The thing that used to be Elara didn't walk; it flowed like a mudslide of nightmares. The ground beneath its feet turned to gray ash instantly. The air around it warped, smelling of ozone and rotting meat.
"Er... ror..." The creature's voice was a jagged scrape of static. "Fix... the... flaw."
It lashed out with its shadow-limb. The appendage stretched like a whip, striking a massive steel beam that had fallen from the ceiling. The beam didn't bend; it withered. The metal turned to rust and dust in seconds.
Aarav swallowed hard. One touch, and that would be his arm. Or his head.
"Aarav, move!" Liora screamed from behind a slab of concrete.
The shadow-whip cracked towards Aarav. He rolled to the left, feeling the chill of the void pass inches from his face. The floor where he had stood hissed and disintegrated.
Aarav scrambled to his feet. He looked at his sword—Kael's sword. It was chipped, dull, and heavy. Against this... entropy, steel was useless.
"You... persist..." The Elara-thing lunged.
Aarav parried, not the limb itself, but the wrist where the physical bone was still visible.
CLANG!
The impact rattled his entire skeleton. The corruption flared up the blade. Aarav watched in horror as rust began to spread rapidly from the point of impact, eating its way up the sword towards his hand.
"Drop it!" Kael yelled, dragging himself across the floor, his broken leg trailing uselessly.
Aarav let go of the sword just as the hilt turned to dust. He stumbled back, unarmed.
He was defenseless against a goddess of decay.
Elara loomed over him, her remaining eye—a burning violet star in a black skull—fixated on him. "Now... become... nothing."
She grabbed him by the throat.
Her hand was cold. Absolute zero.
Aarav gasped, clawing at her wrist. He felt his energy, his warmth, his very life being sucked out of him like water down a drain. His vision blurred at the edges. His skin began to turn gray where she touched him.
"I... will... consume... your... story," she rasped, leaning closer, her jaw unhinging to reveal a void of darkness.
Aarav couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He looked past the monster, at Liora. She was screaming, trying to summon magic that wouldn't come. He saw Kael trying to crawl to him.
'Is this it? Grak died for this?'
No.
The Blade Sigil in his palm, pressed against Elara's rotting wrist, didn't burn out. It sparked.
Aarav remembered the Elder-Tree. He remembered the Guardian. Corruption is just energy without order. A hunger without a stomach.
If she wants to eat... let her choke.
Aarav didn't try to pull away. He grabbed her wrist with both hands.
"You... want... Aether?" Aarav choked out, a bloody grin spreading on his face. "TAKE IT!"
He didn't fight the drain. He pushed. He accessed the deep reserve of Aether he had developed—the unique, structural energy that was his alone. He poured it into her like a fire hose into a cracked cup.
"Wait..." Elara's eye widened. "Too... much..."
"ALL OF IT!" Aarav roared.
The golden light of the Sigil flared, blindingly bright. It surged into Elara's arm, rushing towards her core. Her shadow form wasn't built to handle this much pure, structured life-force. It was like pouring molten gold into ice.
Her body began to vibrate. The black smoke of her form hissed and boiled.
"NO! STOP! IT BURNS!"
She shrieked, releasing Aarav. She stumbled back, clawing at her own chest. Beams of golden light began to shoot out from the cracks in her black armor. She was overloading.
CRACK... BOOM!
A massive explosion of energy erupted from her chest. It blew the ceiling of the underground chamber apart. Debris the size of cars began to rain down.
Elara was thrown into the darkness, screaming as her form destabilized completely.
The entire foundation of the Spire groaned. The tower above them was collapsing.
"Aarav!" Liora ran to him, grabbing his arm. He was swaying, his face pale, completely drained.
"I... I broke her..." Aarav mumbled, his knees buckling.
"You broke the whole damn building!" Mara yelled. She was awake, stumbling over the rubble, clutching her head. "We need to leave! Now!"
"The exit is blocked!" Kael shouted, pointing to the elevator shaft which was now filled with tons of twisted metal.
"There!" Aarav pointed shakily to a grate in the floor that had been blown open by the explosion. Dark, rushing water could be heard below. "The sewers... the under-city."
"Into the filth again," Mara groaned. "I'm starting to see a pattern in your plans, kid."
"Go!" Aarav commanded, leaning heavily on Liora.
They scrambled towards the hole. The ceiling above them gave way. A massive slab of concrete crashed down exactly where they had been standing seconds ago.
They jumped.
They plunged into the freezing, fast-moving water of Antima's ancient drainage system. The current swept them away into the darkness, just as the foundation of the Spire collapsed behind them, burying the chamber—and possibly the monster—under a mountain of stone.
They were alive. But they were deep underground, weaponless, injured, and lost in the veins of a dying city.
And in the darkness behind them, buried under tons of rubble, a single violet eye opened. It didn't blink. It just burned with a hunger that would never end.