The courtyard of Antima had become a grinder of stone and bone. The pristine white marble was now streaked with the black dust of shattered Sentinels and the red drops of the crew's blood.
"Behind you!" Aarav roared, spinning to deflect a massive stone sword aimed at Mara.
The impact rattled his teeth, but he didn't buckle. He gritted his teeth, sliding the enemy blade down his crossguard, and drove his knee into the statue's midsection. It didn't flinch—it was stone, after all—but it gave him the opening he needed. He drove Kael's sword into the glowing core in its chest. The statue crumbled.
"I'm dry!" Mara yelled, tossing her empty steam-gun aside. She drew a jagged combat knife from her boot. "Back to basics!"
"We can't kill them all!" Liora cried out, her vines snapping under the brute strength of three Sentinels surrounding her.
"We don't need to," Kael shouted, severing the head of a statue. "We just need to reach the door!"
They looked across the battlefield. The entrance to the Black Spire was only fifty yards away. But standing in front of the massive double doors was a nightmare.
It was a Titan.
Unlike the other Sentinels, this one wasn't made of grey stone. It was crafted from pure, polished obsidian—black glass. It stood twenty feet tall, its body sleek and nearly indestructible. It held no weapon; its hands were massive claws that dripped with liquid shadow.
"That... is going to be a problem," Mara panted, wiping blood from a cut on her forehead.
The Obsidian Titan let out a sound like a shifting tectonic plate. It stepped forward, raising a fist, and slammed it into the ground.
BOOM!
A shockwave of dark energy rippled through the floor. The marble tiles shattered, sending razor-sharp shards flying everywhere.
"Shield!" Aarav yelled.
Liora threw up a barrier of wind and roots, but the force of the blast sent them all skidding backward.
"Its armor is too thick," Kael analyzed instantly, his eyes narrowing. "My blades will shatter against that obsidian."
Aarav stood up, shaking off the dizziness. The Blade Sigil in his palm was throbbing painfully. He looked at the Titan. He tried to find a weak point, a structural flaw.
He saw... nothing.
The obsidian was perfect. Uniform. Without a single crack.
"It has no flaws," Aarav said, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck.
"Everything has a flaw," Kael said. "If it doesn't, we make one."
Aarav looked at the Titan, then at Mara, then at Liora. An idea formed. A desperate, scientific idea.
"Thermal shock," Aarav said breathlessly.
"What?" Mara asked.
"Obsidian is volcanic glass," Aarav explained rapidly, dodging a piece of flying debris. "It's hard, but it's brittle. If we heat it up rapidly and then freeze it instantly... it will shatter."
"I don't have fire magic," Liora said.
"No," Aarav pointed at the Titan. "But it does."
The Titan raised its hands, gathering a massive ball of purple shadow-fire.
"It's going to throw that at us," Aarav said. "Liora, Mara, you need to bait it. Make it fire that blast at itself."
"Suicide run. I like it," Mara grinned, flipping her knife.
"Kael," Aarav turned to the swordsman. "When that glass gets hot... you hit it with everything you have. But you need to be fast. Faster than you've ever been."
Kael drew both swords. "I am the wind."
"GO!" Aarav commanded.
Mara and Liora broke cover, running straight towards the Titan, screaming.
"Hey! Over here, you oversized paperweight!" Mara yelled, waving her arms.
The Titan turned its faceless head towards them. It roared and threw the ball of shadow-fire.
"Liora, deflect!" Aarav screamed.
Liora didn't block. She summoned a gust of wind, not to stop the fireball, but to push Mara out of the way.
The fireball missed Mara by inches. It slammed into the ground right at the Titan's feet.
WHOOOSH!
The explosion engulfed the Titan's legs in searing purple flames. The obsidian legs glowed cherry-red from the intense heat.
"KAEL! NOW!" Aarav roared.
Kael moved. He was so fast he was barely visible. He sprinted through the flames, ignoring the heat. He reached the glowing red legs of the Titan.
But he didn't strike yet.
From his belt, he pulled a flask of water—their last drinking supply—and smashed it against the superheated obsidian leg.
HISSSSSS!
