Chapter 73 - Smarter and faster
Ryn dragged in a breath as he pushed himself upright, lungs burning.
Lilia lay motionless beside him.
His teeth clenched.
The creature loomed at the shattered entrance, its mass filling the space where the doorway had been. There was nowhere left to retreat.
Fine.
He’d just have to fight it.
His eyes locked onto the writhing center, searching.
That core.
He’d seen it.
It had been briefly exposed, Glowing.
That had to be it.
But the tendrils never stopped moving. They rose and fell in a slow, rhythmic motion, layering over one another, sealing every gap almost as soon as it formed.
Reaching it would be the problem.
Ryn tightened his grip on his sword.
“How the gods am I supposed to get through that…”
He exhaled once.
He didnt have a choice, He’d have to try.
The creature shifted.
Ryn moved first.
He dashed forward—
And the tendrils shot out to meet him.
***
Ariel slid down the side of the temple, shoes scraping against stone,
Worry was already written across her face before her feet hit the ground.
She jumped the last stretch and rolled across the grass, pushing herself up in one motion.
Something had gone wrong.
She could feel it.
After firing her Blessing, something had felt… off. It took her a second to understand why.
With the absence of it, she finally realised it; whenever she damaged an aberration, there was always a faint sensation in her chest. Subtle. Like pressure building. Like something inside her responding.
This time—
Nothing.
Which meant one of two things.
She had missed.
Or she hadn’t hurt it at all.
Both equally bad.
The absence of Ryn’s follow-up signal, only the violent sound of stone tearing apart, confirmed it.
Ariel ran.
She reached the temple entrance—
And stopped.
It had collapsed.
Stone sealed the doorway completely, rubble packed thick and uneven, dust still drifting from the cracks.
“No…”
She rushed forward and slammed her palm against the debris.
Nothing moved.
She tried again, shoving with both hands. Even with her enhanced strength, the rocks refused to budge.
They didn’t even shift.
Her breath grew uneven.
We did everything right.
So why wasn’t it enough?
If this wasn’t enough—
What would be?
***
Ryn rolled just as a tendril shot toward him.
It tore through the air where his head had been, but before he could recover, another exploded from the ground beneath him. It wrapped around his leg mid-roll, yanked him upward, and flung him through the air.
He twisted instinctively.
His remaining hand caught a broken pillar. The jolt tore at his shoulder as he slowed his fall just enough to drop into a crouch instead of crashing outright.
The creature didn't let him breathe.
He looked up.
Six more tendrils were already lunging toward him.
Ryn swerved sideways, barely slipping between them as they stabbed into the stone behind him. He didn’t retreat—he ran forward instead, straight toward the writhing center of the mass.
The core.
He jumped, cutting through two tendrils midair, and drove his blade down with his one arm—straight into the pulsing center.
Yes.
The strike landed.
But it felt wrong. The creature barely reacted.
Ryn’s eyes narrowed.
He hadn't struck the core, just the tendrils wrapped around it.
He tried to wrench his sword free, but he felt resistance. Tendrils were already coiling around the blade, tightening, anchoring it in place.
“Tsk.”
He twisted the weapon sharply, ripping it loose as he braced his boots against the undulating base of the creature.
He raised the blade to strike again—
Movement.
Not toward him.
But Toward Lilia.
Ryn didn’t hesitate.
He kicked off the creature and dropped, cutting the tendril mid-flight just before it reached her unconscious body.
The severed end writhed uselessly on the ground.
Ryn wiped sweat from his brow and stared at the writhing mass.
“This thing…” he muttered under his breath.
It wasn’t just strong.
It was learning.
One of the worst parts of fighting aberrations was their adaptability. They adjusted. Shifted. Grew more efficient as the fight dragged on.
But most took time.
This one—
This one was adapting far too damn fast.
***
What do I do?
Ariel stood frozen at the sealed entrance.
From inside the temple came the distant sound of stone breaking. Metal striking. Something heavy crashing against pillars.
They were still fighting.
And she couldn’t see any of it.
She didn’t know where Ryn was.
Didn’t know where Lilia was.
Didn’t know who was hurt.
What do I do?
She forced herself to think.
What tools did she have?
Her Blessing.
She could tear the entrance open. Blast the rubble apart and force her way inside.
But she didn’t know how much power it would take, and she didn’t know where they were.
If she fired blindly—
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She could hit them.
There were too many unknowns.
Her breathing quickened.
Maybe it was better than doing nothing.
Maybe hesitation was worse.
Ariel raised her hands, light already beginning to gather faintly beneath her skin—
No.
