Xerion’s mouth was spread wide, fire and shadow clashed in a storm, but even the End-Tyrant staggered when the Elite lunged.
Its claws slammed down, splintering the earth where Kelvin had stood on earlier. The shockwave flung him backward with dirt clogging his mouth as Xerion hissed protectively over him.
Lyra’s traps snapped tight around the Elite’s arm, with shadow tendrils dragging it for a heartbeat. Salaris dove, talons slashing across its glowing fissures and sparks of green energy hissed outward.
The beast only grew angrier. Darius cursed, pressing both his palms to Rhoam’s back.
The armored panther roared and leapt, while his claws was glowing with soul-rune resonance as he ripped across the Elite’s thigh. This content belongs to novel⸺fire.net
It staggered, but a necrotic ichor poured over him like acid. Rhoam growled in pain, but didn’t falter, even as his armor hissed and was blackened.
"Kelvin!" Lyra snapped, with her voice sharp against the chaos. "Release the core! Now!" Kelvin forced the haze from his eyes. His runes flickered, but Xerion’s hiss jolted him back to clarity.
The End-Tyrant’s tail coiled around his wrist, lending him a surge of stabilizing heat and their bond pulsed a little while.
Xerion launched forward, as flames were swirling with Kelvin’s rune-fire, forming a spiraling lance of black-red energy.
Lyra’s shadows pinned the Elite’s chest, straining as the tendrils tore it apart under sheer force.
Salaris screamed overhead, with his wings amplifying the shadows, while giving Kelvin the opening. The Elite’s fissure core erupted in green fire, shrieking as necrotic veins collapsed inward.
The ground shook as the beast toppled, its bulk flattening a cluster of Shamblers beneath it.
Then the fissures around them boomed, vomiting more undead into the clearing. Smaller, faster, dozens of them, Veil cursed ghouls with jagged limbs, snapping jaws, and eyes like burning coins.
Kelvin staggered to his feet with sweat pouring down his face. "They are not stopping." Darius pulled Rhoam back, the panther bleeding black from the acid burns. His voice was grim. "We are standing on a spawning ground." He said.
Lyra’s face was paled as Salaris landed hard with her feathers smoking. "If we don’t seal this fissure, they will drown us in corpses before we even glimpse the Hollow."
And then the ground cracked again but it was wider this time. From the darkness below, a dozen glowing eyes blinked open.
The tenth day of their march was dawned bleak, the Veilscarred Plains cloaked in a fog so thick that even Salaris’s keen eyes could not pierce it fully.
The raven was circled above them, shadowy wings was stretched wide, feathers were whispering like knives through the corrupted wind.
Lyra kept her eyes skyward with her grip tightened on the carved obsidian runes at her belt.
Kelvin walked at the front, his glaive rested across his shoulders, Xerion padded silently beside him.
The End-Tyrant’s dark scales shimmered faintly in the dim light, each ridge pulsed with a suppressed fire.
Every few steps, the beast’s tail lashed the ground, gouging earth like it sensed something foul ahead.
Darius lagged a few paces behind with one hand resting on Rhoam’s thick armored back. The panther’s plated hide, which was once gleaming obsidian, now bore cracks from earlier fights with the forest’s shamblers. Yet the beast moved with deliberate strength and its paws pressing into the earth like silent thunder.
The air was wrong. Even Kelvin could feel it. The necrotic winds here did not simply howl, they whispered.
Salaris gave a sharp screech overhead and suddenly banked left, with wings tilting awkwardly against an unseen current. Lyra’s eyes was widened.
"The wind is corrupted," she said. "And it is bending Salaris’s senses."
Kelvin frowned. "He is leading us off the mapped road?" "No," Lyra answered grimly. "Something is forcing him." But the correction came too late.
The mist broke apart suddenly, revealing not just the stony road toward the Hollow’s fringe, but a jagged ravine split open like a wound.
At its heart stood a cavern mouth rimmed with skeletal totems that was towering effigies of bone that lashed together with sinew, Veil stones embedded in their skulls like glaring eyes.
Each stone glowed faintly, cracked from within as if something had tried to claw its way out. Darius spat into the ground, his face was pale, as he said. "We should not be here."
Xerion growled low, his voice was like rolling magma, with flames licking the edges of his jaws. Kelvin felt his companion’s unease vibrating through their bond. "This place... reeks of the Hollow." He said.
