Golden sparks stirred by the beating of radiant wings drifted gently through the air, each flake releasing a crisp crystalline shatter as it touched the ground.
Raine hovered three feet above the Moonwell, golden patterns flowing beneath his skin gradually syncing with the pulse of the runes at the bottom of the well.
Ravenna's mechanical heart gave off irregular clicks, as coolant seeped from a crack in her chest, spreading a dark stain across her silver-blue uniform.
She clutched tightly to the only finger of Raine's that still retained its human form—his pinky—her nails nearly digging into his skin.
"Do you remember when we smuggled ourselves into Horn City?" Her voice rasped like grinding metal. "You nearly passed out from the stench in the sewers…"
Raine's crystallized eyelids trembled slightly, and the golden glow within them flickered with a momentary disturbance. One of the radiant wings behind him suddenly contracted, its edge fracturing into countless tiny motes of light.
Vanessa's arcane prosthetic eye shimmered with spectral blue runes, ancient astrological arrays swirling deep within her pupil as they continuously parsed the bizarre scene unfolding before her.
The elven rune on her chest flared with a sudden crimson light—magical danger warning. On the outpost's arcane barrier, the semi-transparent crimson butterflies had begun breaking free from their bindings, seeping into the station and manifesting into physical form.
As the first butterfly's wings fully spread, its body twisted and warped, condensing into a fist-sized magical eye, with a wicked violet flame dancing in its pupil.
"The soul resonance is breaking…" Vanessa's voice was distorted by magical backlash, her vocal cords warping into an eerie whisper.
"Ravenna, keep chanting! Anchor his spirit with the memory incantation!"
"Do you remember?" Ravenna's voice suddenly rose, each syllable laced with the ancient force of the Wordbinders' tongue.
"That winter night—I dragged you out of the sewers. You nearly strangled me…"
The magic eye froze mid-motion, its pupil's violet flame flickering violently.
Vanessa's arcane eye caught the surge of psionic resonance.
"It's working! His soul is responding! Keep chanting!"
A faint light bloomed at Ravenna's fingertips, memory flowing like spellscript:
"So I knocked you out… and when you woke up—" her voice trembled, thick with tears, "your hands were shaking… but you said I saved you…"
The temperature inside the outpost plummeted. The remaining butterflies on the walls instantly flash-froze, shattering into shards of blood-crystal that rained down with a brittle hiss. The magic eyes shrieked in agony, their surfaces crawling with web-like fractures, as if an older, deeper form of emotional magic was devouring them from within.
Vanessa's chest rune shifted to a pale moonlit white.
"The soul anchor is forming! But it's not enough—!"
Ravenna shut her eyes. The tears sliding down her cheeks turned into scattered starlight the moment they fell.
"…You said you owed me a life.
Now, Raine, I'm claiming it.
I want you to live—the one who hid and starved and fought with me in Horn City's alleys. That
version of you.
I want him to live."
A magic eye suddenly lunged at Vanessa—but the moment it touched the ancient elven rune embedded in her spine, it was blasted backward by a flash of silver light. The air instantly filled with the purifying scent of scorched sulfur. The other magic eyes shrieked in psionic agony, their piercing cries shattering magical instruments across the outpost. Alarming ripples spread across the arcane barrier.
Raine's body convulsed violently, strands of dark violet energy erupting through the golden veins beneath his skin. He arched his back in pain, his lightwings flaring out uncontrollably—one wingtip swept across the ceiling, searing twin molten scars into the stone.
"The Abyssal curse is retaliating!" Vanessa's wheelchair shifted into combat mode, three mechanical limbs snapping open from her back and launching silver arrows inscribed with elven runes. One struck with surgical precision, embedding itself into a gap between the crystal clusters on Raine's right shoulder. The runes on the arrow's tail flared to life with a vivid emerald glow.
Ravenna suddenly released Raine's pinky and instead cupped his face with both hands. Her mechanical heart emitted a shrill, high-frequency whir unlike anything before; the metal casing on her chest glowed red-hot from overload.
