The first light hadn't yet cleared the horizon when the command went out.
"Form up!"
Armor locked into place with the clack of clasps and the rasp of steel sliding against leather. The Dragoons moved into tight formation, shields interlocking, Riftcarvers drawn and gleaming with the faint runic glow of readiness. The Mythral Dawn Commanders and their divisions flanked them, banners whipping in the predawn wind.
Across the ridge, the Black Expanse stretched endlessly, its surface roiling like the skin of a dying beast. At its heart, the Riftcore pulsed brighter now—each throb sending red cracks spidering further into the ground. But closer—far closer—the first line of defense awaited them.
The acolytes.
They stood in great, uneven ranks, each robed in shredded crimson cloth, their skin branded with the black sigils of demon pact. The air above them shimmered—not with heat, but with power—as they chanted in voices too low to belong to the living. Between each rank, great basalt altars pulsed with fresh blood, pouring their sacrifice into the ground.
The smell hit first—a heavy metallic tang that coated the tongue and crawled down the throat. Then the sound. A deep, rhythmic thud that came not from drums but from the synchronized strikes of acolyte daggers piercing their own flesh. Each motion was precise, ritualistic, and without hesitation. They were feeding the Riftcore… and it was hungering.
"Forward!" Alter's voice rolled across the lines like a war drum.
The ridge exploded into movement. The army surged down the slope, boots pounding, war cries shattering the stillness. Siege engines roared to life, hurling flaming stones that crashed into the acolyte lines in bursts of fire and blood. Arrows arced overhead, their tips flaring with elemental enchantments, slamming into the front ranks.
The Dragoons hit first. Riftcarvers flashed like streaks of lightning as they carved through the enemy front line. Each swing tore through flesh and bone, but the acolytes did not cry out—they simply collapsed, their blood pooling into the cracks beneath them, vanishing into the Expanse.
Selene cut through a cluster to Alter's left, her movements a seamless flow of flame-edged strikes. Veyna's crystalline blasts punched holes through enemy formations, while Rhed and Talia fought like a twin storm, their markers detonating with concussive force that ripped through knots of enemies.
But for every acolyte cut down, more stepped forward, the chant never faltering. And above it, the Riftcore's pulse grew faster.
From the far edge of the field, a new sound tore through the air—a low, shuddering roar that made the ground quake. The chanting spiked in pitch, the acolytes stabbing deeper, spilling more of themselves into the Expanse.
And then it came.
The Rift tore open.
A shadow spilled out first, stretching across the battlefield, swallowing the light of the rising sun. From it emerged a form twice the height of any fortress wall, armored in plates of black chitin streaked with veins of molten gold. Horns curled forward like the talons of some ancient predator, and in its clawed hands, it carried a blade longer than three men laid end to end.
A mid-ranked Demon God.
Its gaze swept the battlefield and locked on Alter.
He didn't hesitate. Raising Starsever high, he called out to the Dragoons—
"On me! Sky Piercer—together!"
They moved as one. Markers lit the field in quick succession, elemental sigils sparking to life beneath their feet. Energy surged through the link of the Veil, binding them into a single killing strike. Alter's aura flared gold, the Dragoon lines blazing silver as they channeled their power into one unified thrust.
The world narrowed to a single point.
"Pierce!"
Dozens of lances of lightning and wind burst forth as one. Alter's own Sky Piercer tore through the lead, a blinding spear of sovereign light that cracked the air like thunder. The combined assault slammed into the Demon God's chest, ripping through its armor in an eruption of force that split the ground beneath it.
The beast staggered, roaring in pain—its blood, thick and burning, splattering across the dirt.
But the Riftcore pulsed again.
And far behind it, more cracks began to form.
The roar of the wounded Demon God still echoed when the ground beneath the battlefield heaved like a living thing.
