The frigid wind of the far north cut across Raine's cheeks like blades. The emerald shield of the elven airship crackled in the cold, ice crystals on the hull constantly flaking away and reforming. From this high vantage, the moon fragment caught in the silver-blue energy net drifted slowly, casting a massive shadow across the snowfields below.
"The energy net will hold for at most three days," γ's alchemical prosthetic eye processed the streams of data. "Master Alfred's Aurora Spire is already overloaded."
Ravenna tightened the stolen Holy Alliance white robe around her—the uniform of some unlucky bishop, now repurposed as her winter coat. The purple-gold markings on her exposed right arm pulsed faintly, as if fighting off the cold. "Old men always love building secret bases in hellholes like this."
The airship suddenly lurched violently. Shapes emerged in the blizzard ahead—dozens of them, resembling a cross between ice crystals and jellyfish. Their semi-transparent bodies pulsed with dark-red energy. Floating in the air, they lashed out with tendrils that unleashed pulses to disrupt magical circuits.
"Frost Watchers!" Ironbeard's steam warhammer began to heat up. "The Council's even corrupted the polar elementals!"
Raine's Frosttongue Sword lit with emerald fire, though dimmer than usual. Ever since the battle at the Holy Alliance headquarters, the four powers within him had been in a precarious imbalance. In this cold, his draconic bloodline stirred with unusual vigor, suppressing the flow of emerald energy.
"Don't use magic!" Nisthya suddenly caught his wrist. "These creatures evolve by absorbing it!"
As if to prove her point, the foremost Watcher split apart—the emerald energy Raine had released was absorbed, and it replicated into a smaller emerald-tinted variant!
"Physical attacks! Aim for the core!" Elondir's longbow loosed a specialized arrow, the tip coated with an acid alchemical agent supplied by the dwarves.
Ironbeard bellowed with laughter and leapt straight off the airship. His steam warhammer trailed a plume of white mist as it arced through the air, smashing two Watchers into shards of ice. As he fell, the steam grappling hook on his belt caught the railing of the airship with perfect precision, swinging him back to the deck.
"Your turn, thief!" he called to Ravenna with a wink.
A cluster of purple-gold energy solidified into throwing knives in Ravenna's palm. "Watch and learn, stump." Twelve blades left her fingers at once, each striking a Watcher's core with flawless accuracy. The monsters didn't explode, but froze in place as if time itself had stopped, then shattered into perfect geometric shapes.
"Alchemical sealing?" γ's eyes widened in surprise. "When did you learn that?"
"Couldn't sleep last night, so I studied it," Ravenna said smugly, catching the returning blade. "In Old Nick's notes—"
Her boasting was cut short by a sudden surge of energy. From the direction of the Aurora Spire, a silver-blue beam of light shot forth, striking the moon fragment directly! Cracks like spiderwebs spread across its surface, and from within the fractures seeped a black, viscous liquid that condensed in the air into countless tiny black crystals.
"What… is that?" Raine's Emerald Sight automatically focused in, revealing that each crystal contained a curled-up, miniature multi-limbed creature.
Nisthya's expression changed instantly. "Abyss Spores! Everyone, seal your breathing!"
It was already too late. The nearest black crystal burst apart, releasing dust-fine black motes that scattered with the wind. γ's alchemical eye was the first to register the anomaly: "The mana concentration in the air is spiking! These spores are catalyzing magical elements!"
As if to prove her words, the airship's emerald shield suddenly swelled, its energy output tripling in an instant—before exploding out of control! The shockwave hurled everyone on deck into the air. Raine, at the last possible moment, grabbed the railing with one hand and caught the falling γ with the other.
"The shield's energy was catalyzed into overload!" γ's scream was almost lost in the roar of the wind.
The ship began to spiral downward. Elondir tried to steady it with elven magic, but the moment the spell took form, the spores absorbed it—accelerating the descent. Ironbeard's steam apparatus still worked, but lacked the power to lift the vessel.
"Brace for impact!" Raine shoved γ into the relatively intact cabin, then leapt toward the bow.
Amid the howling rush of their fall, he made a mad decision—unleashing the most unstable of the powers within him: his draconic bloodline! Golden dragon-scale patterns spread from his neck to his cheeks, his pupils narrowing into vertical slits. As the first stream of dragonfire welled in his throat, Raine forced it downward beneath the ship.