The steam explosion was instant. The rapid cooling caused the glass to screech. Cracks—thousands of tiny, spiderweb cracks—appeared on the Titan's leg.
"BREAK IT!" Aarav yelled, joining the charge.
Kael spun, delivering a dual-sword strike with enough force to sever a mountain. Aarav joined him, driving his own sword into the fracture point with all the weight of his body.
CRACK!
The sound was like a gunshot. The Titan's leg didn't just break; it exploded into dust.
The massive twenty-foot giant toppled.
"TIMBER!" Mara cheered.
The Titan crashed to the ground, its massive weight causing its upper body to shatter upon impact with the marble floor.
The way to the Spire was open.
"Don't stop!" Aarav ordered, grabbing Liora's hand. "Inside! Before they regroup!"
They sprinted past the pile of shattered black glass and threw themselves through the massive doors of the Spire.
They slammed the heavy doors shut behind them and barred them with a thick iron beam.
Outside, the army of Sentinels pounded on the doors. THUD. THUD. THUD. But the doors held.
They were safe. Or so they thought.
They turned to look at where they were.
They weren't in a hallway. They were in a vast, circular chamber lined with mirrors. Hundreds of them. Floor to ceiling.
"What is this place?" Liora whispered, her reflection fracturing into a thousand pieces around her.
"The Hall of Reflections," Kael said, his voice tense. "Keep your eyes forward. Do not look at the mirrors."
But it was impossible.
As they walked, the mirrors didn't show their reflections. They showed scenes.
Aarav looked to his left. He saw himself back in his old school. He was sitting alone in the cafeteria. But then, the scene changed. He saw himself standing over Kael's dead body. He saw Liora crying, looking at him with hatred.
"You ruin everything you touch," a voice whispered from the glass. It sounded like his own voice.
"Don't listen to it!" Aarav shouted to the others.
"I... I can't..." Liora whimpered. She was staring at a mirror. In it, she saw herself alone in the dark, her magic gone, consumed by the Crawlers.
Kael stopped. He was staring at a mirror that showed him as an old man, his swords rusted, forgotten, with no legacy.
"It's psychological warfare," Mara said through gritted teeth. She closed her eyes. "Move! Just move!"
They tried to push forward, but the air grew heavy, like wading through tar. The whispers grew louder.
"Why fight? You will only die."
"They are using you."
"You are weak."
Aarav felt a cold hand on his shoulder. He spun around.
It was Liora. But not the Liora standing next to him. It was a Liora from the mirror. Her eyes were black pits. Her skin was rotting.
"You couldn't save me," the Reflection-Liora whispered, her voice a gurgle of blood. "You let me die."
Real-Liora screamed, falling to her knees, covering her ears. "Stop it! Stop it!"
Aarav looked at the real Liora, crumbling under the weight of her fears. He looked at the reflection mocking him.
Fury. Pure, white-hot fury flooded his veins.
"I am done with games," Aarav growled.
He didn't run away. He didn't close his eyes. He walked straight up to the mirror holding the rotting Liora.
"You are not her," he said.
He raised his hand—the one with the Blade Sigil. He didn't use a sword. He placed his bare palm against the cold glass.
"SHATTER!"
He pushed his Aether into the mirror, not to break the glass, but to break the lie.
CRASH!
The mirror exploded outward. But it didn't just break that one mirror. A chain reaction started. The shockwave of Truth rippled through the room.
One by one, every mirror in the hall shattered. The whispers screamed and vanished. The illusions of death and failure dissolved into dust.
Silence returned.
Liora was panting on the floor. Kael and Mara were shaking, waking up from their nightmares.
Aarav walked over to Liora and pulled her up. He held her face firmly. "Look at me. I'm here. You're here. That's the only truth that matters."
Liora nodded, tears streaming down her face, and hugged him tightly.
At the end of the hall, a spiral staircase appeared, winding upwards into the darkness of the Spire.
"She's waiting at the top," Aarav said, looking up. The fear was gone from his voice. There was only a cold, deadly resolve.
"Let's go," Kael said, drawing his swords again. "I want to introduce her to my steel."
They began the climb. The final ascent had begun.