At first it was a vibration—small, quick, almost mistaken for the pounding of boots. Then the pitch deepened. The soil cracked, dirt sliding away into widening seams that glowed with a furious red light. The Riftcore's heartbeat had shifted from a steady throb to a wild, erratic hammering, each pulse shaking the air and rattling the armor on every warrior's back.
Alter's gaze snapped upward. The core—once a contained sphere of molten crimson—was unraveling. Splinters of black stone peeled away from its surface and hovered in midair, twisting as if caught in a silent storm. Ribbons of energy snapped outward, latching onto corpses and dragging them into the light.
"Fall back from the cracks! Regroup into the secondary formation!" Selene's voice rang clear even over the chaos.
But the Riftcore wasn't waiting for orders.
With a sound like a mountain splitting in two, a massive fissure ripped through the center of the field, sucking everything toward it—acolytes, broken siege gear, and the bodies of the fallen. Entire ranks of enemy cultists were pulled screaming into the rift's glow, their forms stretching unnaturally before they vanished in a flash of red.
And from the edges of those cracks, shapes began to crawl free.
Not Demon Gods—yet—but their heralds. Spindly, insectoid horrors clad in molten chitin, each dragging hooked chains that carved trenches in the ground. They poured forward in waves, not to kill, but to hold the army in place while the Riftcore's summoning accelerated.
"If that core opens fully…" Caelum's voice was grim, "…we won't just get one. We'll get five."
Alter stepped forward, the air around him bending under the pressure of his aura.
"Then we kill it now."
The Dragoons rallied instantly. Their Riftcarvers ignited with synchronized rune-light, markers flaring as they locked into formation. The Mythral Dawn Commanders closed in from the flanks, sealing the gaps with steel and spellwork.
The Riftcore throbbed again—and this time, a shadow burst outward from within. A clawed hand, dripping with black-gold ichor, pushed through the molten veil.
"Move!"
Alter led the charge himself, carving a golden path straight through the oncoming heralds. The Dragoons followed in a roaring wave, carving through chains, limbs, and molten carapace, their attacks feeding into a single corridor toward the Riftcore.
The heat was unbearable near the heart. The air shimmered, thick and choking with the scent of burning iron. Each step forward was met with a wall of resistance—energy pushing outward from the core like the breath of a god trying to keep them away.
They pushed anyway.
Selene, Veyna, and Arinelle broke left to burn a path through the cultist remnants, while Rhed, Talia, and Vellmar smashed aside the heralds that tried to close the gap. Lucina's frostcut strikes shattered chains mid-flight, while Kaera's wind bursts hurled bodies into the cracks.
At the very front, Alter planted his markers in rapid succession, weaving the final strike path. Starsever pulsed in his grip, its edge a blinding seam in the air.
The Riftcore gave one last shudder—And the rest of the Demon God began to force its way through.
They were out of time.
"ALL UNITS—ON THE CORE!"
The battlefield erupted in a final, unified assault. Dozens of Riftcarver blades struck in sequence with the Commanders' divine arts, the air splitting under the force of the combined blow. Alter's strike landed first—pure sovereign light driving straight into the Riftcore's molten heart.
The world went white.
The Riftcore screamed—not with sound, but with the tearing of space itself. Its form cracked down the center, molten blood spraying into the air in arcs that burned holes into the earth where they landed.
The Demon God within let out a howl as the core collapsed around it, dragging both itself and the surrounding heralds back into the imploding rift.
Then, silence.
The Rift was gone. The Black Expanse lay still.
The battle was theirs.
The silence after the Riftcore's collapse didn't last.
It never did.
The stillness was shattered by the creak of shifting armor, the muffled groans of the wounded, and the low calls of medics threading through the survivors. The earth still steamed where the Riftcore's molten blood had scorched it, the smell of char and metal clinging stubbornly to the air. Even the wind seemed wary, skirting around the battlefield like it feared to disturb what had just happened.
Alter stood at the front of the surviving line, Starsever resting blade-down in the dirt. His eyes were locked northward. Far beyond the haze of heat and dust, a jagged silhouette loomed against the darkening sky—the Rift Spire.