Dragonbreath—Feathered Descent!
The moment the golden flame touched the snow, it churned into an updraft that miraculously slowed their fall. The airship finally struck the snowbank at a forty-five degree angle, embedding itself deep in the drift. The hull was badly warped, but still in one piece. Raine, however, collapsed to his knees, golden blood seeping from the corner of his mouth from forcing out an incomplete dragonbreath.
"Draconic bloodline?" Nisthya helped him up, unable to hide her surprise. "Just how many powers do you have inside you?"
There was no time to answer. From within the blizzard came a faint rustling. The black spores, now settled on the snow, were absorbing the magic in the ground and growing at a terrifying pace. In mere minutes, dozens of Black Ice Trees had risen around them—each with translucent, jet-black limbs, and an eye-like organ growing at the tip of every branch.
"Spore-Bred Demon Trees…" Elondir's white beard was crusted with frost. "The Council has turned Abyssal creatures into environmental weapons."
The nearest tree suddenly shuddered, and all the "eyes" along its branches swiveled toward the survivors. Through his Emerald Sight, Raine saw them siphoning energy from the airship wreck—emerald vines withering at visible speed, while the purple-gold crystals were stained a deep crimson.
"We can't let them absorb our energy!" Ravenna's violet-gold throwing knives flashed out again, but this time they only severed a few branches before being swallowed up.
γ dragged Old Nick's alchemy chest out of the cabin. "Maybe this will work!" She lifted a spherical device etched with suppression runes. "A mana dampener!"
The moment the device activated, all magical fluctuations within a hundred meters went still. The demon trees writhed in agony; their growth had stopped—but so had everyone's ability to use magic or energy weapons.
"Now what?" Ironbeard grunted, his steam warhammer suddenly heavy and awkward without magical assistance.
Raine wiped the golden blood from his mouth, shifting Frostwhisper into a purely physical blade. "We cut our way through."
What followed was raw and brutal. Without magical boosts, the elven warriors relied on bows and short swords; Ironbeard's hammer was slow and cumbersome; Ravenna's violet-gold energy was suppressed, forcing her to fight with physical daggers; worst off was Nisthya—her elven magic completely useless, she had no choice but to stay in the rear.
Only Raine seemed to thrive. In the absence of magic, his draconic bloodline surged, heightening his speed, strength, and reflexes far beyond normal. Each swing of Frostwhisper severed multiple branches, and wounds touched by his golden dragon's blood refused to heal.
"Head for the Aurora Spire!" Elondir shouted, pointing to the faint silver-blue radiance in the distance. "Alfred must have a way!"
The party struggled forward through the forest of demon trees. With every hundred meters they advanced, the growth became denser. Before long, the black branches had formed a natural labyrinth, forcing them to hack their way through. The mana dampener in γ's hands was nearly spent, hairline cracks crawling across its surface.
"Five more minutes!" the girl gritted her teeth, frantically adjusting its parameters.
That was when Raine's Emerald Sight caught something—three hundred meters ahead, beneath the snow, a massive surge of energy was rising toward them.
"Scatter!"
The ground erupted in a thunderous blast. Bursting from the snow came an Abyssal Burrower the size of an airship—a grotesque fusion of giant earthworm and mining machine. Hundreds of spinning saw-blade discs were embedded in its segmented body, and its maw was no ordinary mouth—it was a triple ring of rotating metal jaws, each plate etched with reversed elven runes.
"The Alliance's mining rigs!" γ gasped, recognition flashing in her eyes. "Abyss-enhanced!"
Its first strike shattered γ's dampener. Magic surged back into the air, and the demon trees went into a frenzy, thrashing their limbs and spewing clouds of hallucinogenic spores. Ravenna's violet-gold energy had barely returned before three trees swarmed her—one branch speared through her right arm. Ironbeard's steam hammer overloaded and exploded, hurling him backward in a shockwave. Elondir and Nisthya stood back to back, defending with blades and bow, but the elf's quiver was quickly running dry.
Raine was in the worst shape of all. The sudden return of magic threw his draconic bloodline and emerald power into violent conflict, dragon-scale patterns rippling in and out across his skin. When the Burrower's metal jaws clamped down, two defenses flared at once—an emerald shield burst from his left side, while golden dragon scales sheathed his right.
