The building fell.
At first it had descended with ominous weight. Now it was accelerating, stone and timber tearing through the air, its shadow swallowing the crater floor.
It was too large to evade. The radius of impact would consume the entire depression. There was no angle to run. No time to dig. Lia's whip would not reach high enough with enough leverage to redirect something of that mass. Vilak, still mounted atop the skeletal horse on the roof of the plummeting structure, had no footing to cast anything stable.
For the first time since the battle began, they all felt it at once.
Helplessness.
Then—
"Well, I should help them right?"
The world slowed to a crawl.
Dust hung suspended in the air like frozen ash. Stone fragments stopped mid-fall. The collapsing building halted in its descent, its momentum stretched thin across an impossible stillness.
Xain, Nori, Zee, Mae, Lia, Vilak, and even Callum lay locked in place, bodies frozen in the exact tension of their last movements.
X stood at the crater's edge.
He glanced to his right.
The goddess stood there, untouched by the suspended world. She gave a small nod.
"Do it."
X gave a casual thumbs up.
He moved.
The air resisted him at first, thickened by halted momentum, but he pushed through it and sprinted down into the crater. He reached the elf twins first, lifting both with effortless strength and carrying them out of the depression in long strides before placing them safely beyond the projected blast radius.
He was back in an instant.
He scooped up Lia and Xain next, one under each arm. As he paused for a fraction of a second, he leaned slightly toward the blue-haired boy.
"Man it's weird to look at you up close," he remarked.
Then he deposited them beside the twins and returned again.
Callum lay twisted and boneless at the crater floor. X crouched, sliding his arms beneath the werewolf's limp form.
"Going to put you in a safe place far away to let you regenerate, big man."
He carried him far beyond the others, well outside the zone of destruction, laying him carefully against stable ground before turning back.
Nori was next.
X appeared beside him, eyeing the mask briefly.
"Wonder what you look like behind that mask?" he wondered aloud.
He lifted him just as easily and set him down beside Xain.
Now only Vilak remained.
X looked up at the underside of the falling building and let out a sigh, the sound slightly muffled by his skull mask.
"Alright, time to deal with the hardest."
He sprinted forward and leapt, catching the edge of broken masonry. Climbing something that was mid-plummet—even frozen—was still difficult. The building's structure had fractured under its own weight, surfaces jagged and unstable. He hauled himself upward, fingers finding purchase in cracked stone and splintered beams, forcing his way higher.
When he reached a stable angle, he pulled several small items from his coat and hurled them downward at measured intervals, freezing each in place in the air. They formed a staggered descent path, suspended platforms that would remain fixed once time resumed.
He reached the rooftop at last.
Vilak and the skeletal horse were frozen in mid-motion, cloak and reins caught in the halted wind.
"Sorry," X muttered.
He lifted the necromancer only, leaving the skeletal horse behind—because that would be insane to try and carry—and carried him down, stepping across the frozen items one by one before placing him beside the others.
Then he returned to the goddess.
"Done. Everyone's rescued, time to let everything move forwards."
He snapped his fingers.
Time resumed.
"What the!?" Xain exclaimed as motion slammed back into the world.
The building completed its descent.
It crashed into the crater with catastrophic force, stone pulverizing on impact. A shockwave tore outward, dust and debris blasting across the district. The group instinctively threw their arms up to shield their eyes as fragments of rock and timber rained down around them.
"What just happened?" Nori signed rapidly, confusion sharp and precise even through motion alone.
Zee stared at the crater, then at the ground beneath her boots.
"The building was falling… and now we're just here. Out of the way. What?" she muttered, pointing between the impact site and their current position, utterly lost.
Vilak swayed slightly, nausea twisting through him from the abrupt displacement.
"H-how did I get down? I-I was atop of the building. H-how?" he stammered, looking up at the collapsed ruin.
Mae scanned the surroundings.
"Where's the werewolf?" she asked.
Lia's head snapped up.
"Wait yeah, where is he? Why isn't he with us?"
Meanwhile, King Domine exhaled slowly through his nose, the sound low and irritated. Dust drifted around him from the collapsed structure. Then his head turned, deliberate and precise, toward the rim of the crater.
He saw them.
X stood beside Sarandel at the edge, the two figures outlined against the ruined skyline.
"Finally decided to make your presence known?" Domine called, his voice carrying cleanly across the fractured stone.
Sarandel did not respond. Light gathered in her hand, coalescing into the shape of a bow. The weapon formed fully between one breath and the next. She drew the string back in a single smooth motion, posture flawless, shoulders squared, the arrow of radiance taking shape along the drawn line.
"I don't think she's going to answer," X remarked lightly, a faint chuckle beneath the skull mask.
Sarandel released.
The arrow crossed the distance in an instant. Domine scoffed before It struck him squarely and detonated in a violent burst of brilliance. The force lifted him from the ground and hurled him backward into a nearby building. He disappeared through its outer wall. A heartbeat later, light erupted from within the structure, bursting outward through windows and cracks. The building convulsed from the inside before collapsing inward on itself, stone and timber folding as if crushed by internal pressure.
"What the!?" Xain spun toward the explosion, arm half-raised.
"Did someone come to help us?" Zee asked, tightening her grip on her sword as she faced the ruined building.
"Who on our side can do… whatever it is that just happened?" Mae added, eyes fixed on the settling debris.
Lia turned sharply, scanning the perimeter instead of the destruction. "Let's not focus on that. Whoever they are, they can fight. We need to find Callum first." She was already moving as she spoke.
"But shouldn't we try to help?" Xain asked, hesitating.
Nori stepped in front of him and placed a steady hand on his shoulder to pull his focus. Then he signed, "We can't help right now even if we tried, lets just leave for now,"
Xain's jaw tightened. He glanced once more toward the collapsed building, then nodded. "Okay. Okay. Let's go find Callum first."
They turned and began heading south through the broken streets, moving quickly. That was the direction they had been set down. If Callum had been moved farther out for safety, it would likely be deeper that way. Rubble crunched beneath their boots as they advanced.
As they withdrew from the battlefield, Xain looked back over his shoulder one last time, unease settling in his chest.
*Just who helped us?*
Meanwhile, amid the chaos of another clash, Ercale just remembered something.
*Of fuck I didn't tell him about the goddess being here!*
He forgot.