It didn't pierce the clouds so much as drag them down toward itself, its obsidian walls glowing faintly with veins of crimson light. Every few breaths, one of those veins pulsed, sending ripples across the sky that made the sun itself dim for a heartbeat. Even at this distance, the oppressive weight of its presence pressed against the lungs.
Behind Alter, the army began to move. The Dragoons fell into formation with drilled precision, their Riftcarvers humming low and steady. The Mythral Dawn Commanders spread along the flanks, ready to intercept anything that struck from the sides. Selene's voice cut through the march orders, coordinating wounded rotations with Garran and Veyna.
"We won here," Caelum murmured beside Alter, his gaze never leaving the Spire, "but that thing is the heart of their hold on Teravane. You feel it, don't you?"
Alter's jaw tightened. "I feel it. And whatever's inside knows we're coming."
The march north was relentless. The land between the Riftcore site and the Spire was no longer living—it was scar tissue. Blackened plains stretched in all directions, dotted with the skeletal remains of siege towers and half-swallowed battlements from wars fought long before this one. Each mile forward was greeted by the same oppressive heat, the ground dry and brittle underfoot.
No songs were sung. No words wasted. Every step was measured, every eye fixed forward. The further they advanced, the louder the distant hum became—a deep, resonant vibration that seemed to come from the bones of the earth itself.
By the second day of the march, scouts returned with reports.
"Trenches. Miles of them. Filled with fortifications, artillery nests, and… things we can't identify. The Spire's defenders are already moving. They're waiting for us."
Selene gathered the core leadership under the shadow of a crumbled watchtower.
"They'll strike before we even reach the first trench. We need the vanguard braced and the flanks ready for an ambush."
"Ambushes won't save them," Alter said, his voice low. "We break them in the field, we keep moving. No stalls. No retreats. The longer we wait, the more they feed whatever's inside that Spire."
That night, the Spire's glow was visible even through the campfire haze. It pulsed faintly—almost like it was breathing.
By dawn, they were on the move again.
And by mid-afternoon, the hum in the air turned into a roar.
Shadows moved across the horizon—scores of them—spilling from the black trenches like floodwater from a broken dam. At first, they came as skirmish lines of demons, chittering and hissing through the haze. But behind them came the heavier forms: towering brutes clad in jagged armor, carrying siege-axes and flails that dripped with molten tar.
And above them all, perched on a ridge like carrion birds, waited three figures wrapped in shadow—the lieutenants of the Spire. Their presence made the air taste like ash.
The battle at the Spire's edge had begun before the army even reached the killing field.
The first trench erupted before the front line reached it.
A howl—not from any throat born of the mortal plane—rolled over the battlefield, shaking the marrow in every soldier's bones. The ground in front of the Dragoons cracked open, spewing forth a geyser of black fire that coalesced into jagged spines of molten rock. From behind that burning curtain surged the first wave—thin, gaunt demon-forms moving on all fours, their elongated limbs slamming into the earth hard enough to leave craters. Their eyes burned a hungry white, their mouths stretched too far into something between a snarl and a laugh.
"Shields up!" Selene's command hit the Dragoon lines like a spark in dry grass. Riftcarvers raised, their runes blazing. The front rank braced, locking the magical barrier as the first demons slammed into it. The impact rang like steel on steel, rippling down the formation, but the line held.
On the left flank, Garran and Arinelle's unit met the surge head-on. Arinelle's Spirit Callers wove blinding arcs of light across the trench, forcing the enemy into tight lanes where Garran's Pyre Division poured molten flame into the clustered shapes. Demons screeched as their black hides cracked and burned, falling into the fire-pitted mud.
But the Spire's defenders weren't here to trade blows—they were here to bleed the attackers dry. Every moment the Dragoon line advanced, new fortifications along the trench lit up with hellfire ballistae, the massive bolts hissing through the air with the sound of tearing silk.
