A strange shift had echoed through the bond. Eccar felt it ripple across his senses like a jolt of unnatural wind, brushing the edge of his soul.
His wings stiffened. He didn't know what it was but it had come from Erend.
It only lasted a few seconds but those seconds were enough. Dragonborn could sense things others couldn't.
Eccar didn't know the length of it they can sense but some of it was deep spiritual shifts, echoes of memory, or breaks in the worlds. And whatever had just happened wasn't something small. It felt ancient and heavy on the mind.
Eccar's eyes narrowed as he looked up.
Erend, who moments ago blazed like a comet, was faltering again. His Fire Dragon's form was dimmer now, his flames less wild.
Vines struck him harder and faster scraping his scales, cracking it, and digging into vulnerable spots. Blood start to come out and hissed as it met fire. And Erend's movements looks slower. Not just from exhaustion but from distraction he had felt earlier.
"Damn it, what's happening right now?" Eccar hissed in his mind.
Without hesitation, he turned back to the last of the undead Ents—five of them still stumbling forward on smoldering limbs.
Eccar didn't waste a heartbeat. With a roar, he slammed into the nearest one with claws igniting with Earth Magic.
The creature shattered like a brittle shell in instant. Another tried to flank him but Eccar speared it through with a blade of jagged stone summoned he created.
Three more Ents came at once. He turned, wings slicing through bark, stone fists crushing what remained. In seconds, it was over. The battlefield beneath was finally clear.
He didn't even pause.
Eccar turned and shot upward into the sky, wind and stone swirling in his wake as he raced toward Erend.
The sky was chaos above—a storm of black ash, fire, and those strange ancient Magic that was not visiblle but clearly there.
Erend was still locked in the storm, his body covered in scorch marks and deepening wounds.
His growl of struggle was audible even at a distance and his limbs heavy with hesitation.
But then he felt Eccar arrived.
A barrage of jagged spears made of raw stone and burning with Magic sparks launched from his wings like a hailstorm.
They tore through the vines wrapped around Erend and connected to the god, slicing and blasting the tendrils apart with brutal precision.
The attack bought Erend just enough space to breathe and look.
"Hold on!" Eccar said through their link, voice thundering across the sky. "You're not alone in this. Get yourself together while I deal with this god for now."
Thar'Zul-Vekar's glowing eyes snapped toward Eccar, face tightening with recognition and anger at this new threat.
Their eyes locked onto Eccar.
"The Earth Dragon! You also try to betray me!" the god shouted, their words heavy with venom and old pain.
Eccar didn't answer. He had no idea what the god was talking about. He wasn't interested in debating with something this far gone. All he knew was that Erend was hesitating and this god was the reason.
He flared his massive wings and surged forward.
His full Earth Dragon form was a force of nature. Each flap stirred the wind and sent the Magic residue in the air spiraling away.
Thar'Zul-Vekar snapped their vines forward again to meet him, lashing like serpents filled with wrath.
Eccar twisted and turning away from the first barrage and weaving through the sky with surprising speed for something so massive.
He tilted and pivoted, dodging an upward strike, then slammed his claws together and summoned a storm of floating stone blades that danced around his body like orbiting moons.
The first strike he landed broke through two layers of vines. His claws crackling with solid Earth Magic as he carved through Thar'Zul-Vekar's shoulder.
But they retaliated instantly, spinning their form and sending jagged coils of green-black energy toward Eccar.
He turned, wings folding slightly to reduce impact, and redirected with a sharp tilt of his body. A few vines scratched his armor but didn't pierce.
Then he returned the favor. Slamming into the god with his shoulder, he sent the form of Thar'Zul-Vekar staggering back, tearing through the air like a crashing tree uprooted by a storm.
Their battle became a storm again just like what happen with Erend. Stone against root, the Earth Magic against green shadow. The sky lit with every impact again and another storm of chaotic Magic was happening.
Just behind them, Erend floated in the burning sky, a few dozen meters away.
Smoke curled from his mouth. His body was scorched, cracked, bleeding in several places. But none of that distracted him more than what he had seen.
The memory still burned in his mind. The vision, the truth, or maybe a lie.
He remembered the forest catching fire.
He remembered the screaming trees, the smoke rising, the vines trying to protect the land.
And he remembered himself—or the self he saw in the past—flying above it all with cruel laughter on his tongue.
"You swore to protect life with me!" the voice of the god had screamed in the vision.
But the voice that came from him said something else.
"I am the flame that cleanses. You were always the rot!"
Erend clenched his jaw.
He can feel that the voice was filled with hatred, malice, and desire for destruction.
He didn't want to believe it. He refused to be that. But the vision felt real and the the Dragonborn also have fire Magic like him. His scales were also similar to him. It was too real to ignore.
His eyes that looks dimmer than before turned back to the battle between Eccar and the god. They were locked together. One made of the earth's rage, the other made of nature's grief.
And behind his confusion, Erend felt something stir again. Not anger. But guilt.
But he knows that the guilt wasn't his. Yet it still feels suffocating.
"At this point, I need answer to be able to fight again!"
Erend move to the battlefield again.