"Tell me, then," I say quietly, forcing the words past the dread that claws at my throat. My jaw tightens; blood still drips from my palm.
"If that's what it takes... I do it."
Noctharion's voice returns, a deep rumble that vibrates through my skull, almost scraping the bone.
"It is dangerous, Kael. Are you certain of this?"
"Just tell me what to do," I say, my breath sharp, unsteady.
There is a pause — a silence heavy with sulfur. Then, his words fall like thunder.
"You must let that thing take control of your mind."
A spike of ice drives itself into my chest. "What?" The word rips from me. "Are you insane? If it takes control, I'll— I'll become just like the commander! A puppet!"
"Did you not say you'd do anything?" Noctharion's tone hardens, carrying a fury that shakes my scattered thoughts. "Don't tell me you're backing down now."
My jaw clenches. My eyes lock on Commander Arvell's motionless body — his limbs twitching, his eyes hollow and lifeless. The lava's blistering heat mocks him, licking the edges of his armor like mocking firelight.
I take a long, ragged breath. Then another. The stench of burnt rock fills my lungs.
"Fine," I whisper. "I do it."
"Then prepare yourself."
I swallow hard. "What happens next?"
"Did you forget, Kael? The last time that thing tried to invade your mind, I severed the connection."
I remember the searing pain in my skull, the blinding flash of darkness, the faint, echoing sound of Noctharion's ancient roar. It had almost killed me.
"So how does that help us now?" I ask, forcing the words past the blinding, frantic pounding in my head.
"Simple," Noctharion growls, his voice reverberating like rolling thunder across the void of my mind. "This time, you let it in deeply. You allow that monster's will to reach for your mind completely."
My breath catches. "And then?"
"And then I strike back through that link."
His tone changes — sharper, colder, laced with a terrifying, restrained wrath.
"When it reaches into you, I follow that thread straight to its source and tear it apart. Its link, its will, its consciousness — I crush them all."
A shiver, not of cold but of awe and terror, crawls down my spine. The image burns into my thoughts: a dragon, ancient and enraged, devouring a creature's mind from within its own host.
"Can you really do that?" I whisper.
"I am a dragon, Kael." The words roll through my head, heavy as the mountain we stand on. "Our minds are forged in chaos and flame. No being born of alchemy or corruption can outmatch me in will."
Silence hangs between us, thick with the certainty of fate. The ground trembles beneath my feet — the commander's body still twitches, still trapped in invisible strings.
If I fail...
If Noctharion fails...
Then I become another puppet.
I grit my teeth, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
"Alright," I mutter, staring at the commander one last time, engraving his vacant face into my memory. "Then let's end this."
"Brace yourself," Noctharion whispers, his tone low, almost solemn. "The moment it touches your mind... you feel it. Do not resist. Just hold on long enough for me to strike."
I push myself up from the ground, my legs unsteady, and start walking toward them — the commander and the Lava Giant. The air is a furnace, scorching my exposed skin.
The moment my boots crunch against the razor-sharp ash, both of their heads snap toward me at once.
The sound is sharp, bone — like two marionettes tugged by an unseen, malicious hand.
For a heartbeat, my chest tightens, expecting an attack. My hands snatch toward my sword's hilt.
But to my relief... they do not move.
They just stand there — still, silent — their gazes locked on me.
The commander's eyes glow faintly under the crimson haze, eerily, unnervingly calm.
The Lava Giant's hollow sockets burn with dying embers, watching me the same lifeless way.
It's as if they're waiting for a command that only the thing controlling them can give.
I force my breathing steady and keep walking, one agonizing step at a time, down the blackened, brittle slope.
The ground shifts underfoot, fragile from the subterranean heat, each crunching step echoing in the suffocating silence.
Minutes crawl by, stretching into an eternity. Neither of them moves. The commander doesn't blink. His head remains tilted, his face expressionless — a mask of clay.
By the time I reach the bottom, I stop roughly five meters away.
Just close enough to feel the searing heat radiating from the Lava Giant's cracked skin like a physical blow.
I keep that distance on purpose — a meager margin, a desperate illusion of safety.
If they try anything, maybe I can turn and run.
Though, deep down, a cold certainty tells me I won't make it far.
"Commander…"
My voice comes out hoarse, dry. The air itself feels heavy, thick with molten dust and despair.
"Are you okay?"
No answer.
Arvell doesn't even flinch. His blade remains lowered, his head tilted slightly as if the question reached him, but the mind behind those vacant eyes cannot process it.
"Commander," I say again, louder this time, letting the desperation bleed into my voice. "It's me, Kael!"
Still nothing.
Only that faint, unsettling tilt of his head, like a puppet acknowledging its audience before its true performance.
A chilling awareness crawls up my spine. Something is wrong.
Terribly, fundamentally wrong.
And then — it hits me.
A pulse.
Not sound. Not a visual distortion.
But something that touches the inside of my skull like a wet, cold hand.
A vibration that does not belong in this world, or any world.
My breath catches — a small, stifled gasp. "Noctharion—"
"Stay calm," the dragon's voice reverberates through my mind, cold and sharp as a honed blade. "It is reaching for you."
"What—what is?"
"The same thing that claimed your commander."
My vision blurs. The world twists, colors bleeding at the edges as if the very air folds inward.
The ground seems to shift beneath me, melting, spinning. My thoughts scatter like ash in a sudden, violent wind.
Something seeps into me.
A presence cold, invasive, intensely, malevolently alive.
It slithers through my mind, searching, tasting, devouring.
Every memory it brushes against burns with a horrible psychic static.
I see flashes — faces, happy moments, screams — all torn apart by invisible, unseen claws.
My knees buckle. My hand snatches to my temple, gripping hard as if I can physically hold my consciousness together.
"Kael, listen to me," Noctharion's voice booms, distant but unwavering. "Do not resist it."
"Not this time. If you resist, it destroys your mind outright. Let it in. Let it think it is winning."
My heart pounds in my ears, a frantic, deafening drum that drowns out everything else.
Let it in. Let the monster into my head.
I swallow hard, the dryness in my throat an agonizing reminder of my body.
Every instinct screams to fight back—to push the thing out with a desperate roar—but I force myself still.
I force the walls of my mind to collapse.
And the moment I stop resisting, everything gives way.
A wave of cold, absolute crashes through my consciousness, so deep it feels like drowning in pure, unadulterated ink.
My body locks in place—frozen mid-breath. My muscles refuse to move. My fingers stiffen around nothing.
I cannot even blink.
My memory starts to blur and fragment.
Everything around me — sound, light, heat — turns into a muffled, distant haze.
I try to focus, but my thoughts scatter like shattered glass falling into a deep abyss.
Faces, voices, memories jumble together, overlapping until I can't tell which part of my past belongs to me.
My mind feels numb, eclipsed.
Like something soft and cold presses against it, smothering every fragile spark that keeps me awake, keeps me as Kael.
I can't think anymore.
Can't move.
Even breathing feels like a forgotten, unnecessary habit.
Slowly, the edges of my vision begin to fade, dissolving into a sickly yellow.
The world narrows to a dim, suffocating tunnel of color, collapsing inward until only a faint glimmer of crimson remains—the dying glow of the Lava Giant's eyes.
Then that, too, is gone.
Darkness creeps in, thick and heavy, swallowing every last trace of light in its path.
And before I can even fully grasp the terrifying magnitude of what has happened—
I lose consciousness.