One slammed into the ground just ahead of Alter, spearing a chunk of earth the size of a wagon. He broke into a forward sprint, Starsever trailing a stream of gold across the ground.
"Form two! Push up and clear the gunners!"
The Commanders surged to match his pace. Caelum's Skyreach unit vaulted the trench lip, hurling lances of lightning into the ballistae crews. On the right, Veyna's crystal formations erupted from the ground, forming jagged platforms for Dragoon marksmen to fire down into the enemy ranks.
A thunderclap rolled across the killing field as Alter's blade cut a line through the fortification. Starsever's arc shattered the first hellfire nest in a single blow, molten fragments raining down into the trench.
For a moment, it looked as though the momentum might carry them straight through.
Then the lieutenants moved.
From their perches, the three shadow-wrapped figures descended in unison, landing deep in the trenches with impacts that rattled the very air. The haze thinned just enough to reveal them—twisted, armored silhouettes, each radiating a heatless, suffocating darkness. One carried a scythe the size of a siege ladder, its blade glinting with frost; another wielded a cluster of chains ending in hooked blades; the third bore no weapon at all, its hands ending in claws of pure shadow.
The moment they stepped forward, the tide of the battle shifted.
The scythe-bearer's first swing cut clean through the Dragoon shield wall, throwing soldiers backward like leaves in a gale. The chain-wielder's hooks lashed out in wild arcs, snagging warriors and dragging them into the melee below. The clawed lieutenant simply moved through the line, every motion a blur, leaving nothing but still bodies in its wake.
"Commanders, with me!" Alter's voice cut through the chaos like a blade. "We take them here, before they split the line!"
The trenches became a crucible.
Steel and claw met in the narrow, smoke-choked lanes. Riftcarver runes flashed like lightning as Dragoons fought shoulder to shoulder with Mythral Dawn elites, forcing the lieutenants into confined spaces. Every clash rang with the sound of splintering bone, every counterstroke lit the darkness in bursts of fire, crystal, and lightning.
But the Spire loomed above them, unshaken, its veins pulsing faster now—as if it could feel the battle feeding it.
And somewhere inside, the true heart of this fortress waited.
The roar of the battlefield deepened, a rolling, living thing that pressed against every ear and bone. The lieutenants moved like shadows sharpened to a killing edge, but Alter's line did not break. Not here. Not with the Rift Spire standing before them.
"Lock ranks! Forward!" Alter's voice tore through the smoke and blood-haze, and the Dragoons obeyed without hesitation.
Vellmar braced his Riftcarver against the trench wall, deflecting the chain-wielder's sweeping hook with a clash of sparks. Lucina moved in beside him, her frost-bound strikes freezing the links mid-swing before shattering them with brutal precision. The demon roared, chains lashing wildly, but the pair held their ground, forcing it back step by step.
On the opposite flank, Vaelen's shield intercepted a scythe strike that could have split three men in half. Elira was there in the same heartbeat, her movements a blur of shadow. She struck low, Riftcarver cutting deep into the scythe-bearer's leg joint, forcing the massive weapon to falter just long enough for Vaelen to smash its haft away with a shield-bash that rang like a bell across the trench.
Selin and Erndor moved as one further ahead, vaulting the barricade to cut down the clawed lieutenant's attendants before they could close in on the wounded. Every strike from their Riftcarvers was met with a parry or evasion, but their relentless pressure kept the shadow-beast from breaking deeper into the line.
In the center, Alter advanced. Starsever's golden edge cut a clean path through every lesser demon that dared to meet it. He slipped between the three lieutenants' lines of attack, intercepting strikes meant for his people. The clawed one came for his throat; Alter dropped low, slicing upward, Starsever's trail bursting in a fan of gold. The scythe-bearer lunged to his flank; he stepped in, smashing the flat of his blade against its haft before pivoting into a downward slash that cracked the trench floor.
