The ridge shivered, not from wind, but from will.
The Corrupter straightened in his wrong man-shape, crown fragments spinning faster, shards grinding sparks of black fire. His ribs glowed like a forge that had never known warmth—each flicker a wound refusing to bleed. The filaments in the air ceased their wild lash and gathered into braids, disciplined now, patient as a predator that had learned its prey would not run.
Andy felt the difference. The silence pressing against his ears no longer wavered. It had learned their rhythm. It had stolen their tempo.
The system spoke with grim calm.
[Threat Assessment]
Enemy Pattern: Adaptive Null Overlay
Absorption Efficiency: 43% ↑
Danger: Fusion Techniques Partially Mitigated
Recommendation: Deepen Shared Resonance | Risk: High
Andy's breath came even. Tier II wrapped him steady, ember pushing back against the ice-bite in his left shoulder, tide reinforcing ribs, gale keeping his heels pinned to the ridge. He leveled the Oathblade but didn't strike. Not yet.
"His silence is listening," Nia murmured. Her eyes were fever-bright, runes flickering over her irises like reflections of constellations that didn't belong to this sky. She tightened the grip on her staff, hands trembling but precise. "Every glyph I write, he remembers."
Aurelia twirled one dagger, expression sharp as a smirk, though sweat traced her neck. "Then we teach him a language he can't learn." She flicked her gaze toward Andy, wicked and earnest both. "That's your job, Dragon. You translate us."
Andy nodded once. "Then louder."
The Corrupter moved. Not a step—an arrival. One moment on the far side of the shattered field, the next inside the narrowing hoop, arm-vector descending like a verdict. The villagers screamed, bodies pressing back into a ward that barely remembered how to stand.
Andy caught the vector on the Oathblade, teeth jarred by the impact. The steel sang, but the note was swallowed before it could finish. The silence drank it.
"Again," Aurelia snarled, and her daggers crossed the vector's length, moonlit arcs biting. Sparks flew—silver, but muted, their music eaten. "He eats our edge!"
"He eats everything," Nia whispered, and planted her staff. The ground under the Corrupter's feet lit with runes—Glyphstorm Net—but the symbols dimmed halfway, half-learned, half-forgotten. The Corrupter smiled without mouth, ribs pulsing in mimicry of her design.
Andy grit his teeth. "He's memorizing us."
The system pane flickered red.
[Warning: Aura Contamination Rising]
Andy: 61% → 68%
Symptoms: Ember stability ↓ | Tier II dominance field stressed
Mitigation Path: Bond Pulse Required
He staggered as hooks sank into his aura, gnawing at the ember shoulder again. Pain lanced cold down his arm. He tasted ash in his mouth.
Nia stepped into him, palm pressed harder against his chest, eyes shut, whisper burning her throat: Stay. With me.
Aurelia slammed her palm flat between his shoulder blades, half an embrace, half a shove. "Don't let him dance alone."
The bond pulsed.
Heat surged, not his alone. Light threaded his veins, laughter curled at the edge of his bones. The bite of cold eased, chased out by two heartbeats grafted onto his own.
The system chimed with a steadier tone.
[Bond Pulse ↑]
Nia ⭐ 99% | Aurelia ⭐ 97%
Aura Contamination Resistance: +25%
Shared Resonance: Strengthening
Andy exhaled, long and measured. He let the bond deepen, opening the doors he'd kept shut even in Tier II.
The Oathblade flared—not just ember, tide, and gale, but silver glyphs stitched into the edge by Nia's whisper, moonlight clinging to the fuller from Aurelia's touch. The steel no longer hummed alone. It sang three voices woven together.
The Corrupter answered with a roar of silence, threads converging into a single hammer of shadow. It slammed down at the hoop. The villagers cried out. The inner band screamed.
Andy stepped forward. "Glyphstorm Prism."
Nia's glyphs shot into the blade, scattering like a constellation thrown against the sky. Andy cut, and the storm became a spiral of silver runes that clawed the hammer apart mid-air.
Aurelia darted through the rain of symbols, blades flashing. "Starlight Guillotine!" Daggers crossed, their arcs catching the storm's debris and welding it into a falling X of light.
Andy raised the Oathblade high and let both halves funnel into the cut. "Constellation Rift."
The line split the hammer in two. Shadow shattered into sparks that guttered before they could touch ground. The air cleared, just enough for hope to breathe.
The Corrupter staggered, crown rattling, but the fragments clung tighter than before. His ribs lit bright, pulling the broken shadows back into himself, drinking them, learning them. His silence grew heavier, adapted, closer to perfect.
The system's pane returned with a note that almost sounded like apology.
[Enemy Adaptation Detected]
Absorption Efficiency: 61%
Fusion Techniques: Partially Countered
Mitigation: Deep Resonance Required
Status: Equal footing lost unless bond pushed further
Andy's jaw clenched. He lowered the Oathblade until its edge pointed at the earth and then raised it again, level, steady. "Then we push further."
Nia's lips parted, breath ragged. "Deeper bond means risk. He'll taste it if we misstep."
Aurelia's grin was fierce, eyes glinting silver. "Then don't misstep. I'm not letting him take what's mine."
Andy stood between them, calm as stone, aura brimming but not spilling. He breathed once, deep enough to drag the ridge into his lungs, and opened himself fully.
The bond surged like a heartbeat that didn't belong to one body, or even three, but to a constellation watching from above.
The hoop steadied. The villagers' panic eased, if only for a moment. The Corrupter hissed, crown trembling, as if he felt something beyond his appetite—a grammar he couldn't edit, a song he couldn't memorize.
The system whispered into their marrow.
[Constellation Resonance — Orion]
Tier II Combined: 56%
Pathway: Tier III Unlocked (Preview)
Condition: Bond Saturation Required
Andy lifted the Oathblade and stepped forward, each pace a declaration. "Equal footing is not enough," he said. "We make him fall."
Nia's glyphs burned like dawn around him. Aurelia's blades dripped moonlight that refused to fade. Together, their resonance turned silence into an echo that belonged to them.
The Corrupter spread his arms again, drawing every shadow in the valley toward him. The ridge held its breath. The villagers clutched their chests.
And three hearts beat louder than the hunger of shadows.