Chapter 81 - How To Misuse A Star

  Just like that, their entire strategy collapsed.

  Ariel’s power — the backbone of everything — had failed.

  What they had believed was irresistible.

  Had been resisted.

  They ran.

  Lilia carried Ariel across her back despite the strain, boots pounding against torn earth, breath burning in her lungs. Ariel’s arms hung weakly around her shoulders, fingers clutching fabric without strength.

  Behind them, the aberration thundered forward, each step shaking the ground.

  “It has to be at least a Faded Wraith!” Lilia shouted over the chaos.

  Ryn ran beside them, blade still in hand, eyes sharp even as he calculated. “Even so,” he said tightly, “immunity to that level is too much. Even for that rank.”

  “And the regeneration,” Lilia added, her voice strained.

  Ryn didn’t respond.

  Lilia’s gaze dropped to the ground rushing beneath her feet. Her jaw tightened. She was quiet for several strides.

  Then, quieter—

  “…Maybe Sol really does want Ariel dead.”

  The words lingered.

  The creature arched its massive frame forward mid-charge.

  Its elongated limbs flexed—

  And it fired.

  Thin, needle-like projectiles tore through the air in a deadly spray.

  Ryn rolled across the grass. The needles embedded where he had been standing a breath earlier, hissing faintly as they pierced soil.

  “Down!” he managed.

  Lilia tried—

  She barely avoided it.

  One needle scraped across her thigh, slicing cloth and skin in a shallow, burning line. She bit back the cry.

  Another streaked toward Ariel’s exposed side.

  Lilia shoved Ariel off her back, pushing her clear before the next volley struck.

  Ariel tumbled through the grass just as the needle struck where she had been, the impact cracking earth.

  Lilia staggered forward, regaining balance.

  Something stung her leg. She ignored it.

  Ariel lay in the grass, the sky spinning faintly above her.

  The cracks along her skin pulsed softly.

  The aberration was still coming.

  What do we do?

  Her fingers curled weakly into the dirt.

  What do I do?

  If my power doesn’t work—

  Then we…

  They might actually die here.

  The thought hollowed her out faster than the pain ever could.

  “I’ll distract it,” Ryn said quietly, already adjusting his footing as his blade lowered into position.

  That won’t work.

  Ryn adjusted his grip. “I’ll try pulling it into the temple.”

  He paused, eyes flicking toward the ruined structure looming beyond the clearing.

  “…We could collapse it on top of it.”

  That won’t work either.

  “Ryn!” Lilia called after him, reaching out as he bolted forward, her hand closing on empty air.

  Ariel could watch from the grass, vision blurred at the edges, eyes half-lidded.

  Ryn met the aberration head-on.

  The spider-like mass lunged first, eight limbs stabbing downward in brutal succession. Ryn pivoted sharply, one strike grazing his shoulder, another forcing him back as earth exploded around him.

  He retaliated.

  Steel flashed.

  His blade carved across one of its forward legs, dark fluid spraying as the edge bit deep.

  The creature shrieked and countered immediately.

  A limb caught Ryn across the ribs and hurled him sideways. He rolled, boots digging trenches into the dirt before he forced himself upright again.

  Another strike, precise, controlled, aimed at the joint this time. The massive leg buckled slightly.

  Maybe if Ryn was fully healed, all parts, he might have been able to.

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  But right now—

  Not right now.

  His breathing was uneven. His movements a fraction slower than they should have been. Blood darkened the bandages beneath his armor.

  The aberration recovered instantly.

  The wounds he had inflicted began sealing even as he watched.

  One elongated limb shot forward and slammed into his sword guard. The impact shuddered through his frame, forcing him to one knee.

  The creature reared back, towering over him.

  Ariel’s fingers twitched against the grass.

  No.

  She pushed herself up.

  Her arms trembled violently, but she forced her weight onto her knees.

  That’s right.

  Her projectiles weren’t the only thing she had anymore.

  The cracks along her skin pulsed faintly, thin veins of fractured gold creeping higher.

  If light that was clean didn’t work—

  Then maybe something less clean would.

  Her fingers pressed into the earth.

  Breathing slow.

  Ignoring the pain.

  There was still one thing she hadn’t tried.

  She closed her eyes and focused on that feeling in her chest — that unstable warmth. She ignored the screaming in her limbs, the tremor in her ribs, the copper taste in her mouth.

  She reached inward.

  And pulled.

  The sensation dragged through her veins like molten metal.

  She forced it outward — down her shoulders, into her arms, into her legs.

  Her body answered.

  It seared.

  Not like warmth.

  Like burning from the inside out.