"Push them into the choke!" he called. "Now!"
Caelum and Sorei led the charge, their Skyreach squad vaulting the barricade with lightning-sheathed strikes. Garran's Pyre Division flooded the choke point with walls of flame, forcing the lieutenants into a confined kill zone. Veyna's crystal pillars erupted on either side, sealing off escape and funneling the demons directly toward the waiting Dragoons.
The clash was blinding. The chain-wielder lashed in desperation, only for Talia and Rhed to intercept, moving in perfect, reckless sync. Their Riftcarvers struck as one, severing the hooks in mid-air before Talia vaulted over the demon's shoulder to carve a burning arc down its back.
The scythe-bearer swung wide, trying to break free, but Vaelen slammed into it shield-first, staggering it into Selene's waiting strike. She drove her Riftcarver deep into its chest, light flaring so bright it burned the air.
The clawed lieutenant surged in a last bid to cut down the wounded at the rear—only to meet Alter head-on. Starsever blurred in a whirlwind of precise arcs, each strike battering past its guard until the final blow hurled it back into the choke point.
"All divisions—drive!"
The order unleashed them. Every Dragoon and Commander surged forward in a wave of steel and light, Riftcarvers flashing in lethal rhythm. The scythe-bearer collapsed under Selene and Vaelen's combined assault. The chain-wielder fell next, Rhed's blade through its spine. The clawed one staggered on for three more steps before Alter's Starsever swept through its neck in a clean, burning cut.
The trenches fell silent but for the crackle of flame and the groans of the wounded.
No Dragoon or Commander lay dead. Bloodied, battered, and bruised—but alive. Selene moved quickly through the ranks, laying hands on the worst of the wounded. Sorei coordinated the medics, pulling the injured back behind the secured barricades. Alter stood at the forefront, eyes locked on the Spire looming ahead, its pulse stronger now, as though mocking their advance.
They had broken the first ring of its defenses. But the Spire was far from finished.
"We hold here for ten minutes," Alter said, his voice carrying to every ear. "Then we breach the heart."
The Dragoon and Commander forces surged through the breach like a spearhead of living flame. The broken trenches behind them still burned from the last bombardment, smoke rising into a bruised-red sky where the Rift Spire's looming silhouette carved the horizon.
The inner defense ring was no wall of stone—it was a living fortress of demonic architecture. Black rib-like towers jutted from the earth, bridged together by veins of molten obsidian. At their base, runic glyphs pulsed, projecting barriers that rippled like sheets of blood.
And guarding them… stood the three lieutenants.
They were no common demons. Each radiated an oppressive weight that pressed against the lungs, bending the air into waves of static. One wielded a cleaver forged from a still-beating heart encased in iron. Another carried a scythe that dripped shadow like ink into water. The last, the tallest, bore no weapon at all—its hands were covered in bone gauntlets, each fingertip ending in a hook of pale crystal.
The battlefield froze for a heartbeat. Then Alter stepped forward.
Ignivar's roar cracked the air overhead, but the Draconian Prime didn't mount him. Instead, he rolled his shoulders once, Starsever in his grip. His gaze swept the three lieutenants like they were already corpses.
"Take the other two," he said to the Dragoons and Commanders without raising his voice. "The one in the center is mine."
The enemy didn't wait.
The heart-cleaver lieutenant lunged first—too fast for its size—closing the ground in an instant with a downward swing meant to cleave Alter in half. Steel rang like thunder as Starsever intercepted, the force scattering molten gravel under their feet. Sparks spiraled between them, but Alter's eyes never left his foe's.
He shifted his weight, then moved.
One heartbeat—he was in front of it. The next—he was gone, a streak of gold flashing past its side. The lieutenant froze mid-swing. A thin, perfect line of light traced across its torso before the body split apart in a slow, molten slide, collapsing into the dirt.
