The dust cloud was immense—volumetric, suffocating. It swallowed the canyon whole, climbed the jagged walls, and blanketed the temple above in a thick veil of grey silence.
Altha lay on his stomach, ears ringing with a high, metallic whine.
The ground beneath him trembled with fading echoes. When he finally stirred, it was slow and deliberate.
Each movement came with protest. He coughed, though the sound felt distant, muted by shock and the silence of the immediate aftermath.
His Psyche Field had held.
Barely.
Much of the translucent shield had fractured into hexagonal shards mid-air, some still floating in flickers of dying light, others shattered completely.
The remaining plates cast soft greys, scattered across the rubble.
He rose to one knee.
He looked around, but there was no sight of the Wyrm or the Avian manice.
Just haze.
And silence.
Both made all the more apparent by his heart drumming in his ear, as if it carried the silence to him.
He tried to form a thought, to string words into meaning—but nothing came. Just instincts. Survival. Movement. And the next step of the plan.
He felt somehow, forcefully vulnerable.
Not just physically, but spiritually. Forcefully exposed, as if the world had reminded him—again—that power meant nothing in the face of of greater existence.
A feeling he was used to.
It wasn't the first time he'd felt so utterly outmatched, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.
He kept his expression neutral. For he knew he couldn't control the word but at the very least, he could try and temper his reactions to it.
A voice pierced through the stretching quiet, echoing in his head, cold and final:
> [Existial Felled: Emberborn Leviathan]
[Inner-Existial: Claimed]
[Remembrance: Claimed]
"Inner-Existial?" he murmured, blinking through the haze. "What does that even mean?"
Too many questions. Too little time.
If the wyrm was still alive—if anything was—he needed to move.
He forced himself to his feet, weaving through the debris, dragging his gaze across the broken terrain as dust curled in ethereal spirals around him.
Eventually, he found it.
The avian beast—half-turned to ash. Its wing a scorched ruin. Its ribs open to the sky like a broken cage. The rest of it would soon follow suit. As was the nature of the Ashanai.
He looked and his hybrid weapon was gone, back to where it always retreated to.
Where it would remain.
Nestled at the center the creature's skull, just above the eyes, was a gem.
A Soul-Fract.
Scarlet.
It called to him—not in words, but in weight. In presence. Each pulse like a word whispered to him in a language he didn't yet quite grasp.
He knelt and pulled until finally, he managed to pry it free.
The gem was warm in his hand. Not burning, but close. It pulsed faintly like a living thing.
And somehow—though it made no sound, spoke no words—he knew: Somehow, deep within, apart of him felt it, he was holding a piece of doom in his hand.
Doom in every pulse of scarlet light, a call to destruction, a sort of twisted heaven for the lost. Where they could lose themselves, to nowhere.
"Perdition," he whispered the word not knowing where he had gotten it from, only a vague understanding of what it meant.
---
ROOAAAARRRRR!!!!!
His head snapped back just as an earth-shaking roar thundered through the canyon's spine. The force peeled back layers of dust and smoke, revealing a battlefield scorched and unrecognizable.
Altha's grip on the crimson gem tightened.
He didn't know why—some primal instinct perhaps or a by chance a whim—but he knew he couldn't part with it.
Not this one. Not yet.
And besides, there was another. One he'd left behind on the bridge. One he'd though to spring a trap with.
But it was hundreds, if not thousands of meters above him.
He exhaled sharply, already moving.
His shoes scraped stone as he sprinted to the nearest canyon wall. His body, aching from the last clash, but he pushed through the sting.
He vaulted up the wall—13 meters—then hurled himself another 7 through the air, landing onto a conjured Psyche disc mid-flight.
The first disc shimmered under his weight. He didn't pause. Another appeared. Then another. Each new platform flared beneath his feet as he climbed, jumping in vertical bursts like a bolt uncoiling skyward.
But the toll was mounting.
His vision blurred. His skull pulsed. As Psyche dwindled like a wick burning too close to the wax. It was past what he called its stable equilibrium.
Each leap brought him closer—to the surface, and to what might be waiting. Did the Ashanai manage to overwhelm the knight and run rampant through the temple? or...
"No time," he muttered. "Just keep going."
Reaching the final ledge, he slowed. Just enough to peek at what to expect.
His breath caught in his throat.
Bodies.
Not his.
Dismembered creatures—mangled and strewn across the pale stone like discarded offerings. Their limbs twitching with leftover nerve-spasms.
