The altar pulsed like a living heart, its veins of fire snaking outward into the soil, feeding the wound in the sky. Every word from the chanting cultists made the runes glow brighter, every beat of the drum sent cracks widening through the heavens. Above, the black dragon strained against the rift, its massive shoulders heaving as it clawed and writhed, desperate to tear itself fully into the world. Its roar rolled across the valley like an earthquake, breaking bones and will alike.
Seraphine drove her sword through another cultist and did not slow. Her body screamed with exhaustion, lungs raw with smoke, but her eyes never wavered from the altar. Around her moved the last survivors of the company—no more than a handful of battered souls, bleeding, limping, but driven by a fire stronger than fear. They had sworn to fight until the end, and the end was here.
"Press on!" she shouted, her voice cutting through the chaos. "The altar falls, or we do!"
The soldiers surged, axes and blades hacking into the chanting circle. Goblins shrieked as they rushed to block the path, but desperation lent the survivors strength. They cut through the swarm, inch by bloody inch, closing on the stone dais at the center.
The altar loomed before them, carved from black rock, runes blazing across its surface like rivers of molten iron. Flames curled from its cracks, and the sound of its pulse filled the air, a steady thrum like the heartbeat of some buried titan. At its base, a dozen cultists defended it with fanatical rage, blades dripping with blood, eyes wide with madness.
Seraphine charged. Her sword clashed against a staff, sparks flying, her strength meeting sorcery head-on. She broke the cultist's guard, drove steel through his chest, then spun to parry another. Her soldiers joined her, fighting like wolves in the last hours of the hunt. Every strike carried the weight of sacrifice.
"Break it!" she roared. "Now!"
One survivor, a grizzled veteran with a hammer, leapt forward. He swung with all the fury left in him, the hammer striking the altar's face. A crack spread through the stone. The runes flared, shrieked like living things, and the dragon's roar echoed louder, a cry of rage and fear.
The hammer rose and fell again. Another crack. Another flare of blinding light.
Above, the dragon thrashed against the narrowing rift. Its claws ripped at the edges, its wings beat storms across the land, but for the first time its struggle looked desperate, not triumphant. The chains of the ritual faltered as the altar weakened.
Seraphine cut down another cultist, blood spattering across her armor. She planted herself before the altar, shielding the hammer-bearer as he struck once more. The stone shrieked, split wide, and the runes shattered into sparks.
The altar broke.
A shockwave ripped outward, flinging bodies in every direction. The portal above convulsed, its edges folding, tearing, collapsing inward. The dragon bellowed, a roar so vast it seemed the world itself might split. Its body twisted, half-trapped, its wings flailing as the rift crushed inward like jaws.
The sky turned to fire.
Light, pure and blinding, exploded from the altar's ruin. It swallowed the battlefield, drowning out screams and roars, washing over friend and foe alike. The ground cracked open, flames speared skyward, and everything became a storm of fire and shadow.
Seraphine was thrown to the ground, her sword wrenched from her hand. She shielded her eyes, screaming orders that no one could hear over the roar. The last of her soldiers vanished into the storm, their cries lost to the endless light.
And in the heart of it, Zeke.
He had stood against the cultists alone, his chest blazing with light, his body breaking under the weight of the fight. Now the explosion hurled him skyward, the glow of his mark answering the blast with its own fire. He felt his body tear free from the earth, spinning, falling upward into a sky that was no longer sky at all.
Then silence.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Zeke landed hard, but not on earth. The ground beneath him was neither stone nor soil, but something that shifted like smoke, endless and weightless. He staggered to his feet, gasping for air that was not air, surrounded by a void that stretched in all directions. No stars. No moon. No horizon. Only blackness.
He clutched his chest, feeling the burn of the mark still alive, still pulsing, the only light in the abyss. He turned slowly, searching for any shape, any sound, but there was nothing. Not the dragon. Not Seraphine. Not even the screams of battle.
For the first time, Zeke was truly alone.
His voice cracked the silence. "Where the hell am I?"
No answer came. The void gave nothing back but the echo of his own words.
He took a step, then another, boots stirring no dust, leaving no trace. His hand hovered over the revolver at his hip, though it was empty. Instinct drove him to be ready, though against what he did not know.
Then the mark on his chest flared again, brighter than before. It lit the void in pale gold, stretching shadows across nothingness. And with the light came a whisper—low, distant, yet vast as the dragon's roar.
Zeke froze, his breath sharp.
The voice rolled through the void, not spoken aloud but inside his skull, as if the darkness itself were speaking.
You cannot run forever.
He spun, searching the black, but saw nothing. Only emptiness. Only the endless dark.
The mark pulsed once more, harder, hotter. His knees nearly buckled.
Chains may break, the voice rumbled, closer now. But chains can be forged again.
Zeke's fists clenched. "Show yourself!" he barked, his voice steady though his heart hammered.
The void swallowed his challenge. Silence fell once more, deep and suffocating.
Then the ground—or whatever passed for it—shifted beneath him. He stumbled, caught himself, and looked up.
A shape loomed in the distance. A vast silhouette, indistinct, blurred like smoke, but unmistakable in its size and terror. Horns curved, wings unfurled, eyes burned faintly red in the dark.
The dragon. Or its shadow. Or something worse.
Zeke's hand tightened on his revolver, though he knew it would do nothing here. His chest burned with the mark's glow, defying the dark.
The shadow opened its maw.
And Zeke was left with one terrible thought: he did not know if he still stood in the world of men, trapped in the dragon's domain, or if the explosion had hurled him across worlds, back toward the Texas plains he once called home.
The void gave him no answer. Only silence. Only the cliff's edge of fate.
And the darkness closed in.