Behind Alter, the Dragoons and Commanders had already engaged the other two. Caelum Dray and Sorei Windshaper became a twin storm, wind and lightning flashing in perfect harmony. Rhed Velgroth and Talia Fenreith struck like meteors—explosions of force and speed battering the shadow-scythe wielder until its form fractured like cracked glass.
The gauntleted giant roared, shattering the sound barrier as it swung both arms in a crushing arc. Vellmar Dreadmoor intercepted, locking it in place, his strength holding it just long enough for Elira Mistshade to vanish into smoke and reappear at its back. A single Sky Piercer: Zero Distance detonated inside its chest, and the thing's scream was cut short as it imploded from within.
By the time Alter turned, the others were finishing their kills—demon ichor splashing across the scorched ground. The barriers guarding the Spire's heart shuddered, their red glow flickering.
Alter lifted Starsever and pointed toward the looming gates.
"Now," he said, voice low but carrying through the clash. "We break the heart."
The forces moved as one, stepping over the corpses of the lieutenants, their momentum unbroken, their path into the Spire wide open.
The corpses of Kraveth the Heart-Butcher, Vaelkris the Shadow Scythe, and Zrakkul the Bone Tyrant steamed on the blackened ground, their once-imposing forms already beginning to rot into pools of oily sludge. The stench was thick, sharp enough to burn the throat.
Beyond them, the Rift Spire's inner gates shuddered as the red barrier collapsed in vertical strips, the runes dimming to nothing. The battlefield shifted in tone—the rush of battle cries giving way to an almost unnatural silence, broken only by the hiss of cooling stone and the distant, sickly heartbeat that echoed from within.
Alter didn't slow. Starsever hung loose at his side, still slick with demon ichor, his golden eyes locked on the massive doors ahead. They weren't built from any mortal material—each slab was a seamless plate of abyssal obsidian veined with living red light, breathing like the lungs of some buried giant.
He raised his hand and made a short, sharp motion.
The Dragoons and Commanders surged forward, forming their assault wedges without a word. Caelum Dray and Sorei Windshaper took point with their aerial speed, vaulting over shattered ground to land at the base of the gates. Vellmar Dreadmoor rolled his shoulders, his armor scorched but his grin feral. Elira Mistshade vanished into the shadows along the wall, a wraith waiting for her cue.
Then—
The gates groaned. Not opening—reacting. The red veins flared blindingly bright, and the slabs split—not to reveal an empty hall, but a swirling vortex of pure Rift energy. Tendrils of violet-black mist lashed outward, striking the ground hard enough to crater it. Each strike spawned half-formed demons, writhing and screeching, their bodies collapsing into ash after mere seconds, as if the Rift was vomiting them out too fast to sustain them.
At the center of it all, behind the maelstrom, stood the Heart.
It wasn't a chamber—it was a living organ the size of a fortress, suspended in the air by chains of black crystal. Every beat rattled the ground. Every pulse expelled more Rift energy into the mortal plane. At its base, three more chains plunged deep into the floor, their runes humming with the same alien light as the gates.
Alter's voice cut through the chaos like a blade."Break the chains. No matter what comes out."
The Heart reacted instantly, as though it had understood. The vortex flared, and three shapes emerged—lesser demon generals, birthed from the Heart's own energy, each echoing the powers of the fallen lieutenants. One carried a cleaver wreathed in pulsating veins. Another dragged a scythe that bled shadow into the air. The last cracked its bone-coated knuckles, the sound echoing like war drums.
But this time, they were hollow—copies without the will or cunning of the originals. And the Dragoons had just fought the real thing.
Caelum and Sorei split wide, cutting into the scythe-wielder with surgical bursts of wind and lightning. Vellmar slammed into the bone-fisted brute, locking it down while Elira appeared behind it, her blade thrusting forward in another Sky Piercer: Zero Distance. Rhed and Talia crashed into the cleaver-bearer like twin meteors, breaking its form apart in a burst of fire and force.