"Raine!" Ravenna's voice sounded as if it came from far away.
The world slowed. He saw the shards of elven runes lodged deep within the Burrower's mouth; saw the demon trees' cores, each pulsing with a dark-red crystal; saw the second silver-blue beam erupting from the direction of the Aurora Spire; and even saw the twin currents of gold and green in his blood battling for dominance.
Then sound crashed back all at once.
"Use this!"
"Tell us something we don't already know," Ravenna rolled her eyes.
Alfred wasn't offended. He simply raised a hand, summoning a shimmering holographic projection. The image showed the Moon Shard floating over the snowy plains. Zooming in revealed black spores constantly seeping from the cracks in its surface.
"The Council made a mistake," the Master said, a silver gleam flashing in the nebula of his eyes. "They thought the 'Mother' was a weapon. In truth, she is a prisoner."
The projection shifted into a map of the leyline network. Of the twelve main channels, five were entirely dark red, four were slowly recovering, and the remaining three—one of them, here in the Far North—was unique. It glowed silver-blue, drifting apart from the others like a lone thread.
"The Aurora Spire is not a building," Alfred touched the floor lightly, "It is the coffin of the last Watcher."
That made Nisthya snap her head up. "The Twelfth Watcher didn't disappear—she…"
"Sealed herself," the Master confirmed. "When the other Watchers fell one by one, Nisthya's predecessor chose to turn herself into a barrier, splitting the 'door's' key into three parts— the Seed of Life, the Seed of Machinery, and…"
"The Dragon's Heart," Raine finished for him, not even sure why he said it.
Alfred gave him a long, searching look. "Correct. The Council gathered the first two keys but could never find the third—because…"
The entire hall shook violently! Outside the crystal walls, the energy web holding the Moon Shard was unraveling. Black spores poured down like torrential rain, sprouting into twisted growths the instant they touched the ground. Worse still was the Shard itself—it was sinking faster, and from the cracks emerged a familiar, chitinous silhouette.
"It's coming early!" γ's upgraded eye flared with frantic pulses. "Energy readings off the scale!"
For the first time, Alfred's expression changed. "All non-combatants to the underground shelter! Watcher inheritors—stay!"
Ironbeard started to argue, but Elondir dragged him away. Reluctantly, γ handed over Old Nick's notes and vanished into the lift alongside the dwarf. In moments, only Raine, Ravenna, Nisthya, and Alfred remained in the hall.
"There's no time for the full story." The light in Alfred's nebula eyes blazed. "Inside the Moon Shard is not the Mother's true form—only her tendrils. The real 'door' lies—"
"The Elfwood," Raine said again, without thinking, "beneath the Mother Tree's caverns."
Alfred froze for a heartbeat, then gave a faint, knowing smile. "The Seed of Life has already told you much." He turned toward the crystal wall, where the Shard's shadow now blotted out half the sky. "I'll use the Spire's final reserves to slow the impact. You must return to the Elfwood at once, find the 'door,' and…"
"And what?" Ravenna pressed. "Seal it? Destroy it?"
"Awaken the Gatekeeper," Alfred's body began to crystallize, "with the three keys."
Nisthya suddenly dropped to her knees. "Please—tell me the name of the previous Watcher."
The corners of Alfred's mouth curved faintly. "Her name is…"Before he could finish, the entire crystal tower turned transparent. Through his emerald vision, Raine saw torrents of silver-blue energy coursing up the tower's frame, converging at its peak into a blinding sphere of light.
The Master's body had already become a complete crystal statue, only his nebula eyes still in motion.
"Go… now…"
The sphere at the summit erupted. A silver-blue pillar of light speared into the falling Moon Shard, meeting it in a collision that spun a massive energy vortex into existence. The Shard's descent slowed visibly—but the cost was the Aurora Spire itself beginning to disintegrate. Spiderweb cracks spread across the crystal walls, and chunks of flooring tumbled away into the abyss.
"The lift's dead!" Ravenna called after checking the controls.
Nisthya strode to the center of the hall. "There's another way." Emerald light poured from her hands into the floor, revealing a hidden teleportation circle faintly glowing. "The Watchers of the Elves have emergency links to one another."