Her arms fell back to her sides.
She couldn’t risk it.
Not like this.
“Damn it.”
Ariel slammed her fist against the rubble.
“Damn it!”
The impact sent pain shooting up her arm, but she barely felt it.
“Why—why—why…” she muttered under her breath, the words breaking apart.
She struck the stone again.
And again.
The sound of knuckles against rock echoed uselessly into the night. Skin split. Warmth spread across her hands.
Still nothing moved.
Her strikes slowed.
Blood welled at her knuckles, dark against pale skin, dripping between her fingers.
Ariel lifted her hands in front of her face.
The sight of it made her breath catch.
She stared at it in thought.
Her fingers curling slowly.
It was reckless.
It was dangerous.
It might even be insane.
But Ariel had an idea.
One that involved her blessing.
***
Lilia stayed perfectly still against the cracked temple floor.
The sound of Ryn’s fight behind her was enough to make her pulse spike—stone breaking, metal striking, something wet and wrong slamming into pillars.
But she didn’t move.
She couldn’t.
Lilia's eyes had opened minutes ago, but she'd forced herself to stay still.
Ryn knew she was conscious by now. It was only a matter of time before the aberration realized it, too.
If she moved too soon—
Ryn would die.
Then her.
At the start, Ryn had held the advantage. He’d avoided the tendrils, reached the core more than once.
But the tendrils had stopped him from damaging it.
And now—
That advantage was gone.
The aberration was adapting too fast.
Its movements were sharper. More precise. It reacted to Ryn’s footwork before he even committed. At one point, a thick coil of tendrils had hardened and reshaped itself into something like a blade—meeting Ryn’s sword mid-strike.
It learned.
And if it kept learning, ryn would lose.
He’d already taken too many hits.
Lilia’s fingers tightened slowly against the stone.
She was certain Ariel was outside the temple.
She just needed to give her a signal.
An opening.
A moment to tell her when to fire.
If Ariel tore the entrance apart and struck hard enough at the same time, it might expose the core again.
Maybe only for a second.
But if she timed it right—
A second would be enough.
Could she do it?
No.
It wasn’t about whether she could or not anymore; she had to.
Lilia forced herself to stay low, eyes locked on Ryn as he fought.
Watch the rhythm.
Watch his footing.
Ryn shifted left, blade flashing as he severed a tendril mid-lunge. Another snapped toward his legs from below. He vaulted over it, landing hard, barely recovering before three more speared down from above.
The creature wasn’t attacking blindly anymore.
It was coordinating.
Two tendrils drove him backward while another hardened mid-motion—thickening, twisting—until it resembled an arm. Not human. Not quite.
But close enough.
It swung.
Ryn caught it with his blade. The impact rang through the chamber like struck iron, the force driving him to one knee before he shoved himself upright again.
Tendrils burst from behind him.
From the side.
From the shattered ceiling.
All at once.
He ducked one, sliced through another, but the third clipped his shoulder, sending him stumbling across broken stone.
Lilia’s pulse roared in her ears.
He was trying.
She could see it now.
His movements weren’t just defensive; he was guiding it. Shifting the fight. Pulling it toward the center.
Toward the collapsed entrance.
Trying to give her something.
But the creature was too fast.
She couldn’t move in that window.
Focus.
Ryn rolled beneath a sweeping strike. The aberration’s mass surged forward to finish him.
Overextended.
Its bulk dragged across the fractured floor, momentum carrying it toward the collapsed entrance.
For the briefest moment, the tendrils parted.
Not fully—
But enough.
At its center, the glowing core pulsed through torn strands of blackened flesh.
Exposed.
And Ryn—
Ryn had already moved.
He kicked off the stone and slid wide to the left, putting distance between himself and the entrance. Clear. Out of the direct line.
The aberration didn’t notice.
It was committed. Its mass angled toward the doorway, its center facing outward toward the rubble.
She didn’t hesitate.
The second she saw it, Lilia moved.
She pushed herself up and ran.
There was no point trying to reach the core herself. If Ryn hadn’t been able to cut through the tendrils protecting it, she wouldn’t be able to either.
She just had to give Ariel the signal.
Lilia sprinted toward the collapsed entrance, feet skidding over broken stone and littered bones. The fight raged behind her—metal ringing, tendrils tearing through pillars—but she didn’t look back.
The creature noticed.
Several tendrils snapped across the ground toward her, slithering low and fast, trying to intercept.
She leapt over one, stumbled through another as it grazed her ankle, and threw herself the last few steps.
Slamming into the rubble.
