The air grew heavy as the winged figures stepped forward, each one radiating a power that dwarfed the skeletal army they had faced before. Their armor glistened with fragments of broken constellations, wings unfurling like curtains of starlight and shadow.
Lyra's throat tightened. "Kaelen… they're not just soldiers. They were like you."
Kaelen felt it too. Their eyes—burning coals set in obsidian faces—were mirrors. Each one carried the same energy, the same corruption he felt gnawing inside him. They were once chosen, once wielders of the relic's light… and now enslaved by the First Thread.
The eye above blinked, and the champions moved.
The first descended in a streak of flame, blade shrieking against Kaelen's relic. The impact sent shockwaves through the ground, throwing Lyra off her feet. Kaelen staggered but held, sparks flying as steel and starlight collided.
Another champion swooped at Lyra. She rolled, firing bolt after bolt of plasma. The blasts ripped through its wing, but instead of blood, shards of burning symbols spilled out, glowing before reforming midair.
"They rebuild like the others!" she shouted.
Kaelen grunted, locking blades with his opponent. "Then we hit harder!"
The relic flared, sensing the presence of its lost kin. With every swing, it hummed louder, hungrier, pulling Kaelen toward its rhythm. He dodged, parried, and struck, but with each clash, he felt himself sliding closer to their world—less Kaelen, more weapon.
Lyra saw the change in his eyes. "Don't lose yourself! Stay with me!"
Her words steadied him, but barely.
Three champions surrounded them now, wings blotting out the broken sky. Their movements were synchronized, a dance perfected across eons of war. Every strike pushed Kaelen and Lyra closer to the fissure's edge. One wrong step, and they would fall into endless darkness.
Kaelen's chest heaved. "We can't keep this up. They're too strong."
Lyra's gaze darted across the battlefield, searching for an opening. Then she saw it: the glyphs beneath their feet, still glowing faintly from Kaelen's earlier strike. They pulsed whenever a champion stepped across them.
"Kaelen! The ground—it reacts to them!"
Realization slammed into him. The champions weren't invincible. The glyphs were a prison.
Kaelen nodded, sweat stinging his eyes. "Then let's chain them back where they belong."
He leapt forward, baiting one champion into striking. Its blade arced down, shattering the stone—right over a cluster of glowing symbols. The glyphs erupted, spearing upward in a cage of light that wrapped around the creature's limbs. It shrieked, wings folding in as it was dragged back into the ground.
Lyra whooped. "One down!"
But the others roared, their voices a mix of thunder and grief. They struck harder, faster, as though punishing Kaelen for betraying their shared curse.
The First Thread's voice boomed above.
"Yes… use their prison. Use the weave itself. Every choice binds you deeper. Every victory brings you closer to me."
Kaelen snarled, driving the relic against another champion, forcing it toward the glyphs. But his arms shook, the blade growing heavier with each strike. He wasn't sure if he was wielding the relic—or if it was wielding him.
Lyra blasted the third champion back, panting. She shouted over the chaos, voice raw: "Kaelen, listen to me—don't let this become their fight. Make it ours!"
For an instant, her words pierced the haze. Kaelen planted his feet, driving the relic into the glyphs once more. Light erupted, chains of energy binding the second champion and dragging it screaming beneath the stone.
Only one remained.
Its wings spread wide, shadow blotting out everything. Its gaze locked onto Lyra, not Kaelen, as if it knew where Kaelen's true weakness lay. It lunged.
Kaelen shouted her name, sprinting toward her—but the relic's glow faltered, and his legs buckled.
The champion's blade arced down.
Lyra lifted her blaster, defiant even in the face of death. "Not today."