The first section of the ceiling crashed down just as the array came to life. Raine took one last glance at Alfred's crystalline statue—his nebula eyes still fixed on the Moon Shard, a mysterious smile frozen on his face.
Silver-blue brilliance swallowed the three of them. Amid the nauseating twist of space, Raine thought he heard Alfred's final words:
"Remember… a door needs a key… but also a locksmith…"
When vision returned, they stood in the Mother Tree's cavern in the Elfwood. But it was nothing like when they'd left. Two-thirds of the Mother Tree's canopy was withered, its emerald motes drifting down like dying fireflies.
Worse was the ground—where moss had once grown lush, the earth now lay bare, streaked with metallic veins like the circuitry of some colossal machine.
"The Mother Tree is… mechanizing…" Nisthya's voice trembled. "The Council is reverse-polluting the leyline core!"
Ravenna's violet-gold energy flared automatically, scanning the shadows. "So where's this so-called 'door'?"
Through the earth, Raine's emerald vision pierced deep—what he saw made his skin crawl.
Beneath the densest tangle of the Mother Tree's roots lay a slowly turning twelve-pointed star sigil. Each tip connected to a main leyline. At its heart, a vertical fissure hovered, a hazy slit revealing a glimpse of a starlit sky beyond.
"Below," he pointed to the dark pool at the cavern's deepest point. "But we'll need—"
A scream of warning split his mind.
Instinct drove Raine to tackle Ravenna aside as a dark-red beam grazed his hair, carving a smooth, molten-edged hole in the stone wall behind.
From the shadows stepped their attacker—a young man in the white robes of the Holy Alliance. But Raine knew instantly he wasn't human.
Beneath his pale skin, metallic threads writhed. His eyes glowed a pure, unbroken crimson.
"Key bearers," the young man's voice rang with a metallic echo, "the Mother is awakening. Why resist?"
Nisthya's emerald arrow shot from the string—but just before it struck the target, it suddenly veered… straight toward Raine.Ravenna's violet-gold throwing knife intercepted it mid-flight; the two projectiles collided and exploded in a flash.
"He can bend magic mid-course!" Ravenna yanked Raine backward.
The young man raised his hand with a faint smile. The Mother Tree's withered boughs came alive, spearing forward like lances. Raine's Frostwhisper barely caught the first strike, but more branches closed in from every direction.
Nisthya tried to counter with elven magic—only to feel her power being drawn away into the Mother Tree.
"Useless," the young man advanced with deliberate steps. "This tree is already part of the Mother."
Ravenna suddenly drove her violet-gold energy into the ground. To her surprise, the metallic veins reacted, momentarily halting the tree's assault. "Raine! Now!"
He understood instantly. Frostwhisper stabbed into the junction of the metal veins, emerald energy flooding down its blade. At the same time, Ravenna's violet-gold power surged in from another point. The two forces met within the network, resonating—until every vein blazed to life, forming a colossal alchemical sigil.
For the first time, the young man looked alarmed. "How do you know—"
"Old Nick's notes," Gamma's voice rang from the cave mouth. The girl had somehow slipped back in, holding an open notebook aloft. "Last page says, 'The Mother Tree's roots hide a secret.'"
The instant the alchemical sigil fully activated, the entire cavern floor gave way. The four of them plunged with a rain of stone into a vast underground void.
Suspended in its center hung the vertical fissure—now in full view. It wasn't mere space torn apart, but the cross-section of some living structure, its edges writhing with a fusion of flesh and machine.
"That's the Door…" Nisthya's voice held awe. "But it's bleeding…"
The young man—no, the Council's emissary—fell with them. His form began to unravel, revealing a tangle of tendrils and machinery beneath. "Fools… without a locksmith… you'll only hasten—"
He didn't finish. The fissure suddenly convulsed, shrinking tight. A call beyond words welled from the other side. In Raine's emerald vision, twelve blurred figures pressed against the Door from beyond, each collision forcing it open a fraction wider.
"The former Watchers…" Nisthya collapsed to her knees. "They're corrupted…"
Gamma's silver-blue eye locked onto something. "There! Beneath the fissure!"
At the base where flesh and steel interwove, three recesses lay embedded. Two were already filled—the left with the emerald Life Seed, the right with the violet-gold Machine Seed. Only the center, a golden slot, remained empty.
