The Iron Dominion's borderlands had always been a place of jagged cliffs and sulfurous winds, but now they breathed corruption. Eldrin stood at the edge of a crumbling village, his boots sinking into soil that pulsed like rotten flesh. Above him, the sky wept oily rain, each droplet hissing as it struck the sigils etched into his skin.
Liora knelt nearby, her gloved hands splayed over a crackedsource-shardcompass. Its needle spun wildly, carving grooves into the metal.
The rift is widening, "she said, her voice stripped of its usual mockery. Reali ty is unraveling."
Nim adjusted her spider-mech's hydraulic joints, the machine's fractured lens still flickering from their last battle, Cant we just plug it? Like a damn leak?"
With what?"Liora snapped. Prayers? Your *trinkets*?" She gestured to the horizon, where the ground itself rippleda-living wound spewing black ichor. Only the core's power can seal this. And we have *one* shard."
Eldrin's left arm burned. The source-shard linesfrom the Sunken Spire now crawled past his elbow, its blue veins throbbing in time with the rift's heartbeat. He clenched his fist, willing the chaos to stay buried. *Control. Always control.*
A child's scream shattered the silence.
--
The village square was a graveyard of half-melted huts. Eldrin sprinted toward the sound, Liora and Nim close behind. A boy no older than ten cowered beneath a collapsed roof beam, his mother clawing at debris with bloodied hands. Above them lopped a creature of shifting darknesse-*shadow-eater*, its form flickering between humanoid and monstrous.
Eldrin, *left flank!*"Nim's mech-legs *hissed* as she launched a grappling hook, anchoring the crumbling roof.
Liora's crystalline dagger flared. Theyre drawn to chaos energy. *Youre bait.*"
The shadow-eater turned. Hollow eyes locked onto Eldrin's sigils. It*shrieked*, a sound that liquefied the air, and lunged.
Eldrin's palms ignited with liquid shadow. The chaos-fire roared to life, but the creature *absorbed" itits body swelling, morphing into a writhing mass of teeth and tendrils.
*Stop feeding it!*"Liora tackled him sideways as a barbed limb speared the ground where he'd stood. Use brute force!"
Nim's mech slammed into the shadow-eater, plasma cutters screeching against its form. Brute force aint working!"
The boy screamed again. Eldrin's sigils flared*hungry*, always hungry. He vaulted over Nim, seizing a jagged shard of Titan-forged steel from the rubble. The blade bit into the creature's core, ichor spraying like acid. The shadow-eater *howled*, dissolving into smoke.
Get them out!" Eldrin barked, hauling the boy free. The mother sobbed thanks, but her eyes widened in horror as she stared at his arm. The sigils had spread to his shoulder.
Liora gripped his wrist. We need to move. Now."
---
The rift was worse up close.
A jagged tear in the earth, it pulsed like an infected heart, vomiting tendrils of black mist. At its edge stood Tira, her back rigid, hands clasped over the shard embedded in her chest. The corruption had worsene cerystall ine veins now clawed up her neck, one eye fully consumed by azure light.
ft's.-calling,"she whispered, her voice splintering. The shard wants to *go home*."
Stay back!"Liora shoved Eldrin aside as the ground *heaved*. From the rift crawled more shadow-eaters, their forms warping with every step.
Nim cursed, retracting her mech into defensive mode. Were surrounded!"
Eldrin's chaos-fire roared instinctively, but Liora slapped a vial of glowing powder into his palm. Silence-dustitll dampen the energy. *Dont waste it.*"
He hurled the vial. The explosion released a cloud of shimmering particles, smothering his sigils' glow.
The shadow-eaters recoiled, disoriented.
The rift's core!"Liora shouted. Eldrin, you have to reach it!"
He plunged into the maelstrom.
---
The rift's center was a vortex of screaming wind and fragmented reality. Eldrin's skin blistered as he forced his way forward, the sigils on his arm blazing through the silence-dust. Ahead floated the rift's hearta- pulsating orb of corrupted source-shard energy.
*Destroy it. Seal the tear.*
But as he reached out, Tira's scream tore through the chaos.
She stood at the rifts edge, clawing at her chest. The shard was *moving*, burrowing deeper, its light fusing with the vortex. Eldrin*help me!*"
The shadow-eaters swarmed her.
*No!*"Eldrin diverted his chaos-fire, incinerating two creatures mid-leap. But the distraction cost him. The rift's core lashed out, a tendril of pure corruption spearing his left arm.
Agony.
The sigils *erupted*, blue veins metastasizing up his neck. Power flooded himraw, ravenous,*Ophira's*power. His vision fractured: He saw the Titans' fall, the core's shattering, his sister laughing as cities burned.
*Eldrin!*" Liora's voice sliced through the haze. She stood at the vortex's periphery, her own sigilstwisted mirror-images of hisflaring in defiance.*Clo se it!*"
He roared, channeling the corruption into his fist. The chaos-fire turned cobalt, a supernova of stolen shard-energy. The rift's core *screamed* as he crushed it, reality stitching itself shut in a burst of searing light.
When the dust settled, Eldrin knelt in the crater, his left arm encased in crystalline lines.Tira lay unconscious nearby, her shard quietedfor now.
Liora gripped his shoulder, her mask of indifference cracked. You absorbed its energy. *Idiot.*"
Nim limped over, her mech's legs sparking. Did we win?"
Eldrin stared at his corrupted arm. The sigils pulsed, whispering promises of infinite powerand infinite ruin.
Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled. But it wasnt thunder.
It was laughter.
---