erased something: a sound, a color, a heartbeat. The world grew thinner with each pulse.
Kaelen clenched the relic. His arm burned with fire, but even flame looked dim near that abyssal glow. Lyra's grip on her sword trembled—not with fear, but with the effort of simply staying present. The candle-bearer stumbled, their flame flickering wildly, shrinking with every surge of shadow.
The eye above whispered, softer than before, yet heavier:
"The board was never yours to stand upon. The void does not kill—it absorbs. Become part of me, and you will never end."
Kaelen spat into the darkness. "I'd rather burn out than vanish into nothing."
The tower pulsed again, and the ground beneath them collapsed. Entire rows of tiles disintegrated into black mist. Kaelen grabbed Lyra's arm as she nearly slipped into the abyss. Together they leapt, landing hard on the few tiles still anchored to reality.
From the tower's shadow rose figures—not doubles this time, but hollow shells. Faceless, silent, endlessly repeating the motions of forgotten people. Each step they took left nothing behind, as though even memory recoiled from them.
Lyra swung her blade, but when it cut through one, there was no cry, no blood, only… absence. Her blade whistled through and left her stumbling, as if she had cut away a piece of herself instead.
"They can't be fought," she hissed.
The candle-bearer cried out. Their flame, once steady, shrank to a single ember, flickering as the void clawed at it. "If this goes out… we all go out."
Kaelen's chest thundered. He tightened his grip on the relic, flame spiraling wildly up his arm and into the air. The fire warped, forming chains of light that lashed across the tiles, anchoring them to existence.
"Then we give it everything," he growled.
Lyra's grin split through the exhaustion. "Everything it is." She carved into the tower itself, sparks scattering. The relic's fire followed, burning where her blade struck.
The black tower shrieked—a soundless implosion that dragged at their bones. The void surged outward, trying to erase them in its death throes.
The candle-bearer screamed, raising their dwindling flame high. It flared, impossibly bright, just long enough to drive the relic's fire and Lyra's blade into the tower's core.
The obsidian fang split.
The world convulsed. Shadows folded in on themselves, the abyss devouring its own heart. The tower collapsed into silence, vanishing without so much as rubble left behind.
Kaelen collapsed to his knees, his breath ragged. Lyra fell beside him, clutching her blade, her face pale but alive. The candle-bearer slumped, the flame still faint but miraculously unextinguished.
The board quaked one final time. Then the eye above burned brighter than ever before. Its voice was no longer playful, no longer calm.
It was wrath.
"You think the board ends with its pieces? Foolish mortals. The game has only begun."
The tiles shattered beneath them, and the survivors plummeted into the void.