A pale heartbeat pulsed beneath the canyon floor, guiding Kael's cohort down a staircase of broken glass. With each step the tempo quickened, like a drumbeat counting toward something inevitable.
[Veilcore Sync 32 % — Essentia 32/50]
The staircase ended at a wide basin. In its centre floated a hexagonal dais of crystal, runes crawling across its surface in frosty blue. Above it hung a teardrop of black void, rotating slowly.
Elias squinted at the runes. "Time-bond anchor. Stabilise it and the surrounding pocket stops shifting."
"Or we freeze in place forever," Rei muttered.
Kael tested the air—dense, metallic. "Anchor first. Philosophise later." He led the charge across cracked ground that rippled with faint after-images of their own footprints.
They were ten paces from the dais when the canyon walls peeled open. Figures stepped free—tall, faceless, made of mirrored glass. Twin curved blades grew from their forearms like mantis scythes.
[Veil Entities Detected – Glass Wraiths, Time-Bind Variant]
Kael set his stance. Rei flicked a dagger. Thorn braced shield-first. Veyra's fox-mask figment tilted its head; a second, wolf-grin illusion split off her shadow. Elias adjusted his cracked gauntlet.
The Wraiths moved as one.
Kael blurred sideways, free Phantom Step. A scythe sliced air. He riposted—steel shrieked over glass but failed to pierce.
Rei blinked two metres, driving a dagger into a Wraith's flank. One Essentia drained; she hissed as calves cramped. The wound sealed seconds later.
"Regenerates," she called.
Elias raised an open palm. A vector burst crushed a Wraith into the ground, shards spider-webbing its body. Three Essentia burned; fractures spread across his focus crystal.
"Not for long," he said, voice tight.
The smashed Wraith reassembled. Thorn barreled in, shield glowing with Emberguard heat. Each impact fed molten energy along the rim. He hammered twice, glass splintering, then kicked the creature back.
Kael's Essentia ticked: 32 → 26. Shardwalk flared—four-metre phase. Reality parted; he slipped past a lunging Wraith, re-solidified behind, and severed its spine with a rising slash. Shards burst into mist. A brief System whisper:
[Essentia Resonance +2]
Small surge. Pool climbed back to 28.
More Wraiths poured from the canyon. The fog around them flickered with after-images—time loops trying to rewind the kills. The anchor overhead pulsed faster, hungry.
Kael pivoted, barked orders. "Elias—gravity well! Rei, get high." Veyra sent her wolf-grin figment sprinting left; the Wraiths chased the illusion, blades carving air. Thorn intercepted, shield meeting mirrored edges.
Elias planted his gauntlet on the ground. Vector Cage formed—an invisible pit that bent gravity inward. Two Wraiths staggered, legs folding as their own weight tripled. Elias groaned; the crystal in his gauntlet cracked deeper, a hair away from shattering.
Rei leapt off Thorn's shield, blinked mid-air—two Essentia—and descended with both daggers flashing. She stabbed through a Wraith's helm seam, pushing extra Essentia to force the steel deeper. Its mask fissured. Lightning bled through the break and the creature fell apart.
Kael used the nerve-echo he'd stolen from the Mirrorwalker—anticipating a Wraith's swing half a heartbeat early. One free parry, one precise thrust. Another kill; another two Essentia surge.
[Anchor Stability 68 % — Additional Essentia Required]
"The anchor's eating their cores!" Elias shouted.
"Then feed it faster!" Kael answered, lungs burning.
Veyra's fox-mask figment swirled behind a Wraith. A second illusion—a mirror of Kael—appeared at its opposite flank. Confused, the creature hesitated. The real Kael drove his glaive through its back. Shards flew, absorbed by the hovering teardrop. The black void brightened to midnight blue.
[Anchor Stability 94 %]
Two Wraiths remained. Thorn rammed his shield into one, Emberguard heat flaring red. Cracks spidered; Rei finished it with a dagger thrust. Kael met the last Wraith head-on. Three rapid cuts; the nerve-echo timed each parry. Essentia cost nothing—just muscle and edge. He snapped a kick that shattered its knee, spun, and cleaved the torso. Glass dust drifted into the void.
The teardrop flashed brilliant blue, then shrank into a shard that shot into the dais. Runes froze into silent ice. Fog stilled; time's hum faded.
[Anchor Stabilised — Veilcore Sync 38 %][Group Reward: Essentia Pool +10]
Kael's reserve refilled: 40/60. Pain throbbed behind his eyes from Shardwalk's phase, but the ache felt lighter than before—pool expansion cushioning the cost.
Rei dropped to a knee, massaging her cramping calves. "Need to stretch that Blink range soon, or I'm just stabbing ankles."
Elias inspected the gauntlet. One final fracture branched across the crystal. "Next heavy burst may shatter it."
"Then we'll find proper replacements," Kael said.
Thorn wiped steam from his bracer. "Until then, we ration heat."
Veyra's illusions dispersed. She brushed hair from her eyes. "Fog's lifting. And we're not alone."
Beyond the basin's edge torches gleamed—silver armour, ordered ranks. Malkyre. Their scouts marched with spears, banner marked by a crescent over a single five-point star.
Kael watched them study the now-dormant anchor. Lightning flickered behind the rival cohort—storm-blue, unnatural.
"We're ahead," Rei whispered. "For now."
"Not far enough," Kael answered. He nodded at the next ridge, where the terrain sloped toward jagged obsidian teeth. "We move before they decide we're worth fighting."
Essentia topped, nerves buzzing, the cohort left the basin. Behind them the blue-lit dais dimmed, anchor secured, but the Gate was already knitting a newer, crueler challenge two valleys away.
And far above the mist, unseen eyes tracked Kael's Sync, marking him a rising anomaly.