Spinedral roared.
Not like thunder. Like bone cracking in a tomb.
The city's veins surged, pumping black blood into every street, every fissure, every collapsed husk. Tendrils of root and marrow snaked upward, wrapping towers, dragging them into the throbbing chasm beneath. Every building screamed in its own language of cracking stone and dripping flesh.
Kael stood atop a mound of twisted streets, roots erupting from his chest like black lightning. The Bloom inside him pulsed, reaching higher, stretching farther, consuming all limits.
Kane followed, spine-blade humming with marrow-light. Every strike tore through husks and structures alike, carving paths of obliteration. His laughter was a storm, sharp as splintered bone.
"Brother," he shouted over the roar of the Bloom, "look at them! Look at all of them! This is ours!"
Kael's black eyes swept across the city. Corpses rose higher, taller than towers, their bones encased in black fire. Every scream they had ever carried was now a note in the city's new song.
The Dark Tome spun above him, pages tearing themselves into frenzied strips. Words flared, hotter than molten steel, writing themselves into the city itself:
"Spread. Consume. Ascend."
Thirn's inked body hovered as if suspended by air and shadow. She raised her hands, sending waves of black script outward. Each letter struck the Bloom, strengthening it, infusing the roots with knowledge older than sin.
"The God hungers!" she cried. "And through the Bloom… it will devour!"
The ground split again, wider than before. Rivers of black blood surged upward, carrying husks, bones, and twisted fragments of towers into a churning tide. They clawed skyward, forming a writhing army beneath Kael's command.
Kane laughed, spine-blade flashing. He leapt onto a rising spire of fused flesh and stone, carving it into pieces that screamed as they fell. "We bloom, brother! We cut! And nothing survives to stop us!"
Kael lifted his hands, and the roots exploded outward like a black sun, swallowing the streets, tearing open new veins, binding the corpses into titanic forms. The city shuddered beneath his will, alive and obedient.
The god above stirred, its shadow stretching, twisting. It reached for the Bloom, but the roots lashed outward, pulling the darkness into Spinedral itself. The shadow screamed, a sound that split the marrow of the streets, but the Bloom devoured it, swallowing it whole.
Kael's voice carried across the city, low and immense.
"Rise, all of you. Rise higher than the towers. Rise beyond the world."
The husks obeyed. Black fire erupted from their bones. Arms stretched into the sky. Faces of the dead turned upward, screaming, singing, burning, alive in ways they never were in life.
Kane waded into them, spine-blade cutting arcs through bone and memory. Each strike tore not just flesh but the city's history, rewriting it in black fire. "And I cut! I cut! I cut!"
The ground beneath Spinedral pulsed violently. Streets ruptured like bursting veins. Buildings toppled, fused, and reformed, following the rhythm of the Bloom. Black fire licked every surface, every corner, every husk.
A silence fell. Not peace, not calm. A waiting so heavy it pressed into the marrow of every street, every root, every husk.
Kael's black eyes narrowed, glowing with the pulse of the Bloom. His hand rose, fingers spreading wide.
"Feed," he commanded.
The city obeyed. The Bloom obeyed. The god above recoiled.
Kane's laughter tore through the silence, slicing the air sharper than any blade. "We bloom. We cut. And nothing… nothing will resist us!"
Spinedral opened wider, hungrier, its veins pulsing in rhythm with Kael's heartbeat. The world outside trembled, unaware of the shadowed garden that had grown into a god, a city, and a living, writhing army.
The Bloom had ascended.
And Kael… was its heart.