Alter didn't even look at the phantoms. His focus was the Heart.
He dashed forward, vaulting over a collapsing crystal spur and landing on the first chain. The runes flared against him, trying to repel his presence—but Starsever carved through it in a burst of golden light. The severed link shrieked, a sound that made the air quake, before exploding into shards of black crystal.
"One down!"
The others moved in unison. The second chain fell under a combined strike from the Commanders, lightning and flame blasting the link apart. The third groaned under the force of Jaris Tenvahl's precision detonations, each marker placed in rapid succession until the entire length detonated in a cascade of light and heat.
With the chains gone, the Heart dropped suddenly, crashing to the ground in a shockwave that knocked several fighters off their feet. It pulsed violently, the skin-like surface splitting to reveal the Rift's raw essence inside—a swirling core of black and crimson energy, veins snapping outward like grasping claws.
Alter planted his feet, Starsever in both hands. His aura flared, gold light tearing through the haze like a sun piercing a storm.
"This is where it ends," he growled.
And then he moved—straight for the Heart's core.
Alter's boots struck the shifting surface of the Heart, the flesh-like membrane rippling under his weight. The thing's core pulsed violently, expelling waves of Rift energy that hissed against his armor, eating at the air itself. The sound was a deep, slow thoom-thoom, each beat heavier than the last, shaking the Spire's very foundation.
The demon energy tried to latch onto him, tendrils whipping at his arms and legs, but his aura burned them away in bursts of molten gold. The surface beneath his feet convulsed, trying to throw him off.
He didn't slow.
With both hands gripping Starsever, he drew the blade back, aura condensing until it was almost blinding. Each breath he took narrowed the world around him into a single point—the exact center of the Heart's swirling Rift essence.
"Dimensional Slash—Omni Wave."
The strike ripped outward in a golden arc, but hidden within the light were dozens of invisible, razor-thin spatial cuts. They didn't just slice the surface—they tore straight through the fabric of the Rift energy holding the Heart together. The light exploded from within, refracting through the black-red mist in shards of gold, white, and deep crimson.
The Heart's scream wasn't sound—it was a pressure, an implosion of psychic weight that buckled the knees of every fighter in the inner ring. Rift essence vomited upward in a vertical column, piercing the clouds above the Spire.
Then the chains anchoring the Heart's remains snapped all at once. The organ's lower half tore away in an eruption of molten shadow, collapsing in on itself like a dying star.
The Spire reacted instantly.
A deep rumble rolled through the ground, followed by cracks spider-webbing up its colossal length. The rib-like towers around the ring split apart, their obsidian shells flaking away as the Rift's structural magic unraveled. Segments of the Spire peeled off in massive slabs, spinning into the vortex above before shattering into dust.
"Fall back!" Alter's voice cut through the chaos.
The Dragoons and Commanders didn't argue—they moved as a unit, carving their way out as Rift-born monstrosities blinked into existence in the collapsing field, only to disintegrate seconds later from the destabilized magic.
A sound like tearing cloth split the sky. The vortex at the Spire's peak expanded violently, consuming the upper third of the structure. For a moment, the Spire seemed to hover—weightless—before its entire midsection imploded inward.
The shockwave hit like a divine hammer. Dirt, stone, and demon ash blasted outward in a ring, flattening the battlefield. Even the strongest were forced to brace, boots carving trenches in the scorched ground.
When the wind died, there was nothing left of the Rift Spire but a yawning crater—its edges glowing red like fresh wounds in the earth. Above, the sky slowly began to clear, the unnatural Rift glow fading from the clouds.
The Dragoons and Commanders regrouped, breathing hard but alive.
Alter stood at the crater's edge, Starsever resting against his shoulder, his gaze fixed on the last flickers of Rift energy dissipating into the air.
"It's done," he said quietly, though everyone heard him. "This front is closed."
But deep in his chest, he felt it—this was only one Spire. The war was far from over.