The silence was deafening. Even the fragments inside me, normally screaming, pulsing, and shifting, held their breath. My wings spread fully, molten light and shadow twisting into a living storm around me. Every fiber of my being was tense, ready for the moment that had been building since the battlefield first cracked beneath my feet.
Then the chamber shuddered violently. The darkness beneath us erupted in a thousand jagged tendrils, spreading like a black river through the stone. The ancient presence—the one that had waited, watched, and whispered—finally revealed itself fully.
It was enormous, its form constantly shifting, impossible to comprehend fully. Limbs, eyes, and tendrils appeared and vanished like the world itself was fracturing inside its shape. And yet… there was awareness. Intelligence. Purpose.
The fragments inside me screamed, thrumming with fear and anticipation. It knows us. It knows the fracture. It knows you.
I clenched my fists. Then we'll show it we are alive.
The fragments surged, wrapping around my body, merging with my wings, my limbs, my very core. The storm of flame, water, shadow, and clarity erupted outward, a brilliant corona of raw power.
The ancient presence responded instantly. The air thickened, pressing against me like a weight that could crush mountains. Shadows lashed out, testing, probing, trying to force weakness, but I stood firm. I could feel the fragments aligning, not just obeying, but thinking with me, matching the ancient presence's movements like a living, conscious weapon.
Lysara's voice echoed faintly in my mind: Eryndor… this is what you were made for. Trust yourself.
I focused, pouring my will into the fragments. We are one. We fight. We rise.
The ancient presence shifted again, and reality itself seemed to bend around it. Its tendrils struck at me, twisting, fracturing the air, tearing at the edges of my mind. Pain lanced through me, but the fragments flared brighter, shielding me, countering, striking back with precision I didn't fully control.
It spoke—not in words, but in presence, in thought, in raw force:
"Eryndor… the fracture will be mine. Your soul will fracture. Your power will be undone."
I roared. "No. I am Eryndor! The fracture is mine, and I decide what we become!"
The fragments screamed, wings flaring, the chamber shaking violently. Energy clashed against energy. Shadows struck, but I struck back harder. Flame and water, shadow and clarity—they were not separate anymore. They were me, fully. Alive. Willing. Ready.
And then, from deep within the darkness, something moved faster than thought. A tendrilled shadow shot upward, massive and impossibly fast, heading straight for the center of my fracture.
The fragments screamed again, but I couldn't move fast enough. The shadow collided with me.
The world shattered.
Light, darkness, fire, water, shadow, clarity—everything exploded into chaos. The chamber disappeared, replaced by a void of infinite possibilities. My wings disintegrated into energy and reformed, my body twisted in pain, and the fragments roared in fear and exhilaration.
And then… silence.
I opened my eyes.
The chamber was gone. The floor beneath me was fractured, floating in nothingness. The ancient presence hovered before me, massive, incomprehensible, and patient. Its tendrils circled me, testing, observing, waiting.
The fragments pulsed in my veins like living hearts. It's not done. It is… waiting. Planning.
I clenched my fists, wings flaring. "Then we'll be ready. No matter what you are."
The presence paused, as if acknowledging my defiance. Then it whispered—not in sound, but in weight, in thought, in presence:
"This is only the beginning. I will return. And when I do… the fracture will choose its master."
The void trembled.
And somewhere, far below the remnants of reality, something stirred—a deeper hunger than the presence before me, older than creation, watching, waiting, and patient.
The fragments inside me screamed in unison: It knows us. It is coming.
And I smiled.
Because I was ready.
But even as I spread my wings, I knew one truth with absolute certainty:
This war… had only just begun.