The sky trembled.
The red horizon pulsed once, then stilled—as though the world was holding its breath. The construct, Bael’s vessel, stood motionless in the valley below, its molten skin cooling to a dull black sheen. The soldiers that had poured from its chest stopped mid-step, their bodies seizing in eerie synchronization.
Cain knew better than to trust silence.
"Down!" he barked.
They hit the ground an instant before a sphere of scarlet energy erupted from the creature’s chest. It expanded outward in a perfect wave, vaporizing everything in its path. Rock, ash, bodies—the ridge itself disintegrated beneath the blast.
When the light faded, Cain pushed himself up through the haze, ears ringing. The ridge was half gone, the air thick with powdered stone. Roselle coughed nearby, half-buried in rubble. Steve groaned sowhere to the left, trying to reload a gun that no longer existed.
"Status!" Cain shouted.
"Alive," Roselle rasped, spitting blood. "For now."
"Steve?"
"Still have all my limbs," he said, grimacing. "Can’t say the sa for my rifle."
Susan’s voice ca from behind them, strained. "We need higher ground. The next blast will erase what’s left of this ridge."
Cain turned toward the valley. The construct was kneeling now, its chest split wide, leaking streams of molten light. The human soldiers had begun to move again, climbing over each other like insects.
Roselle wiped her mouth. "You fought this thing before, didn’t you?"
Cain’s jaw tightened. "Not this body. But the mind inside it. Bael."
Steve squinted. "As in the Fallen?"
"As in the one who burned the Western Reach to ash," Cain said flatly. "And the reason no one builds cities west of the Deadline anymore."
Roselle looked out over the battlefield. "That’s comforting."
Cain sheathed his sword montarily, glancing toward the storm clouds circling above. "Bael doesn’t resurrect without help. Soone summoned him. Soone close."
Susan limped toward him, her face pale but steady. "You’re thinking Daelmont."
"I’m beyond thinking."
Lightning flashed—blue this ti, not red. The construct turned its faceless head toward the flash, reacting like a beast scenting prey.
"Roselle," Cain said. "Take Steve and circle north. Find a vantage point, keep suppressive fire ready."
"What about you?" she asked.
"I’m going down."
Susan’s hand shot out, gripping his arm. "You won’t survive that thing’s radius. You’re not using mana—"
"Doesn’t matter. If it finishes stabilizing, we all die."
He broke free from her grip, leapt down the fractured slope, and hit the ground running.
The rain returned in sheets, soaking the field in seconds. Each drop hissed against the burning soil. Cain ran through the fog, his breath shallow but asured. Every step was deliberate—too slow, and he’d be crushed; too fast, and he’d lose rhythm.
The first wave of soldiers t him halfway. Their movents were chanical but relentless, blades forged from compressed Divinity cutting through the mist.
Cain sidestepped a thrust, shattered the attacker’s neck with his elbow, and used the corpse as cover from the next strike. {Eidwyrm} flared to life—not with mana, but raw kinetic fury. Each swing tore muscle from bone, each parry split steel.
He felt the rhythm of war again. The pulse.
The edge of his blade caught light from the burning construct as he tore through another wave, body slick with rain and blood. The dead fell in heaps, but still they ca—hollow eyes glowing faintly red, faces empty of thought or fear.
Then the ground beneath him convulsed.
The construct had moved. Slowly, deliberately. Its molten spine cracked open, and from within, chains of black light spilled out—like tendrils of shadow trying to anchor themselves into the world.
Cain’s breath caught. He knew this ritual.
Bael’s Descent.
It wasn’t summoning a body—it was building a gate.
He raised his voice, shouting through the storm. "Roselle! Focus fire on the spine! Now!"
High above, gunfire rattled like distant thunder. Roselle and Steve’s combined barrage tore chunks out of the creature’s back, but the damage sealed almost instantly. The construct’s flesh regenerated faster than they could break it.
Cain looked down at {Eidwyrm}. The blade was humming faintly, eager. The old weapon still rembered its true nature—one forged in the heart of a dying god.
He tightened his grip. "One last ti, then."
He sprinted forward, cutting through another cluster of soldiers, and jumped. His boots slamd into one of the creature’s chains, sending cracks rippling through the surface. He climbed fast, using the embedded grooves as footholds, until he reached the molten ridge along its spine.
The heat was unbearable. Each breath burned his lungs.
"Cain!" Susan’s voice carried through the comm bead, broken by static. "You’ll lt before you reach the core!"
"Then I’ll lt faster than it grows," he said.
He plunged {Eidwyrm} deep into the fissure where the chains t flesh. The blade scread—an awful, tallic shriek that split the storm. The construct convulsed, light spilling from the wound in blinding ribbons.
For a second, Cain saw it—Bael’s true form.
Not the towering husk of a machine, but a figure of light and bone, its eyes infinite voids filled with ancient rage. A god that had fallen so far it no longer rembered what it ant to ascend.
"Cain Arclight," the voice said inside his head. "You again."
His teeth clenched. "Should’ve stayed buried."
The entity laughed—a hollow, vibrating sound that shook his skull. "You think your blade can cut what ti itself refused to erase?"
Cain twisted the sword deeper. "I don’t need to cut ti. Just you."
Light erupted, violent and absolute.
From the ridge, Roselle watched the explosion consu the valley. The shockwave threw her backward, nearly toppling her from the cliff.
When the light finally dimd, the construct was gone. Nothing remained but a crater—a wound in the earth, smoldering and silent.
Steve lowered his scope. "Did he—?"
Susan’s voice ca through the comm, quiet. "He’s still alive."
"How can you tell?"
"Because the storm’s not over."
Thunder rolled across the broken horizon, darker and louder than before.
And sowhere in the heart of the smoke, a faint red glow flickered once. Then again.
Cain was still standing.
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