Chapter 961 – The Shattered Anchors
The night was alive with silence.
From the southern gate of the Hollow, Kael's army fanned out like smoke, dissolving into the black expanse that stretched toward the war-torn border. Each detachment moved with the precision of a blade stroke — Zerathis and Serenya leading the Pillars through the ravines, Fenrik and his Wolfkin slipping through the high ridges, Varik and his scouts gliding like wraiths through the trees. Selina and her engineers traveled light, burdened only by the glowing sigil cases they would use to disable the enemy's anchors.
And between them all walked Eris — the Witch of Chaos.
She felt the night like a living thing pressing against her new skin. Every heartbeat, every whisper of cloth, every spark of magic was real. She had been born from chaos, given body through science and will, and yet this was the first time she had ever felt the air tremble with danger. The sensation was terrifying… and intoxicating.
Kael brought up the rear, his cloak brushing the wet grass. The commander of the Hollow had never seemed so still — a predator poised in the dark. Ahead of them, the enemy fortress of Saint's Gate loomed against the horizon, its towers crowned with gold, its walls pulsing with the light of the Church's rune-engines.
Four anchors. Four massive shards of divine energy that kept the fortress sealed from every kind of intrusion.
Kael's orders had been simple.
"Break the anchors. Don't start a war — just end the field. Once it falls, I'll find the hero and the dragon myself."
He had spoken it like a vow, not a command.
At Saint's Gate
The Radiant Hero, Eiden, stood before the chained dragon and prayed.
The creature's scales shimmered faintly even beneath the weight of the god-forged bindings. Its eyes burned gold and defiant — the same hue of molten dawn Kael remembered from his aunt's eyes. But Eiden didn't know that. To him, she was merely a weapon of the old gods, a daemon-born monster.
"By the god's will," Eiden whispered, pressing his hand to the runes etched into her chains. "Your kind will not rule this world again."
The dragon's growl shook dust from the vaulted ceiling, but Eiden barely flinched. He had slain daemons before. He had burned heretics, toppled cults, and silenced false prophets. Yet something in the air shifted then — faint, wrong.
A tremor through the divine wards.
It was as if someone had struck a discordant note in the melody of holiness that pulsed through the fortress walls.
He rose, frowning. The light of his blade flared, and the god's voice murmured in his head:
"Something approaches."
The First Anchor
Selina and Eris crouched in the ruins of an abandoned chapel just outside the fortress. The first anchor pulsed beneath the cracked floor — a glassy heart of crystal encased in prayer-metal, its runes whispering in divine code.
"See how it breathes?" Selina murmured. "Every seven seconds, the pulse falters. Hit it on the offbeat, and it dies quietly."
Eris nodded, lowering her hand toward the stone. The shard within the anchor throbbed in rhythm — bright, alive, and screaming. It felt like a heart that wanted to burst.
She reached out with her chaos.
It met the divine current like oil meeting fire — hissing, biting, almost rejecting her. But she didn't fight it. She sang to it instead. Her voice was low, mechanical, but the rhythm was unmistakably human. A song of instability, a whisper of freedom.
The shard quivered. Its divine pulse broke rhythm.
"Now," Selina hissed.
Varik drove his blade into the casing; Selina's engineers poured dissolving runes into the fracture. The anchor's glow flared — then dimmed. A tremor of cold wind rippled across the plain.
Eris smiled. "One down."
The Second Anchor
Zerathis' team wasn't as lucky.
Their target was guarded — zealots wired to the divine network, their veins pulsing with consecrated light. When the first anchor failed, the priests began chanting in agony and zeal.
"Too loud," Fenrik growled. "We end this now."
They struck.
The Wolfkin's fangs flashed like steel. Zerathis tore through the ward-bearers, each swing of his blade echoing the rage that lived behind his smirk. Serenya moved like the wind, her runes slicing through the priests' barriers in ribbons of blue flame.
When the last zealot fell, Zerathis bent over the anchor's dark heartstone. "You feel that?" he asked Serenya. "The same pulse as the one Kael broke free from the Church's vaults."
She nodded grimly. "Tempered with prayer. Not easy to kill."
"Good thing we're not priests."
Serenya's rune detonated in silence. The anchor cracked, its divine hum collapsing in on itself.
And with it, the fortress walls shimmered — flickering just enough for the Hollow's scouts to see the truth: the divine shield was failing.
The Hero Stirs
Eiden felt it.
The god's presence flickered — the constant hum in his head faltered, replaced by static. The dragon looked up at him, a mocking glint in her golden eyes.
"Your god is losing his grip," she rasped, voice heavy with smoke and power. "And so are you."
Eiden's jaw tightened. "Silence."
He turned toward the doors of the cathedral, his hand resting on his sword. Somewhere in the distance, the divine field pulsed again — and cracked.
"They're coming," he whispered.
And he smiled.
The Third Anchor
Eris was already moving.
Her chaos thrummed in her veins, syncing with the beat of the Hollow's coordinated assault. Through their telepathic link, she felt Kael's steady pulse guiding them all — a calm storm of command.
"Third anchor, Eris. You and Selina lead. I'll handle the fourth myself."
She wanted to argue, but his tone left no room for debate.
When they reached the anchor, Selina looked to her, lips tight. "Can you do it again?"
Eris stared down at the shard — another divine heart, thrumming and afraid. "Yes," she said softly. "But this time, it feels like it's watching us."
The shard screamed when she touched it.
The divine and the chaotic collided, sparks of red and gold flaring into the night. Eris' body shook with the force, but she did not stop. She guided the chaos into the heart of the light, forcing the divine circuit to overload.
When it broke, the light bled upward — painting the sky in streaks of silver fire.
Kael's Move
Kael stood before the fourth anchor, a black silhouette against the burning skyline. He could feel the fortress' heartbeat faltering, its wards unraveling.
"Almost there," he murmured.
Eris' voice brushed his mind, faint and breathless. "The third anchor's down. Are you—"
"Fine. Hold your position."
He plunged his hand into the rune. Chaos and divine energy surged together in a storm of light. The ground quaked. The air burned. Kael's cloak whipped around him as the last anchor shattered.
The divine barrier around Saint's Gate collapsed like glass.
The mountain fortress was naked for the first time in decades.
And Kael, the Daemon Lord of the Hollow, raised his sword. His aura flared — not just power, but exhilaration.
"Eiden," he whispered into the night. "Let's see what a hero truly is."