  Her arms began to glow first. The light flickered unevenly beneath her skin, illuminating the cracks that spidered across it.

  Then her feet.

  The grass beneath her blackened faintly.

  Just as the glow intensified—

  A hand wrapped around hers.

  Lightly.

  Ariel’s breath caught. The light faltered, dimming as she glanced down.

  Lilia.

  Her eyes were rimmed red, jaw trembling despite how tightly she tried to hold it still.

  “No,” Lilia whispered. “You can’t.”

  Ariel hesitated

  …Then shook her head once.

  “I have to.”

  “You don’t have to do anything!” Lilia snapped, her voice breaking at the edges. “I thought you’d stopped—stopped acting like this.”

  “Stopped acting like you owe us something"

  Ariel didn’t answer.

  “Please…” Lilia’s grip tightened just slightly. “Listen to me.”

  Ariel couldn’t…

  She pulled her hand free without looking at her.

  The moment contact broke, the glow roared back to life.

  The same pain surged through her — worse now, unrestrained. Her vision whitened at the edges as the burning overtook her nerves.

  But she didn’t stop.

  She stepped forward.

  Then ran.

  As her feet touched the grass, it ignited.

  Blades blackened.

  Curled.

  Collapsed into ash the instant her weight brushed them.

  Step.

  Ash.

  Step.

  Ash.

  Again and again, a trail of smoldering ruin carved itself behind her.

  The glow consuming her body intensified — it burned violent and gold, flames licking along her arms, pouring from the cracks in her skin like light breaking through shattered porcelain.

  Ahead, Ryn was still engaged, blade flashing, boots sliding through torn earth as he barely held the aberration’s attention.

  Then the creature felt it.

  Its massive frame paused mid-strike.

  Slowly—

  It turned.

  Eight eyes fixed on the golden figure charging toward it.

  It screeched — not in rage this time.

  Ariel leapt.

  The ground detonated beneath her feet as she launched forward, heat spiraling in her wake. The glow condensed around her fist

  It looked like a star dragged down into her hand.

  Flames roared around her arm, spiraling upward, the air warping from the sheer intensity.

  For a heartbeat, she hung above it.

  Then she drove her fist straight into the creature’s head.

  ***

  Lilia stood frozen in the distance, her arm still outstretched where Ariel had pulled away from her. Fingers curled around empty air.

  This feeling—

  It was far too familiar.

  Painfully so.

  Ryn clashed with the aberration, steel ringing against chitin and bone, each movement heavier than the last.

  And Ariel—

  Ariel ran past him.

  She leapt.

  Golden.

  Blinding.

  For a moment, she was suspended high above the battlefield, a streak of burning light tearing through the dark, brighter than she had ever been — brighter than she should have been.

  Then she fell.

  The impact swallowed the sound from the world.

  Light erupted outward in a violent ring, devouring grass, cracking earth, forcing Ryn back on instinct as heat tore across the clearing.

  The aberration screeched—

  Or maybe that was the ground breaking.

  Lilia couldn’t tell.

  The rest felt like a blur.

  What came next was worse.

  The dust hadn’t even settled when Lilia forced herself upright, coughing through smoke and ash. The shockwave had thrown her back; her ears still rang.

  The ground was still trembling.

  Something in the smoke was breathing.

  Heavy. Wet. Uneven.

  And then—

  A twitch.

  No.

  The aberration was still alive.

  Her heart dropped.

  Lilia ran forward, boots tearing through scorched grass, the ground brittle beneath her steps.

  Through the thinning veil of smoke—

  There it was.

  Its skull was partially caved in, bone split open from the impact. Dark matter and ruptured organs spilled from the fracture, one eye crushed and hanging uselessly from its socket.

  But it was standing.

  Already, the fractures in its skull were beginning to seal.

  Still breathing.

  Still starving.

  And one of its elongated legs—

  Had driven clean through Ariel’s shoulder.

  Pinning her to the earth.

  For a second, Lilia couldn’t move.

  Ariel lay there beneath it, golden light flickering weakly around her body now, unstable and dying.

  The cracks in her skin had reached her eye, splintering through white and iris alike.

  Her eyes now glowed a grotesque gold.

  “Ariel…” Lilia whispered.

  Just as she did, the creature pressed down harder.

  Bone ground.

  Flesh tore further.

  For a second, there was silence.

  Then Ariel screamed.

  Not the restrained sound she made when enduring pain.

  Not the quiet, swallowed kind.

  This was raw.

  Ripped straight from her lungs.

  Agony, unfiltered.

  The sound split the battlefield more violently than the explosion had