The silence of the Null-Glass was its deadliest feature. Because the shank was a "void" in reality, even the Mushashatala's near-infinite senses didn't register a threat. There was no whistle of wind, no spark of Aether.
The blade struck Zimbila directly between his shoulder blades, at the nexus where his wings met his obsidian spine.
I. The Prism-Fracture
The impact didn't cause an explosion of blood; it caused an explosion of color.
The L× Shank functioned exactly as intended. Upon contact with the unified Prismatic White Aura, the Null-Glass acted as a chaotic prism. The "White" was violently ripped apart.
To the Unchained, it looked like a star had shattered. For a terrifying moment, the King's obsidian skin flickered and became transparent. His single, divine resonance splintered into seven distinct, screaming frequencies.
Red flames erupted from his left arm.
Indigo lightning crackled around his horn.
Green vines of raw energy sprouted from his feet, cracking the ice.
Blue, Orange, Yellow, and Violet auras lashed out like wild whips, melting the gorge walls.
Zimbila stumbled, dropping to one knee. The harmony was gone. The "god-King" was being pulled in seven different directions by his own power.
Up on the spire, Thrain grinned, his hand already reaching for a second bolt. "Got him. The fracture is total. He'll tear himself apart trying to—"
Thrain's voice died in his throat.
Down in the gorge, Zimbila didn't panic. He didn't try to force the colors back together. Instead, he reached out with his muscular arms and grabbed the air.
He took control of the chaos. With his right hand, he commanded the Red aura to form a shield against the falling debris. With his left, he wove the Indigo lightning into a scouting web. He processed all seven frequencies simultaneously, performing seven different types of high-level magic at once. It was a feat of multitasking that would have liquified the brain of a Ninth Stellar Arcanist.
He looked up. His eyes, now shifting rapidly through the seven colors, locked onto the exact coordinates of the "void" in the sky.
The drone!" Nyra hissed, pointing to a tiny, metallic glint hovering 200 feet above them. "That's how they're spotting us!"
Tari, seeing the King wounded but holding, felt a surge of Vanara protective rage. "He's on the spire! Madara, give me a lift!"
Madara didn't hesitate. She grabbed Tari's harness with her arms. She couldn't fly high with her stunted wings, but she could burst. She used a high-frequency vibration to launch them both like a biological rocket toward the first obsidian ledge.
"Kaelen! Keep the King's back clear!" Tari roared as he soared upward.
Thrain realized his mistake too late. He had underestimated the loyalty of the "pests." He scrambled to pack his rail-sling, but a Nekojin shadow was already blurring up the vertical rock face. Nyra was moving with the desperation of her 9th life, her claws smoking as she moved faster than the eye could follow.
"Target identified," Thrain's drone chirped.
"Shut up and fire!" Thrain barked, leveling his sniper-staff at the incoming Vanara.
But Tari was already in the "Broken Flow." He wasn't moving in a straight line. He was ricocheting off the ice pillars, a caramel-skinned blur of brown hair and fury.
Below them, Oba Zimbila stood up. He was still "fractured"—his body a shimmering kaleidoscope of seven clashing colors—but he pointed his tri-pronged horn upon which a vortex of pure Miasma danced toward the spire.
"You aimed for the heart," Zimbila's seven-toned voice resonated, sounding like a choir and a thunderstorm combined. "But the heart is not where my power resides. It is in the Song."
He released a Violet beam of pure gravity toward Thrain's position, intended not to kill, but to bring the mountain down to his level.
The spire begins to crumble. Thrain is forced to jump, deploying a mechanical glider. Tari and Nyra are in mid-air, closing in for a aerial strike on the master artificer.