The temple itself, eerily quiet.
He exhaled. "Talk about a monster."
Then he heard it.
A low, billowing roar clawed its way up the canyon. From the dust, something emerged—a serpentine creature with feathers like razor glass, scales tinted in oil-slick hues, and limbs of gleaming alloy. Its eyes and mouth shimmered with ghostly light, as if haunted by the last scream it ever gave.
He immediately jumped onto the bridge. Then he urgently ran to the middle to collect the orange-red crystal he'd placed there.
Altha dove for the crystal and scanned the runes carved along its surface, Runes he'd carved.
Finding the incantation that had bound it to that spot, he endowed his finger with Psyche and carved at the root of that inscription. A disruption stroke. Enough to corrupt the pattern.
The magic unraveled like string pulled from cloth.
He seized the crystal just as the roaring grew louder.
And then—he summoned the Petalbrand Ring.
It flared to life, blooming with ember light. Without hesitation, he channeled the power of the newly-freed Soul-Fract into the ring. The gem pulsed once—twice—then began to drain.
Light bled from it. Color vanished. Then, silence.
The fract shattered like glass caught in slow wind—its fragments melting into sparks across his palm.
He took a battle-ready stance, waiting, watching, anticipating the creature's furious ascent.
Then he heard it, a faint growl coming from the direction of the cathedral.
He turned, eyes wide as he saw the creature spider slowly across the broken silhouette of the cathedral's roof, its limbs a blend of metal sinew and glassy feathers, moving with deliberate, arachnid grace. It didn't crawl. It prowled.
Its eyes—those ghost-lit, mist-filled eyes—locked onto him.
Altha stilled, adjusting his footing.
The Petalbrand Ring burned faintly on his hand like a warning flare yet to ignite.
Then he noticed it—something vague pushing at the edges of his mind.
A pressure—not against his skin, but his thoughts. A nudge in the corner of his mind, so subtle he might've mistaken it for anxiety. An echo, insistent and rhythm-less, like a whisper.
The creature stepped closer its eyes narrowing as that vague outlier of a feeling intensified.
The creature stopped at the roof's edge, and the feeling intensified. Its eyes narrowed.
"What is this…?" Altha thought. "A mental assault? A projection? Or—"
The haze in his mind pulsed like distant thunder.
"If it wanted me dead, it had its chance," he reasoned. "There's still blood cooling on the bridge and non of it is mine, yet."
The storm overhead cracked and coiled, tearing light across the sky.
The creature approached slower.
Wary still, Altha maintained his battle stance, slowly shifting one foot back to brace for recoil.
He'd never used the Petalbrand Ring before and so still doubted much of the physics surrounding it and much of anything related to the arcane, really.
"But say it were trying to attack us. Better it be in the realm of the mindscape than physical reality." He thought, sighing. "Either way, I don't see this paning out well for us, but this way we at least have the possibility of a civil conversation, maybe even the promise of a peaceful resolution."
He dropped his mental guard. Not completely—just enough.
The voice slipped in like silk.
"How fascinating," it said, its tone layered, velvet wrapped in frost. "It's not often one meets a mortal so... mentally impenetrable."
Altha stiffened, involuntarily. His eyes flicked upward, disbelief cutting into his stance.
"You can talk?" he said aloud, incredulous.
"Not quite," the voice replied. "I shape thought. You interpret it as language." It paused, thoughtful. "And you… you shape resistance like a fortress grown from loss."
Altha blinked.
That strange, uneasy feeling clawed deeper now—not malevolence, but something else. Ancient. Analytical. Maybe even… curious.
He stayed quiet, mind steady.
The creature leaned closer on the cathedral's rim. Its tail coiled like smoke behind it.
"I must thank you," the creature echoed. "For your bravery… and your effort. Few mortals intervene in such clashes. Fewer still survive."
It looked him over, up and down, thoughtful and curious.
"You're just a trove of secrets, aren't you?"
Altha found himself still, as if rooted to the floor. Not out of fear. But awe.
There was something in the creature's presence—a vastness that demanded respect. As the sea to a sailor. As a mountain to a pilgrim.
Maybe it was the way it spoke, how it moved, perhaps, the way ethereal mist would escape its mouth and eyes... little was certain in Altha's mind.
Pandora's head tilted slightly, lowering even closer.
The creature coiled languidly through the air, wrapping itself around the great bridge like an ancient ribbon, until its glowing eyes met his at level height.
