'He's not advancing,' Lindarion thought. 'He's removing something.'
Nysha was on her feet moments later, blade bare, eyes scanning instinctively for threats that were not yet visible. "What changed," she said, not asking.
"The anchor points," Lindarion replied. "He's pruning."
Ashwing fluttered up groggily, then froze as he felt it too. "That's… that's wrong. That's like someone pulling nails out of a bridge while you're still on it."
The ground shuddered once, sharply, then stilled again. No collapse followed. No eruption. The silence afterward was worse than either.
From the east, a distant structure began to fail.
Not a city. Not a fortress. A conceptual support. Lindarion felt it unravel through the inheritance's perception, an ancient ley nexus losing coherence as Dythrael withdrew pressure from one side and increased it from another. The imbalance snapped it cleanly.
