Elara didn't scream anymore. She didn't float with the grace of a goddess. She ascended like a natural disaster. The air in the Zenith turned cold, colder than the deepest void. The nebula above churned, twisting into a vortex of black and violent violet.
"You want to see the threads?" Elara's voice was a distortion, grinding against their skulls. "Then choke on them."
She spread her arms wide.
From the swirling darkness above, thousands of black threads descended. They weren't silk; they were razor-thin wires of condensed shadow. They slammed into the glass floor, surrounding the crew.
"Move!" Kael shouted, shoving Mara aside.
A thread slashed the air where Mara had been standing. It cut through the invisible Aether shield Liora had tried to erect and sliced deep into the glass floor.
Then, the threads began to move horizontally. A grid of death, closing in.
"She's trying to dice us!" Mara yelled, scrambling backward.
Aarav swung his sword at an incoming thread. CLANG! The impact jarred his arm. The thread was solid, harder than steel.
"We can't cut them all!" Aarav yelled. "There are too many!"
"Then we go through them!" Kael roared.
The swordsman did the impossible. He charged into the grid of wires. He twisted, ducked, and spun with a speed that blurred the eye. It was a dance of millimeters. One wrong move, and he would be sliced apart. He deflected the threads with the flat of his blades, creating a narrow tunnel for the others.
"Go! Go!" Kael gritted his teeth, sweat flying from his face. A thread grazed his arm, slicing through his sleeve and skin, drawing a line of blood. Then another cut his cheek.
They dove through the gap Kael created, rolling onto the open section of the floor.
But Elara was waiting.
She pointed a finger at Mara. "Sit."
Gravity intensified a hundredfold over Mara.
CRACK!
Mara slammed face-first into the glass floor. Her nose broke on impact, blood smearing the pristine surface. She tried to push herself up, but it was as if a mountain had been placed on her back. She screamed in agony as her ribs threatened to snap.
"Mara!" Liora cried out, raising her hands to send a healing wave.
"No," Elara said, flicking her finger towards Liora.
The air around Liora solidified into invisible chains. They lifted her off the ground, suspending her in a crucifixion pose. Elara clenched her fist. The invisible chains tightened, stretching Liora's limbs.
"Liora!" Aarav roared. He charged at Elara, ignoring the gravity that was trying to crush him too.
Elara didn't even look at him. She was focused on Liora. "You are the anchor," Elara hissed. "You keep them alive. You give them hope. Let's see what happens when the hope breaks."
She began to twist her hand. Liora screamed—a sound of pure torture—as her shoulder joints began to pop under the strain.
"STOP IT!" Aarav yelled. He was ten feet away. Five feet.
Elara turned her violet gaze on him. "Kneel."
A massive force slammed into Aarav. It felt like being hit by Vorlag's axe, but all over his body. He was forced to his knees. The glass beneath him cracked.
He tried to stand. His muscles screamed. His bones groaned.
"Look at you," Elara floated down, hovering just inches from his face. Her eyes were pools of madness. "Struggling against the inevitable. Do you think this is a movie, Aarav? Do you think if you try hard enough, you'll win?"
She reached out and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at Liora, who was sobbing in pain, her body stretched to the breaking point.
"This is reality," Elara whispered. "And in reality, the weak break."
Aarav looked at Liora. He saw the pain in her eyes. But he also saw something else. She wasn't looking at Elara. She was looking at him. And she was mouthing one word.
Pulse.
Aarav's eyes widened. He remembered the Blade Sigil. He remembered the forest. Structure.
He wasn't fighting Elara's gravity. He was part of it. The Aether flowed through everything—even her.
He didn't try to push against the gravity. He accepted it. He let the crushing weight flow through him, channeling it into the ground, into the Spire.
Balance.
"You're right, Elara," Aarav rasped, blood trickling from his mouth.
Elara frowned. "What?"
Aarav slowly, agonizingly, lifted his head. "This is reality. And in reality... everything has a breaking point."
He didn't attack her. He slammed his fist—the one with the glowing Blade Sigil—into the glass floor.
But he didn't just hit the glass. He sent a pulse of disruption into the Aether-matrix of the Spire itself. He attacked the floor that Elara was controlling.
"SEVER!" Aarav roared.
The golden light from his hand shot into the glass like lightning.
KRRR-SSSSHHH!
The entire Zenith shuddered. The transparent floor they were standing on—which was actually a massive Aether-lens—shattered.
Elara lost her concentration. The gravity spell broke.
"NO!" she screamed as the floor beneath them disintegrated into a million shards.
They all fell.
Aarav, Liora, Mara, Kael, and Elara—everyone plummeted into the hollow darkness of the Spire's shaft.
They were in freefall.
Debris, glass, and magic swirled around them.
"Aarav!" Liora screamed, tumbling through the air.
Aarav shifted his body in mid-air, diving towards her. He grabbed her hand, pulling her into his chest.
Above them, Elara was screaming in fury. She stopped her fall with flight magic, hovering in the center of the shaft.
"YOU RUINED MY SANCTUARY!"
She pointed both hands down at the falling group. A massive beam of violet energy began to charge in her palms. She was going to vaporize them in the shaft.
"She's going to blast us!" Mara yelled, flailing as she fell past them.
"Kael!" Aarav shouted. "The wall!"
They were falling past the inner mechanisms of the Spire—giant gears and Aether-pipes.
Kael understood. He swung his swords, embedding them into a passing giant gear. He grabbed Mara's collar with his other hand. The jolt nearly dislocated his shoulder, but he held on.
Aarav stabbed his sword into a thick pipe on the wall. He held Liora tight. They swung violently, slamming into the metal wall of the shaft.
Just seconds later, Elara's beam fired.
VOOOOM!
A pillar of pure destruction shot down the center of the shaft, missing them by mere feet. The heat was intense enough to singe their hair. The beam traveled all the way down, blasting through the bottom of the Spire and into the earth below.
The entire tower groaned. It was destabilizing.
Elara floated down towards them, her face a mask of unholy wrath. She wasn't casting spells anymore. She drew a jagged dagger made of void-glass. She was coming to kill them with her own hands.
"She's lost her mind," Mara panted, hanging from Kael's grip. "She's not casting. She's coming to brawl."
"Then we brawl," Aarav said.
He looked at the mechanism they were hanging on. It was a giant platform, stuck on its rails.
"Liora," Aarav whispered. "Can you jump start this lift?"
Liora nodded, wiping blood from her lip. She placed her hand on the mechanism. "Energize!"
Green sparks flew. The gears groaned and locked into place. The platform jerked.
Aarav pulled Kael and Mara onto the platform.
Elara landed on the platform with a heavy thud, shaking the metal. She stood up, the dagger in her hand dripping with shadow.
There was no magic now. No grand speeches. Just five people on a falling, breaking elevator in the middle of a collapsing tower.
It was close-quarters. Ugly. Brutal.
Elara lunged at Aarav with unnatural speed.
Aarav parried, sparks flying. But she was strong—physically enhanced by Aether. She kicked him in the chest, sending him crashing into the railing.
Kael attacked from the side. Elara ducked under his blade and slashed his leg. Kael grunted but didn't stop, spinning to elbow her in the face.
She staggered back, spitting black blood.
She laughed. A wet, guttural sound. "Finally. A real fight."
She ripped off her white silk sleeves, revealing arms covered in black, runic tattoos that pulsed with power.
"Come on then, heroes," she taunted, spinning the dagger. "Let's see who bleeds out first."
The elevator groaned and dropped another ten feet. The final brawl had begun.