Altha didn't move. His intuition oddly unalarmed.
"No Ether nor Cogni Signatures, meaning no Ethear Vessel neither, making you practically invisible like a ghost who yet lives. How strange." The creature mused as it looked around the broken temple and the barrier in place, then back to him. "Stranger still... What's a Tier 1 Insceptious Existence doing here? Hmm, Oh, Spire… what are you scheming this time?"
Altha blinked. "You know about the Spire?"
The wyrm blinked, slow and amused. "Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"
The Wyrm raised an eyebrow.
Altha rushed to answer nearly stumbling on his words. "Uhh... Oh, no sorry, I didn't mean to offend. It's just a first for me, talking to a, um... dragon and I'm not all that educated on the Spires as it were."
Its laughter echoed inside his skull—low and chiming, like wind brushing the edge of bells. It was unsettling and elegant all at once.
"Dragon? Ha!" it echoed. "No, no, child. I am a Wyrm. The creature we slew—that Emberborn Leviathan—was closer to a dragon than I ever could be, comparatively."
Altha scratched the back of his neck. "Oh. I… I didn't realize there was a difference. I thought Wyrms were like, uh… premature dragons?"
The laughter resounded once more, fonder.
"Ahh, How mother would scream at you were the utterance ever to deign reach her ears." It leaned in closer, scales gleaming like smoke-forged metal. "Child, had I been a dragon, I cast doubt that we would be having this conversation right now. I doubt this temple would remain."
"Oh, I see..." he worded.
It leaned in, its coils shifting like tectonic plates. "Regardless of your ignorance, I find you… a breath of relief, uhhh..."
Altha gave a weak smile. "Altha. My name's Altha."
The Wyrm chuckled.
"Its a pleasure to meet you Altha. You may call me, Pandora."
The storm above crackled, casting falling firelight through the scorched sky as each dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Pandora's eyes shimmered as they turned their gaze back toward him.
"You have done us a great service today, Altha. For that, I extend my thanks."
He scratched the back of his neck, awkward. "There's no need. I'm just… glad I could help. Honestly, I didn't even know I was helping—"
Before he could finish his sentence he felt soft feathers brush against his forehead—warm, ephemeral, soft as memory.
Then the Spire spoke, and the following prompt appeared:
> [Remembrance Transfer: In Progress...]
[Confirm]
[Deny]
Altha stared at the words suspended in the air, heart stuttering in his chest.
His fingers twitched.
A thousand questions rose behind his eyes—but none mattered.
He chose.
---
> [Confirm]
[Remembrance: Claimed]
---
From the point where their heads touched light did outpour, as if refracted from a glass prism, and vanished almost fickle in its retreat, like the stark silence after a supernova.
The wyrm then pulled its head back.
"You gave me a Remembrance?" Altha asked, trying to understand what it all meant.
The storm above began to dim, its coiling fire slowly unraveling, folding inward, and with it, Pandora's entrance into the Ashen Pyre.
Altha looked skyward, eyes knowing what came next.
A chuckle echoed in his mind, distant and warm, like sunlight behind heavy clouds.
"Seems my time has reached its conclusion. It has been a pleasure... Altha. May this gift mark a reunion—soon, fated or not."
Pandora uncoiled from the bridge, hovering at the edge, their body rising with the wind, ash slipping through their metalic scales like trailing light, as they prepared to soar into the Pyro-Storm once more.
Altha's jaw tightened. His heart pulled forward—but his feet stayed still.
He still had so many questions. What did she mean, she'd never seen another Astral here? Where was here? Who were they?
But even before the words could find his mouth, her voice slipped gently through the corridors of his mind.
"Fret not, Nephilim child."
Altha looked up in shock, trapped behind dead eyes.
"How did you know I was a-"
"Altha... there is still much more to come for you. Your questions will eventually find their mark. Until then, may the Thorn-Mother walk beside you."
The creature looked at the scarlet gem clutched in Altha's hand.
"Be careful, Altha. Even the dead can never be too wary of a fiend's influence."
Altha gently nodded, as Pandora seamlessly slithered through the air and soared straight into the dwindling inferno, chuckling one last time as they did.
He stood in the stormlight, fingers curled instinctively as the Spire's final prompt faded from view. The word "Confirmed" still echoed in his mind like a gong struck in the soul.
Then—stillness.
Soon the storm died out and Altha found himself alone at the bridge, as metalic feathers and ash layed placid on the old stone.