The cavern became a storm of fire, shadow, and void.
Kaelen and the serpent struck as one—flame and coil hammering into the herald's void-blade. Lyra cut down traitors left and right, her molten sword spraying sparks like miniature suns. Still, for every one that fell, another rose, their red spirals pulsing like infected wounds.
"Too many!" Lyra shouted. "They'll drown us in blood!"
"Not if the chains fall first," the herald snarled, driving his blade through the serpent's coils. The beast roared, its massive body shuddering.
Kaelen lunged forward, his fire flaring, and for an instant he met the herald's gaze through the black helm. What he saw was not emptiness—but pain. A face half-consumed by shadow, once human, once Vanguard.
"You were one of them," Kaelen whispered.
The herald's voice cracked like splintering stone. "I was their first! I bound the chains myself… to hold that thing!" He stabbed toward the chained presence looming above them. "But it was all a lie!"
The serpent's eyes flared, scales glowing with ancient fury. "LIAR. I GUARD. I HAVE ALWAYS GUARDED."
The herald's laugh was broken, almost weeping. "You think you're the jailer? You're the prisoner! We all are! The chains don't bind it—they bind us!"
The cavern froze for a heartbeat. Even the traitors faltered, their strikes uncertain.
Lyra's grip tightened on her sword. "What are you saying?"
The herald lifted his void-sword high. "The chains were never forged to cage the darkness. They were forged to feed it. Every soul bound to this prison… every Vanguard… every guardian serpent… has been nothing but fuel."
Kaelen's fire sputtered. His chest felt hollow, scorched from the inside. If it were true, if the chains weren't holding the entity back but nourishing it… then breaking them wasn't release. It was ascension.
The chained voice purred, dripping with satisfaction.
"At last, the truth tastes the air. Child of fire, you were never meant to be my destroyer. You were meant to be my torch."
The final chain cracked audibly, fissures of light spilling out like veins through the stone. The cavern shook, a storm of flame and shadow whipping into a cyclone.
Kaelen stood frozen, caught between the serpent's roar, Lyra's desperate eyes, and the herald's broken truth.
One more chain. One more choice.
And then the universe would never be the same.