“ARIEL!”
Her voice tore through the chamber.
“N—”
She meant to shout Now—
But something unexpected happened.
Just as the word left her mouth—
The rubble exploded outward.
A wave of blinding light tore through the entrance, stone blasting apart in a violent surge. The force hit Lilia head-on and sent her tumbling across the temple floor.
She rolled hard, breath knocked from her lungs.
What in the gods—
Dust swirled. Debris rained down.
Lilia pushed herself up onto her elbows—
And looked up.
Ariel stood where the rubble had been, chest rising and falling unevenly, sweat clinging to her brow. Light still flickered faintly along the golden cracks beneath her skin.
There was fear on her face.
“Lilia…” she breathed.
She ran forward.
“Lilia, are you okay?”
Lilia forced herself upright.
Nodded and spoke quickly
“I’m fine—but that’s not the point. Look—”
She didn’t get to finish.
From the smoke and broken stone, tendrils burst outward.
From the floor.
From the walls.
From the shattered ceiling.
They converged at once—
Aimed straight for them.
Ah…
The tendrils fired.
And burned.
A field of light flared outward as Ariel swung her arms in a wide arc.
Not a beam.
A ripple.
The air shimmered as the radiance spread, sweeping across the stone in a widening circle. The first tendril that touched it blackened instantly, collapsing into ash before it could recoil.
More followed.
Every strand that entered the light shriveled and twisted, disintegrating in seconds. The aberration’s mass convulsed, recoiling sharply, the remaining tendrils snapping back as if struck by something unbearable.
Then the glow dimmed.
Scorched fragments littered the floor.
And Ariel stood at the center of it, shaking.
Lilia blinked.
What—
Just as Ariel completed the motion
She dropped to her knees.
Her teeth were clenched so hard her jaw trembled. Sweat ran down her temples. The golden cracks beneath her skin blazed faintly, unstable.
But that wasn’t the point.
The tendrils had retreated.
They weren’t just avoiding the light.
They were afraid of it.
Weak to light? Lilia thought. No… not just weak.
How was she doing that? Ariel had only ever fired it—condensed, directed. A projectile.
This—
This was different.
Lilia shook her head sharply.
It didn’t matter.
Ryn was still in trouble.
“Ariel—you can still fire, right?” Lilia asked quickly.
Ariel nodded through clenched teeth and forced her arm upward.
Lilia grabbed her wrist and stepped forward with her, guiding her aim through the haze of dust and falling debris.
It was hard to see.
The creature had withdrawn deeper into the temple, shadows folding over its mass.
Focus.
Lilia narrowed her eyes, scanning past the drifting stone fragments.
Focus.
There—
A subtle shift in the dust.
An undulating shadow.
And—
A spark.
Ryn’s blade struck something in the dark, metal ringing sharply.
“There!” Lilia shouted. “Ariel—there!”
Ariel exhaled.
And fired.
Light tore through the chamber in a violent arc, cutting through dust and shadow—
Toward the retreating mass.
The explosion hit like a wave.
Air rippled violently through the chamber. Stone shattered. Fragments of bone and broken pillars were hurled outward in the aftermath of Ariel’s attack.
But that wasn’t all.
The tendrils blasted apart.
Burned away.
Through the settling dust, Lilia could finally see it clearly.
Only a few strands remained, twitching weakly as they tried to shield the center.
The core.
Fully exposed now—a vibrating mass of light suspended within the creature’s collapsing body.
Lilia looked down at Ariel.
Ariel was barely conscious, her breathing shallow, arm limp at her side. Whatever she had just done—whatever that field of light was—had drained her completely.
She wouldn’t be able to fire again.
And she wasn't sure where Ryn was in this situation either.
There was no time.
Already, the remaining tendrils were writhing back together, regenerating, knitting over the core in frantic desperation.
Lilia couldn’t hesitate.
She ran.
Snatching up the broken blade she had used to collapse the entrance, she sprinted toward the creature.
Loose tendrils lashed out at her. One grazed her shoulder, tearing fabric and skin.
She didn’t slow.
She ducked beneath another strike, slid past a third, her feet skidding over fractured stone.
Closer.
Closer—
Until she stood face to face with it.
This close, she could see the core clearly.
It wasn’t flesh.
It wasn’t light.
It was almost crystal-like. Faceted. Prismatic. A grotesque, beautiful gem suspended in air.
For a heartbeat—
It pulsed.
Lilia drove the broken blade forward.
The metal pierced the core.
And then—
There was the sound of something delicate shattering.
Like glass.
Like a gemstone breaking apart.
