The titan's roar tore through the marrow of the earth, rattling Sorin to his core and sending showers of bone dust across the ridge. Above them, the storm blackened further; lightning braided across bruised clouds as if the sky itself was unravelling.
Massive shards of ancient bone jutted from the ground like petrified sentinels, slick with condensation from the heat radiating from the titan's molten chest.
Sorin's grip on the Bone Flame tightened until his knuckles whitened. Dren fought with stubborn ferocity at his back, grappling a three-jawed horror that snapped and reeled.
Lys moved with a dancer's precision, her curved blade slicing clean arcs through sinew and brittle armor alike. Kaelen's arrows fell with cold certainty, each shaft finding a seam in the monstrosities swarming from the fissures.
The ground convulsed as more skeletal bulk emerged from the ash. Vertebrae groaned like collapsing towers, and the molten heart beating inside a cage of bone made Sorin's breath catch; each pulse sent rivers of heat racing through ribs that hissed on contact with cooler air.
Valrik's formation held the eastern flank, his spear a ghost of blue flame. Even so, the line bent and healed, soldiers trading grim pragmatism like seasoned survivors.
"Kaelen, Dren—draw it left," Sorin ordered, voice low and exact. They moved as one, Kaelen's arrows lighting tiny stars across the titan's shoulder and Dren's angled strike with a length of shattered spine staggering the beast.
Sorin and Lys climbed a jutting rib, boots skidding on slick bone. Shards rained with each convulsion, and a massive claw sent a cloud of splinters outward. Sorin buried the Bone Flame into the rib as an anchor while Lys wedged her blade into a gap, prying metal and bone apart with relentless pressure.
From this vantage, the molten heart blazed like a dying sun. Every pulse scorched the air and pushed waves of heat across the Graveyard.
As the chaos peaked, Sorin caught Lys's gaze for a fleeting heartbeat. There was a tremor of something beyond survival—an unspoken connection, a warmth amid the fire. A quiet promise that even in the marrow of the world, hearts could meet in the fury of shared trial.
Valrik's voice rang out. "On my mark—three, two, one—now!"
They moved as one. Valrik's spear arced through the smoke; Sorin caught it mid-spin and drove his Bone Flame, along with the spear, into the molten core. The world detonated.
The titan ruptured in an infernal bloom of ash, bone, and boiling flame, throwing combatants and creatures alike across the bone-strewn ground. Heat rolled in crushing waves, a rain of glass shards pelting all within reach. For a breathless moment, the world fell away—sound became a low, distant hum, and ash settled like new snow.
When Sorin blinked clear, the Graveyard was a scene of ragged survivors. Faces were streaked with smoke and sweat, wounds hastily bound, and there was a shared exhaustion that throbbed like a heartbeat in the silent aftermath.
The relic remained untouched atop its crown of shattered diadems, indifferent as if it had judged the battle and found the struggle sufficient.
Sorin felt a deep shift. The Spiral pulsed in answer to violence met with will, and the echo of the titan's fall hummed in the hollow places behind his ribs. Beside him, Lys offered a small, steadying smile—a quiet moment of connection amid ruin.
Sorin returned it, a fleeting understanding, unspoken but profoundly felt: courage and care intertwined, forged in fire, bone, and shared peril.
Beyond the skeletal skyline, the earth rolled in distant waves. It was awakening in ways beyond titans and monsters, older and broader, colder, and aware of their struggle.
Even Valrik's gaze held that same recognition: a fight won, but a war unchanged.
The Graveyard sighed—an exhausted exhalation of steam and ash. And somewhere, deep and patient, the world stirred, watching the tremors left by those brave enough to stand in its heart.