The ring came back.
Not like fire, not like water, not like any law the ridge remembered. Ash crawled low, hugging every groove the land offered, listening for doorways like a thief who already knew the locks. It slithered toward the cart where the wounded lay under spare blankets and prayers.
Andy saw it too late for his feet. He was two steps up on the air-stair the gale had lent him, locked in a line against the Corrupter's blade.
Nia's lattice flexed once, twice—caught two bulges and dissolved them with light so clean it smelled like rain. The third slipped her fingers.
"Ash pulse—third split," she breathed, staff trembling.
"I'll invoice you later," Aurelia said again, and burned her body sideways through a bend that punished both knees. The bolt she loosed clipped the ring at a dirty angle. It split, staggered, and for a heartbeat became uncertain.
The Corrupter's smile made clear that uncertainty would not last.
The seamstress in the back ring pressed her hands against the shoulders of her granddaughter. She watched Nia's hands shake inside the light. The lattice looked calm, but she knew sewing when she saw it—threads pulled tight, fabric stretched. Every stitch a cost.
Nia widened her stance. "Breadth," she whispered, and chose the thing that hurt more. The outer ring ballooned thin, a mother's arm holding too many children at once. The choice landed heavy but without hesitation.
Andy planted down, driving weight into the ridge. "Terrafang—Earthen Shackles." Stone burst like knuckles rising, gripping the Corrupter's calves. For a heartbeat, wrong wings faltered.
Spine-thorns flared. The ground drank its own strength back and the shackles cracked apart like fired clay.
The Corrupter slid steel against steel, letting his wrong blade speak in whispers meant to undo. The Oathblade trembled but did not yield. Ember steadied. Tide remembered. Gale kept the thought moving.
[Status Check]
Oathblade Integrity: Stable (Resisted Unmake)
Dragon Resonance: Budding — Tier II Potential
Andy exhaled once, measured. "Practice," he said, answering no one and everyone.
Nia spun her staff in a narrow helix. "Aqua Spiral Lens." The water shimmered vertical, catching Glyphstorm and bending it into silver sleet. Runes fell like pins from a seamstress's hand.
Aurelia darted between them, her bolts splitting into triplets midair. "Pretty. Keep it spinning."
"Don't miss the doorways I open," Nia answered, eyes cold, voice calm.
The Corrupter's fused wings snapped once, lofting him into the air. Ash whirled upward in vortices.
Andy carved short steps of wind. "Gale Platforms." He rose, boots meeting invisible rungs. Aurelia touched the third step, launching herself upward, twin daggers strobing.
Silver volley: one bolt drove through the joint where wing met back. Clean bloom of light. The Corrupter hissed and ripped power from three husks on the ground. They collapsed like tents pulled down in a storm.
Villagers flinched. They understood what that cost meant, even if they couldn't name it.
[Resonance Stabilized]
Nia ⭐ 84% | Aurelia ⭐ 76%
Tier II Combined: 55%
Buffs unchanged
The ring of ash came back again. Smarter. Lower. It hugged the earth, whispering through old furrows and forgotten ruts, seeking the cart.
Nia caught two with invisible wedges of light, extinguishing them into pale dust.
"The third," Aurelia warned, voice tight.
Andy looked down. Too far. Wrong angle. His blade was busy with the Corrupter's next measure.
The ash tongue rushed the cart.
Children cried. The seamstress closed her eyes and finished a prayer no one was listening to.
The ridge waited. The Oathblade hummed in Andy's hand.
And the night, which had not yet ended, leaned in closer.