Andy lowered the Oathblade until its tip kissed the split ridge. The steel did not sink — the earth opened for it, as if the mountain had been waiting centuries for a hand steady enough to bear its weight.
"All four," he said, voice carrying not as shout but as declaration. "Now."
The ridge obeyed.
Ember flared first, licking along the fuller like molten script, bright enough to paint the silence red. Tide answered, blue-white veins threading the grooves, hissing where fire touched water but holding, disciplined. Gale rushed in last, whirling invisible along the edge, whispering hunger for direction. And then the fourth came — not a flare, not a rush, not a hiss. A weight.
Brown-gold light pulsed up from the fissures. The Oathblade thickened, spine jagged with crystalline ridges, its hum dropping into the register of avalanches. Andy felt it through his bones: not borrowed power, not gift — recognition.
The system agreed, for once with reverence instead of alarm.
[Elemental Cycle Complete]
Draconic Oathblade attuned: FIRE | WATER | WIND | EARTH
New Skill Unlocked — [Terrafang: Terra Breaker]
Status: Elemental Mastery Achieved
The Corrupter's crown spasmed, fragments screeching in refusal. His silence wings snapped outward, filaments cracking stone to dust. But the shackles Andy had raised held fast — stone serpents coiled tighter, groaning but unbroken.
Andy drew breath. Tier II steadied him, but the four-element weave made the form feel too small, like pouring a river into a cup. Still, he stood calm, the ridge a straight line under his boots.
"Terrafang — Terra Breaker."
He thrust the Oathblade down.
The earth split in answer. Pillars erupted in a grid across the field, stone teeth biting sky, each laced with ember veins, water streams, and wind whorls. The Corrupter staggered as a hundred towers rammed up against his body, pinning wings, ribs, even his crown. Black fire burst out and was doused by tide; silence lashed and was shredded by gale.
The villagers gasped from the caves, their mouths finally owning sound again.
Nia's eyes widened, runes in her irises flaring. "He's… whole." Her hand clenched tighter on the Staff of Lumina. "Every element in one body."
Aurelia laughed, low and ragged, but proud. "Took him long enough. Now watch him."
Andy stepped forward, lifting the Oathblade. Ember flared brighter, tide steadier, gale sharper, earth heavier. He cut, not once but four times, each swing carrying an element that refused to stand alone.
The first stroke: Inferno Gale Slash — fire braided with wind, a blazing crescent that tore half the silence wing from the Corrupter's back.
The second: Tidal Fang Breaker — water sharpened by stone, a crashing fang that ripped through ribs, leaving fractures glowing wet and jagged.
The third: Stormshatter Pillar — gale anchored in earth, pressure so fierce it cracked the ground beneath the Corrupter and hurled him backward.
The fourth: Ember-Terra Spiral — fire coiled around stone, drilling upward through the monster's chest, splitting silence into smoke.
The Corrupter screamed — not silence this time, but something worse: sound. A hollow wail, the absence failing at its own trick.
The system nearly sang with him.
[Quadra-Element Fusion — Prototype Sequence]
Output: 412% baseline
Effect: Null Inversion achieved
Enemy Integrity: 61% → 44%
Status: Advantage Secured
Andy lowered the blade, his breath even. Not roaring, not straining. His body moved like he was tracing calligraphy across the sky, each stroke final.
The Corrupter tried to counter, crown shards whirling into a spear of absence. He thrust.
Andy stepped aside — one pace, deliberate — and cut through the spear. It shattered like chalk.
Nia whispered, awed despite herself. "No hesitation. No drag."
Aurelia's grin tilted sharper, her daggers glinting though she hadn't moved yet. "No mercy either."
Andy raised the Oathblade high. The four elements burned in harmony, no longer fighting for primacy but circling one another like planets. The ridge steadied, the caves stopped trembling, and the villagers began to believe again.
He didn't shout. He didn't need to.
"Your silence ends here."
The Corrupter flailed, wings crumbling under stone, ribs bleeding black fire drowned by tide. Andy cut again, and the cut was geometry too perfect for corruption to memorize.
The ridge thundered. The wound in the world deepened, but this time it was not corruption carving. It was correction.
And for the first time since dawn, the sky above remembered it was allowed to be blue.