"Listen to me, you bastard!" She pressed her forehead to his, the pulsing vibration of her synthetic heart reverberating through bone and into his body.
"If you so much as think about turning into one of those disgusting things, I swear I'll carve you into pieces with a rune dagger—"
Raine's pupils abruptly contracted. The crystalline film over his right eye cracked—and then dissolved—revealing a fully human iris beneath.
He gasped sharply, like a drowning man breaching the surface. The golden patterns all over his body dimmed by a third in an instant.
"—sashimi," he finished Ravenna's threat, voice hoarse but unmistakably his own. The lightwings behind him slowly folded in, then dissolved into twin streams of radiance that sank back into his shoulder blades.
Vanessa's arcane eye recorded the miraculous transformation in real time. Her hands blurred in motion as she cast rapid divinations. The moment she saw the last trace of gold lingering in Raine's restored right eye, realization struck.
"The dragonblood... it's protecting the consciousness of its descendant," she murmured, even as her mechanical arms fired another volley of rune-etched bolts to repel the charging eye-beasts.
"But that's not typical for dragons… They don't protect. They dominate."
Raine staggered as he touched down, his knees slamming hard into the stone floor. He bowed his head, staring at his own hands—
His left hand shimmered with golden veins pulsing under the skin,
While his right was entirely overrun by dark violet runes, the two forces locked in a volatile tug-of-war at his wrist. The veins at their boundary bulged unnaturally, throbbing with unstable energy.
"There's not just three forces inside me," he said, lifting his head to meet Vanessa's gaze. His left eye still glowed with draconic gold, while his right had settled into its original deep brown.
"There are four."
A strange, suffocating stillness fell over the outpost. The floating eye-beasts froze mid-air, ceasing all motion at once. Then, as if obeying an unseen command, they aligned themselves into a perfect circle.
From the shadow at the circle's center, a single scaled hand slowly reached out.
"Clever little wyrmling," came a voice from within the darkness—layered, echoing with unnatural resonance.
"Shame you figured it out too late."
Vanessa's mechanical spine locked with a sharp clang, her joints groaning under sudden magical pressure. She strained to raise one trembling mechanical finger, pointing toward Raine.
"Run!" she gasped. "It's the Seventh Throne's Hunter!"
Ravenna moved faster than thought—she ripped the silver chain from her neck, revealing the pendant as a phantomburst charge. The moment it hit the ground, it exploded into a blinding cloud of acrid yellow smoke. The eye-beasts instantly scattered in a frenzy, crashing into walls and each other in chaotic disarray.
But Raine didn't move.
He stood rooted to the spot, eyes locked on the emerging scaled hand. Something ancient stirred in the depths of his consciousness—fragments of a memory not entirely his own.
As the hand's fingers extended fully from the shadow, Raine suddenly raised his own.
He made a strange gesture:
Thumb hooked over his ring finger, the other three extended—
pointed directly at the creature.
The moment froze. Even the smoke seemed to pause, curling like breath held too long.
Somewhere, something recognized the gesture.
"Ydraes mor'enth."
Raine's voice vibrated with unnatural resonance—each syllable sharp, metallic, ancient.
The scaled hand jerked as if struck by lightning, then withered in seconds, flesh collapsing inward like burned parchment. From within the shadow came a tortured, monstrous screech, and in the same instant, every floating eye-beast exploded. The gelatinous fluids they released evaporated mid-air, filling the outpost with a choking, acrid stench.
Vanessa's arcane eye widened to near bursting.
"High Draconic?! That's impossible… unless…"
"Stop gawking!" Ravenna yelled, grabbing Raine by his left wrist. Her mechanical heart blared a warning siren from deep inside her chest, but even so, she yanked him with inhuman strength, dragging him toward the outpost's rear exit.
They sprinted into the narrow tunnel connecting to the outer perimeter. But halfway through, Raine collapsed to his knees.