"The Dragonheart…" A searing pain flared in Raine's chest. "So that's it…"
Ravenna grabbed his arm. "Don't you dare—"
"No choice." His gaze flicked to the widening rift, the unspeakable shadow looming beyond. "Alfred said… a locksmith was needed."
Nisthya suddenly rose. "No—he didn't mean that." She drew her elven dagger. "The locksmith isn't a key. It's—"
Her motion was blindingly fast—the blade drove straight into her own heart. Emerald blood sprayed, coalescing midair into a chain of intricate runes.
"…the one who knows how to use the keys."
As she fell, the rune-chains wrapped tight around the fissure. The corrupted Watchers beyond struck harder, but the rift's growth slowed.
Gamma rushed toward Nisthya, sobbing—only to be caught and held back by Ravenna.
"Not over yet." Ravenna's violet-gold aura resonated instinctively with Raine's emerald light. "The Life Seed and the Machine Seed are in place. What's left is—"
Raine's gaze locked on the empty golden recess, and Alfred's cryptic hint snapped into focus.
His draconic bloodline wasn't a key at all.
It was the lock's core.
"Buy me time." He sat cross-legged before the recess, Frostwhisper laid across his knees. "I'm going to try to fuse them all."
Ravenna nodded, her violet-gold power forming a protective ring.
Gamma wiped her tears away, her upgraded prosthetic eye whirring as it scanned the fissure's structure. "I can find its weak points!"
Raine closed his eyes, sinking into the battlefield within himself.
Emerald magic, dragon's blood, the Holy Alliance's seal, and the Abyssal taint—four forces clashed in a vicious storm. The agony nearly shattered him, but the memory of Nisthya's sacrifice kept him grounded. Slowly—painfully—he drew each current toward a single path: Frostwhisper.
The ancient runes along the blade lit one by one—first in Elvish script, then Draconic, then the coded sigils of the Alliance, and at last, characters so alien that even his emerald sight could not decipher them.
When the final mark blazed, Frostwhisper melted into liquid metal, flowing up his arm… into his chest.
"Ah—!"
Through the unspeakable pain, he saw his chest become transparent. The four powers had reached a perfect, fragile equilibrium around his beating heart. Gold crystal began to sheath it, forming a shape that fit the recess exactly…
"Raine!" Ravenna's scream snapped him back to reality. "They're breaking through!"
The rift had grown five meters tall. The twelve corrupted Watchers were now fully visible. The foremost—a female elf—was already halfway through, her lower body replaced entirely by machinery, a manic grin splitting her face.
Gamma's silver-blue eye fired a piercing beam, forcing the creature back for a heartbeat. "I've got the structure! The Door needs three verifications!"
Raine staggered to his feet, lighter than he'd ever felt, the inner conflict gone. As he stepped toward the recess, a beam of gold projected from his chest, striking the empty slot with flawless precision.
Life Seed, Machine Seed, Dragonheart—three lights flared together. The rift shuddered violently, the Watchers screaming in frustration. Beneath them, the base's flesh and steel wove into an intricate locking mechanism.
"Now!" Gamma shouted. "Feed it the command!"
Raine and Ravenna slammed their palms against the base. Emerald and violet-gold power raced along its lines, triggering the final protocol.
A titanic mechanical voice rolled through the chamber:
[Verification complete. Final protocol—engaged.]
The rift began to close, unstoppable. The corrupted Watchers clawed at the edges, howling, but it was useless.
When the last trace vanished, all three keys ejected from the base—
The Life Seed dropped into Raine's hand.
The Machine Seed shot to Ravenna.
And the Dragonheart…
…returned as golden light to Raine's chest.
Silence settled over the vast underground chamber.Only Nisthya's body lay still beside the base, lips curved in a faint, contented smile.Gamma knelt at her side, sobbing quietly, while Ravenna's fingers traced the newly appeared carvings on the wall.
"This isn't the end…" she murmured, frowning as she read. "Only dormancy. When the three keys gather again… the Door shall—"
Raine slumped wearily against the base. Through his emerald sight, he watched the mother tree's roots slowly knitting themselves back together, the dark-red taint in the leylines bleeding away.But higher—far higher—in the starry realms beyond human reach, something was watching this world in seething anger.
The crack across the Gear Moon still remained.
And the Tower of Auroras… had already fallen.