Lyra’s hand shook as she pointed to the cavern mouth that has veil mist leaked from its depths, thick and black as tar. "Do you hear that?"
At first, it was faint, like a heartbeat, like a drum that was deep underground. Then, it became a growl. The skeletal totems rattled, bone fragments were clattering to the ground.
The cracked Veilstones was lit up, one by one, bathing the cavern in ghostly green light. The earth trembled beneath their feet. From the shadows, something massive stirred.
Kelvin took a step back as the thing emerged, first its claws was dragging furrows in the stone, then its snout glowed with cracks of emerald fire.
A hulking wolf-like monstrosity that lurched into view, twice the size of Xerion, its ribcage split wide and glowing with necrotic embers. Its eyes burned green, its jaws was dripping ichor that hissed when it struck the earth.
A voice not its own echoed through the lair, vibrating through the totems: "Bound servant of the Hollow. The Alpha wakes." Immediately the Necrobeast Alpha threw its head back and roared.
The sound was not just noise, it was a wave. The shock of it rippled through the Crest, slamming into their beast bonds. Xerion staggered with his head jerking sideways as it struck.
Salaris screeched, with wings faltering, the raven crashed awkwardly into the dirt beside Lyra. Rhoam roared as cracks spidered across his armored hide, the pressure was shaking Darius to his knees.
Kelvin gritted his teeth, clutching his head as the bond with Xerion flickered and faltered. "Stay together!" he shouted, but his own voice sounded drowned beneath the Alpha’s howl.
The Necrobeast Alpha lunged and its movement was impossibly fast for its size, claws were moving toward Kelvin like twin blades. Xerion shoved his tamer aside and intercepted with black flame bursting from his maw.
The Alpha barreled through the fire, its ribcage absorbed the flame as though it was feeding on it, and it slammed Xerion back into a stone pillar. Bones were shattered from the impact.
"Xerion!" Kelvin shouted, scrambling to his feet. His glaive blazed with fire as he struck at the Alpha’s leg, searing flesh away. But the monster barely flinched and necrotic sinew writhed, knitting wounds even as they formed.
Salaris screeched back into the air with shadow trailing its wings. Lyra thrust her hands forward, weaving dark sigils. Shadow cages rose from the ground, coiling chains of midnight that wrapped around the Alpha’s hind legs. For a moment, it was slowed, while snarling as the runes was pulled tight.
Darius roared and slammed a soulstone gem against his chest. "Rhoam, break it!" He commanded. The panther leapt forward with his armor gleaming as he slammed into the Alpha’s side.
The force shook the ground, cracking the cavern walls. For a heartbeat, it looked like they could topple it. Then the Alpha roared again.
The necrotic wave was blasted outward, shattering Lyra’s shadow cages like brittle glass. Salaris shrieked, with wings clipped by the backlash that crashed hard into the cavern wall.
Rhoam’s armor split further down his flank, glowing fissures that are running through his hide. Darius stumbled, clutching his sealing gems as though they were about to shatter in his hands.
Kelvin’s veins burned with fury. "Damn it, we can’t match its strength head-on!" Xerion staggered back to his feet with blood dripping from his jaws.
His bond pulsed painfully in Kelvin’s chest, each heartbeat was echoing with shared pain. The End-Tyrant hissed, his eyes was like molten coals.
Lyra stood fidgeting, her hands was trembling as she carved another rune. This time, the lines were bent and twisted, that are not her usual precision.
The shape mirrored another’s hand, with delicate strokes forming shadow glyphs that are identical to those Elara had once used.
Her eyes were welled, but she snarled and unleashed the spell. The shadows rose higher, sharper and binding the Alpha’s forelimbs this time, although spectral spikes were anchoring it to the earth.
Kelvin’s veins burned with fury. "Damn it, we can’t match its strength head-on!" Xerion staggered back to his feet with blood dripping from his jaws.
His bond pulsed painfully in Kelvin’s chest, each heartbeat was echoing with shared pain. The End-Tyrant hissed, his eyes was like molten coals.
Lyra stood fidgeting, her hands was trembling as she carved another rune. This time, the lines were bent and twisted, that are not her usual precision.
The shape mirrored another’s hand, with delicate strokes forming shadow glyphs that are identical to those Elara had once used.
Her eyes were welled, but she snarled and unleashed the spell. The shadows rose higher, sharper and binding the Alpha’s forelimbs this time, although spectral spikes were anchoring it to the earth.