Eccar flew with urgency, his wings cutting through the air like blades. His eyes stayed locked on the ruined temple below where the green and black aura of Magic was rising like a fog of disease, leaking into the sky and stretching out in search of a world to consu.
It was getting worse. The god pressing harder with each mont. The others were safe for now but with no one left inside to resist, nothing would stop whatever was on the other side from crossing.
"We're out of ti," Eccar growled, flying faster.
Not far ahead, through the shattered trees and crumbling stone paths of the jungle outskirts he saw Erend who were still locked in a fierce battle with the eldest cultist.
The man moved like a seasoned Mage and fighter. Weaving and slashing with blades made of corrupted light and vines and earth, his body radiating Magic.
But Erend wasn't fighting to kill. His movents were sharp and precise but restrained. He was holding back.
"He wants answers for his questions," Eccar realized. "He's trying to capture him."
But there was no more ti for that.
With a growl, Eccar adjusted his flight and shot downward. The wind scread past his ears. Before the cultist could register his presence Eccar was already behind him.
The ground answered his call.
A mass of brown and black and pulsing with Magic solid earth surged upward from the soil and wrapped itself around the cultist's head.
The man flailed instantly, stumbling backward with a panicked cry muffled inside the stone. He clawed at the casing, summoning his dark Magic to lt it away but it didn't work. The earth was alive with Eccar's power, reinforced with earth Magic essence.
The cultist twisted then fell, choked on breathless gasps and finally collapsed to the ground unconscious.
Eccar landed beside him and dispelled the stone from the man's face, letting him breathe—but he wasn't getting up again anyti soon.
"Erend," Eccar called out, turning toward his comrade, his tone urgent and sharp. "The summoning worked. That thing is trying to break through. I barely able to stop it before but now it getting back again. The adventurers are alive but they're wounded. We don't have ti to ask questions anymore."
Erend sigh then shake his head helplessly. He stepped closer, now catching the crackling pulse of the temple's aura behind Eccar. His jaw tightened.
"Alright, then. We better deal with this first," he said.
Eccar shook his head. "Right. I catch a glimpes of it, that damn fogotten god seems like it hates us. I also saw mories that most like ca from another Dragonborn who faced it before and lost."
Erend's expression darkened. He looked down at the unconscious cultist, then back toward the temple. "Alright. Co on. We end this now."
Eccar gave a grim nod.
Without another word, the two leapt into the air again. The wind howled as they raced back toward the cursed temple.
Erend and Eccar tore through the sky side by side. The ruined temple lood ahead, the air around it thick and churning with sickly green and black light.
The aura had grown denser like a poisonous stormcloud. As they neared the broken do, it lashed out at them.
Tendrils of energy exploded upward from the temple. They coiled and snapped through the air with terrifying speed and attacking with a powerful force.
Erend veered to the left, his hand blazing as he conjured a burst of fire and lightning. He swung it wide in an arc, searing three of the tendrils from the air with a crackling roar.
Beside him, Eccar spun mid-flight and launched a wave of sharpened stone shards, shattering the incoming lashes before they could wrap around him.
They felt it imdiately, the hatred in those tendrils. It wasn't just Magic. It was also containing emotion. An ancient and malignant will that rembering sothing long buried. It wanted them dead so bad.
But the Dragonborns cut through the onslaught with fire and earth, carving a path through the swirling storm of dark Magic.
Their boots slamd into the stone floor of the temple chamber once more.
The place was worse now. The summoning circle on the floor had widened, the runes warped, the stone around it cracked and scorched. At its center was the rift which were the opening between worlds. The true source of the tendrils.
Dozens of them erupted from it, anchoring to the ceiling and walls like a parasitic growth. The Magic here felt wrong. It didn't flow like the Magic of their world. It chaotic and hungry, obeying no familiar rhythm. It was like the rules themselves had changed.
Erend narrowed his eyes. "You feel that?"
Eccar nodded grimly. "Yeah. That's not our world's Magic."
But they didn't have ti to understand it.
The tendrils surged again, this ti forming larger constructs—twisting into clawed limbs and jagged spears of pure energy trying to block their path.
Erend lunged forward, flas trailing his body as he slamd both fists to the ground. A shockwave of fire and lightning burst outward, vaporizing the closest tendrils in a burst of blinding light.
Eccar followed right behind, hurling boulders ripped straight from the temple floor, the rocks wrapped in sharp veins of black-brown Magic.
Together, they advanced step by step toward the circle, slashing and burning and crushing the tendrils that fought to keep them away. Each movent brought them closer to the rift.
And then they saw it.
At the very edge of the rift, where the veil between worlds had been torn like old fabric, lay a dark abyss. From within that rift ca lightless winds and endless whispers. And beyond it they see countless grey creatures.
Every one of them pressed hungrily against the edge, desperate to break through.
They hadn't crossed yet—but they would. Soon.
"They're waiting for the gate to finish opening," Eccar growled, his hands glowing.
Erend stared down at the circle. "Then we can't let it finish."
With renewed urgency, the two Dragonborn turned their power toward the summoning circle itself. The air crackled. The rift pulsed again, sensing their intent. Tendrils erupted in a frenzy to stop them.
"I got an idea," Erend suddenly said.
"What?" Eccar asked.
"We have to take the fight to them."
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