Crystalline growth erupted violently from his right arm, spreading at a terrifying rate—shoulder, clavicle, base of the neck. Worse still, the crystals were now etched with thin, red sigils that pulsed and slithered beneath the surface, like they were alive.
Vanessa dropped beside him, her hands scanning rapidly over the mutation.
"It's consuming the other forces…" she muttered, voice clipped and urgent.
"The Abyssal curse—it's mutating."
A sound slithered through the dark ahead of them—a wet, sucking noise, like meat being dragged through mud. Something was coming. Crawling along the tunnel walls. Fast.
Ravenna didn't hesitate.
She bit down hard on her tongue. Blood welled up, and she spat the crimson mix onto her rune-etched dagger. The blade ignited with a blinding, electric-blue light, casting stark shadows on the tunnel walls.
The light revealed what was coming:
Dozens of tendrils, each slick with mucus and lined with suckers, were emerging from every crack and crevice in the tunnel, writhing hungrily toward them.
"This is never-ending!" Ravenna snarled, slashing her rune-lit dagger through the nearest tendril. The blade sliced clean, but instead of blood, the severed limb released a spray of shimmering stardust, sparkling as it scattered through the tunnel.
Raine suddenly grabbed her wrist, voice sharp with recognition.
"Wait—that's not…"
Before he could finish, the scattered stardust coalesced midair, forming thousands of pinprick lights that spun together into a glowing emblem: three interlocked, hollow magic sigil-rings, turning slowly in the air like a celestial mechanism.
Vanessa's entire body convulsed.
A buried memory—**encrypted, sealed, and hidden for decades—**was forcefully unlocked.
She saw a younger version of herself beneath the boughs of an elven worldtree.
Beside her stood Raine's parents…
And a tall figure wearing a mask of dragon scales. In his hands: a metallic box covered in pulsing runes—
the exact same runes now floating before them in the air.
Vanessa's voice was eerily calm, a fragile serenity overtaking her.
"So that's it…"
"We've all been lied to."
From the depths of the tunnel, the writhing tendrils abruptly retracted, vanishing without resistance.
In their place, a soft humming began to echo—
a gentle lullaby, one Raine had not heard since childhood.
His mother's lullaby.
As the melody flowed through the tunnel, the crystalline growth on his right arm slowed, the pulsing red sigils dimming and retreating beneath the surface. The sharp pain in his joints eased, and the creeping mutation relented.
Ravenna gasped as her mechanical heart abruptly stabilized. The overheating warnings vanished. Even her coolant systems fell silent.
Then she looked down.
On the surface of her metal chestplate, fine golden filigree had begun to form—
the same glowing patterns that marked Raine's body.
The same bloodline. The same origin.
Whether forged or fated, they were now undeniably connected.
"Your heart…" Raine said weakly, pointing to Ravenna's chest.
"When did it…"
Vanessa's mechanical arms snapped upward in unison, pointing at them both with urgent precision.
"The Seed of the Primordial Life God!" she said, voice trembling with revelation.
"It chose you two—as co-hosts. As a symbiotic pair!"
The moss lining the tunnel walls began to glow with a soft verdant light, illuminating an otherwise invisible marking just around the bend—
a sigil of the Stardew Rose, identical to the embroidery that adorned Raine's mother's ceremonial robes.
The lullaby grew clearer now, resonating with a purity that cleansed the air itself. And as it did, Raine became suddenly aware—
Each of the four forces within him began to sing in its own voice:
The Primordial Life God whispered like spring rain on fertile soil—gentle, ancient, nurturing.
The Abyssal Curse hissed like a venomous serpent, coiling and seething with hungry malice.
The Sanctum Seal rang like cathedral bells in solemn procession—cold, unwavering, judicial.
And the Draconic Bloodline thundered with the fierce cadence of a war hymn from a lost age.
Raine's breathing slowed. His stance steadied.
"I can... control them."
