Aelric's words had barely left his lips when the rift cracked open fully.
A jagged tear in the fabric of reality pulsed in mid-air, its edges shimmering with crimson and void-black light. The ground trembled beneath their feet as the masked cultists poured more energy into the ritual, their guttural chanting intensifying.
What lay beyond the rift… was wrong.
A glimpse of shifting stars, blackened landscapes, and something vast—watching. The multiverse bleeding through.
"Break the circle!" Aelric snapped, drawing his dagger with one hand while channeling the faint, chaotic pulse of the Shard with the other.
Rhea was already moving, blades flashing as she sprinted toward the nearest cultist. Her strike was swift, slicing through cloth, mask, and flesh in one graceful motion. The figure collapsed without a sound, their body dissolving into ash.
Bren loosed an arrow, striking another cultist in the chest. But rather than falling, the masked figure convulsed—flesh distorting, bones snapping, until its form twisted into something vaguely humanoid but utterly inhuman.
Tallis cursed behind them, his hands weaving intricate symbols. "Those aren't cultists anymore."
They weren't. The remaining figures shed their human forms like old skins. Pale, chitinous limbs sprouted. Eyes—too many, too wide—opened across their bodies. Their presence screamed of something alien, something ancient.
[System Alert: Lesser Riftborn Detected][Classification: Aberration — Multiversal Origin][Caution: Conventional weapons limited effectiveness]
Aelric grit his teeth, shifting his grip. Conventional wasn't his style anyway.
He stepped forward, the Shard at his belt pulsing as he channeled its raw, unrefined power. Crimson light snaked along his arm, fingers crackling with unstable energy.
A Riftborn lunged, spindly limbs outstretched. Aelric met it halfway.
The blast of corrupted magic struck the creature squarely in the torso. Where the energy touched, flesh withered, twisted, then collapsed in on itself—leaving only a smoking, pulsing void.
The Riftborn screeched, its form unraveling.
The others hesitated—briefly. Enough time for Rhea to close the gap, cutting another down with brutal efficiency.
Bren fired again, eyes sharp despite the chaos. Tallis unleashed a barrage of illusory blades that disoriented their enemies, though the Riftborn's unnatural perception meant illusions could only buy seconds, not victories.
Seconds were all Aelric needed.
Focusing the Shard's chaotic energy, he traced a sigil mid-air—one pulled not from the Thornwatch's magic, but from the forgotten language of the Hollowborn. Dangerous. Forbidden. But effective.
The sigil ignited, and with it, a localized pulse of spatial distortion erupted. The ground beneath the cultist-turned-aberrations rippled like liquid. Their twisted forms warped, contorted—then collapsed into nothingness.
The rift itself flickered, destabilized. But it wasn't gone.
Rhea landed beside him, breathing hard. "That thing… on the other side… it saw us."
Aelric didn't look away from the rift. The presence beyond—vast, hungry, ancient—pressed at the edges of his mind. It wasn't the Hollowborn. It wasn't the Covenant.
It was something worse.
The rift pulsed again. More figures—shapes from beyond—began to emerge.
They weren't finished yet.
"Hold the line," Aelric commanded, eyes cold. "We end this, or it ends us."
And as the rift howled, spilling the impossible into the mortal world, Aelric Veyne prepared to prove why power—dangerous, ruthless, uncontrollable—was sometimes the only path to survival.
...
The rift widened, a pulsing wound in the fabric of the world. From its depths, the Riftborn spilled forth—twisting, contorted forms that defied the laws of flesh and sanity.
They came fast. Crawling. Skittering. Sliding along the cracked earth with impossible grace.
"Fall back to the ruins!" Aelric shouted, his voice cutting through the rising shrieks. "Narrow the approach!"
The shattered remnants of the ancient temple offered little shelter, but its collapsed archways and broken pillars created natural choke points. Bren and Rhea moved swiftly, positioning themselves for defense as the Riftborn advanced.
Tallis unleashed a barrage of illusionary doubles—phantom Aelrics and Rheas sprinting across the field to confuse the Riftborn. But the creatures weren't easily fooled. Their too-many eyes shimmered with unnatural light as they fixated on the real targets.
Aelric's mind raced. His conventional magic was useful, but limited. The Shard pulsed at his side, its chaotic energy whispering promises of raw, unfiltered power. Power that came with a price.
But hesitation now meant death.
[System Override: Artifact Synergy Unlocked][Warning: Shard resonance unstable][Proceed?]
"Do it," Aelric muttered under his breath.
Crimson energy surged along his arm as he tapped deeper into the Shard's latent might. Veins of light crawled beneath his skin, his vision blurring at the edges with dangerous clarity.
The Riftborn lunged.
Aelric met them head-on.
With a gesture, the ground fractured—jagged spears of warped stone erupting beneath the creatures, impaling them through misshapen limbs and torsos. But the Riftborn were resilient. Wounds closed. Flesh reformed.
They kept coming.
Aelric wove a second sigil mid-air, the ancient Hollowborn glyphs glowing with unnatural brilliance. This time, the distortion wasn't localized. The very space around the Riftborn folded inward—compressing them like paper crushed in a giant's fist.
Limbs snapped. Bone and ichor ruptured. The Riftborn howled as their forms imploded under the weight of spatial collapse.
Rhea and Bren struck down the stragglers, blades flashing with precision.
The rift itself began to pulse erratically. Aelric could feel the instability—the fabric of reality around them buckling. If he didn't seal it now, more would come… or worse, something larger would crawl through.
But the Shard's energy clawed at his mind, wild and uncontrollable. His hands trembled. His vision swam. His System alerts blurred together:
[Warning: Mana Exhaustion Imminent][Warning: Cognitive Overload Detected][Artifact Resonance Reaching Critical Threshold]
Rhea appeared at his side, eyes sharp with concern. "Aelric—"
"I've got it," he forced out through gritted teeth. "Stay back."
Channeling the last of his borrowed strength, Aelric traced a final sigil in the air—this one a seal. A binding mark drawn from both System knowledge and forbidden Hollowborn lore.
The rift shuddered. Cracks spread along its edges like shattered glass.
A surge of blinding crimson light exploded outward. The Riftborn shrieked, their forms disintegrating.
And then—silence.
The rift collapsed in on itself, folding into a single point of nothingness before vanishing entirely.
Aelric staggered, the Shard's glow dimming. His knees buckled. Rhea caught him before he hit the ground.
His head swam with nausea and pain, but beneath it all… victory. For now.
"Idiot," Rhea muttered softly, supporting him. "Next time, tell me when you're about to fry your brain."
Aelric managed a weak, tired smile. "Next time… you'll be too busy keeping up."
Behind them, the ruined Expanse lay quiet once more. But the scars remained—both on the land and within Aelric himself.
This battle was won.
But the war?
The multiverse was only beginning to stir.