He rose to his feet, and the once-chaotic crystal cluster on his right arm now pulsed in an orderly rhythm.
"Not by suppressing them, but…"
"By balancing them," Vanessa finished for him—her tone uncharacteristically reverent.
"A bearer of fourfold force... In theory, such a being could—"
But her words were cut short.
From the depths of the tunnel, a blinding golden light burst forth, so pure and intense it forced all three to shut their eyes. The very air seemed to hum in harmony with it.
When the brilliance finally faded, they opened their eyes to find a massive stone door standing at the tunnel's end. Its surface was carved with intricate floral patterns that shimmered faintly with residual energy.
From the narrow seam between its two halves flowed a soft breeze—carrying the scent of blooming flowers.
Ravenna's mechanical heart let out a low, harmonious hum, resonating perfectly with a frequency in the air—one she couldn't hear, but could feel in her bones.
Without conscious thought, she stepped toward the stone door. Her right hand lifted on its own and pressed into the circular indentation at the center—a shape that matched exactly the contours of her mechanical heart.
"This is…"
"The elven passage of Silverdew Village," Raine said, without hesitation.
He raised his left hand, drove a crystal shard through his own palm, and pressed the bleeding wound beside Ravenna's hand.
The moment his blood touched the stone, the floral carvings lit up with veins of vivid green light, flowing outward like circuitry come alive.
Without a sound, the great stone doors slid open.
What lay beyond stole the breath from their lungs:
Under the silver gaze of the moon, an entire city of translucent elven architecture floated delicately above a mirror-still lake. Buildings shimmered like woven starlight, their reflections blurring with their forms in the thin veil of mist.
But what commanded the eye wasn't the beauty—
It was the glowing threads stretching upward from each structure's spire, all converging upon a single point:
A withered, colossal tree standing alone on a central island in the lake's heart.
Raine stepped forward, almost entranced.
"The Mother Tree…" he whispered.
Within him, the Life God's power surged like a tidal wave in spring.
"It's calling to me."
But Vanessa stopped just at the threshold.
Her limbs made a low, grinding noise—one that sounded wrong, even for machinery.
"I… can't go in," she said flatly.
"I'm forbidden. I cannot step on any elven sacred ground."
Ravenna turned as if to speak—but staggered suddenly, clutching her chest with a gasp of pain.
She looked down.
The outer shell of her mechanical heart had turned completely gold, glowing faintly. Inside, the structure was visibly reconfiguring, shifting like clockwork with living intention.
And from the thin seams in the casing, delicate green tendrils—young, living sprouts—began to push outward, growing from within.
"Raine…" she rasped, her breath shallow, eyes wide with panic.
"There's something alive inside my heart…"
When Raine turned around, the sight before him shattered his very soul—
golden patterns, identical to his own, began to emerge beneath Ravenna's skin.
And those tender green shoots were blooming right before his eyes, bursting into delicate silver-blue flowers.
"The symbiosis has begun," Vanessa's voice was suddenly heavy with exhaustion.
"You have two choices now: sever the connection immediately, or…"
"Complete the fusion." Raine finished her sentence, an ancient incantation rising unbidden in his mind.
He glanced at the withered Mother Tree in the lake's heart—and in that moment, understood the true purpose of the Primordial Life God's seed.
Suddenly, Ravenna grabbed his collar, her mechanical heart's hum syncing with his heartbeat.
"Listen, I don't care about any damn ancient god seeds—if you try to turn me into a tree-covered monster..."
Her threat was cut short by a sudden, searing pain.
The metallic shell of her heart shattered completely, revealing a golden core now fused with flesh and blood.
Even more astonishingly, suspended in the core's center was a miniature three-ring sigil—identical to the one embroidered on Raine's parents' robes.
"So it's you…" Vanessa murmured, her voice trembling with dawning realization.
"The final key wasn't Raine after all…"
The surface of the lake erupted into towering waves, and the withered Mother Tree flared with an intense, piercing green light.