The bird's body hung limp in her grip, wings splayed at wrong angles where fingers had closed with divine finality.
She opened her hand.
The corpse tumbled through empty air, black feathers spiraling as it fell into the crater's throat. Darkness swallowed it whole.
Cel couldn't breathe.
'Esrin Tempvolt.'
The name arrived with the force of recognition. Not from personal meetings - his father had deemed him too shameful for most noble gatherings. But everyone knew her story. Everyone had witnessed when the Emperor himself granted her the title of Hallowed, acknowledging her ascension to the pinnacle of human existence.
His chest tightened with something between awe and terror as she hovered there, wings shifting with subtle movements that suggested perfect control. Divine presence radiated from her in waves - not oppressive, but undeniable. The kind of power that made mortals instinctively straighten their backs.
Hands seized his shoulders.
Raven yanked him backward, hauling them both behind a jagged outcropping. They hit rough rock together, Raven's body tense as a drawn bowstring.
Cel opened his mouth—
"Don't." Sharp. Urgent. Raven's crimson eyes were wide with something Cel had never seen in them before.
Fear.
Raw, visceral fear that made his pulse hammer.
Through the gap in the stone, Esrin's silhouette shifted, her head turning in methodical sweeps across the landscape.
"Go to her," Raven said finally.
The words hit like a physical blow.
"What?"
"She's a Hallowed." Raven's voice was steady despite his expression. "You can trust her. She will protect you."
Understanding crashed through Cel.
Raven thought this was reasonable. Thought he was being practical, logical - making the choice that kept Cel alive even if it meant being alone again.
Just like his mother or brother had chosen themselves over protecting him
"No."
"Listen—"
"She's here for you." Cel grabbed Raven's arm, fingers digging in. "That's the only reason someone like her would be in the Hollow Realms. To hunt one of the Cursed."
Raven's jaw clenched. "Yes. But you—"
"I'm not going anywhere."
"You don't understand what—"
"I understand that you helped me survive." Cel's grip tightened. "You think I'm going to abandon you the second someone more powerful shows up?"
Something flickered across Raven's face - surprise, maybe, or something deeper he couldn't quite name.
"This isn't—"
The mountain screamed.
Stone shrieked as fissures raced outward from the crater like lightning made solid. The ground tilted violently, throwing them against the outcropping as the world lurched.
Then the volcano exploded.
Magma erupted in a column so vast it blotted out the crimson sky. The blast wave hit like a physical wall - superheated air that seared lungs and threw ash in blinding clouds.
Something rose from the depths.
Four arms, each one thick as city walls, gripped the crater's rim. The hands alone were larger than houses, obsidian claws sinking deep as the thing pulled itself upward.
It kept rising.
And rising.
The torso emerged - humanoid in basic shape but wrong, covered in plates of volcanic rock that wept rivers of lava. When its head finally cleared the crater, it stood taller than the mountain itself had been, a living colossus of fire and stone.
The ground beneath them didn't just crack - it disintegrated. The entire rim collapsed inward, massive chunks tumbling into the superheated depths below.
They fell.
Cel's stomach lurched before another shockwave threw him sideways. He hit the outer slope hard, volcanic rock tearing at his armor as momentum sent him tumbling down the mountainside.
Lightning split the sky.
The bolt struck the creature's shoulder, illuminating every detail in stark white - volcanic stone and weeping magma rendered in brutal clarity.
Thunder followed.
Not from storm clouds, but from her.
Esrin became a blur of wings and crackling energy, her glaive materializing as she shot toward the massive torso.
The blade struck.
White-black light detonated across obsidian scales in branching patterns.
Cel slammed into a jutting rock. The impact sent him spinning, and he tumbled down the disintegrating slope.
Above, Esrin was everywhere and nowhere. Wings folded as she dove, glaive driving into the thing's chest. A massive arm swung - fast enough to compress the air into thunder - but met only empty space.
"Raven!" Cel twisted mid-fall to spot him.
The young man tumbled past, arms wrapped around his head as he bounced off volcanic stone.
The creature roared.
Vibrations traveled through the mountain itself, making Cel's teeth rattle and his vision blur.
New vents exploded across the slopes, geysers of molten rock fountaining into the air. Droplets rained down, hissing against stone, burning through ash.
Cel hit a flow of cooled lava and slid, unable to stop as the angle steepened. His fingers clawed for purchase—
Lightning struck in rapid succession. Five times. Ten. Each bolt painted the massive silhouette in stark relief, white light drowning out the crimson sky in blinding pulses.
He went airborne for three terrible heartbeats.
The impact drove the air from his lungs.
He tumbled sideways. Raven's body crashed into him mid-roll. Their momentum combined, sending them both careening toward a cliff edge—
Magma erupted from the ground directly in their path.
Cel threw himself left. Raven went right. The molten stream fountained between them, spraying droplets that sizzled against Cinderward's fabric.
Above, the creature's hand closed around empty air where Esrin had been. She appeared on its shoulder. Drove her glaive through its neck. White light blazed.
Thunder rolled.
The Ashlands beneath were burning.
What had been dead gray ash for centuries ignited as superheated debris rained down. Flames spread in waves across the wasteland, transforming it into a sea of fire.
Cel hit the bottom in a sprawl, his body finally coming to rest in burning ash. He forced himself upright, gasping for air that scorched his throat.
Raven slammed down twenty steps away, momentum carrying him into a slide before he stopped.
Above, the battle raged.
Esrin became a streak of white against crimson sky, her form blurring between positions faster than thought. The creature's fist came down, but met only stone. The impact cracked the mountainside, sending fresh chunks tumbling down.
She reappeared mid-air, glaive extended.
Lightning didn't strike from above - it erupted from the blade itself, a branching web that wrapped around the creature's torso. The thing convulsed. Magma sprayed from cracks in its body.
Two arms reached for her simultaneously from different angles.
Gone.
The fists collided with each other.
Esrin materialized on its back, between the shoulder blades. Her weapon drove down once, twice, three times with measured precision - each strike detonating with white light that left afterimages burned across Cel's vision.
The creature twisted with impossible speed for something so massive. Its fourth arm - the one Cel hadn't tracked - came around in a backhand that would have pulverized buildings.
Esrin's glaive met it edge-on.
A shockwave sprayed lava and lightning in a perfect circle radiating outward from the collision point.
"Run!" Raven gasped.
Not at a fixed destination. Just away - anywhere but here, where the fight between a Hallowed and a rift-creature rewrote the landscape with every exchange.
They bolted.
Ground cracked beneath their feet, new fissures opening with each step. Molten stone bled through, painting the earth in rivers of orange death. Ash burned, flames licking at their legs.
Behind them, the creature roared. Not pain - fury. Its massive hands slammed into the mountain's base. The entire ground shuddered.
Cel risked a glance back.
Esrin drove her glaive through the thing's eye socket. Light exploded outward. The creature's head snapped back, all four arms flailing—
The ground beneath Raven exploded.
An Ashlurker erupted in a spray of ash and stone, its serpentine body already uncoiling mid-lunge. Needle-ringed mouth gaped wide, eyeless head driving straight for Raven's throat.
Raven threw himself sideways.
Claws tore through where his chest had been, close enough that fabric ripped.
The creature landed in a coil, body already tensing for another strike.
"What—" Cel stared. "Why is it attacking?"
Even the Tremorborne had refused to touch Raven. Nothing hunted him. Nothing.
"Exception!" Raven rolled away as the Ashlurker lunged again. "I don't know why!"
Silent Moon materialized in Cel's grip. He closed the distance while the creature's attention locked on Raven, blade angling for the exposed spine—
The Ashlurker's tail whipped around and caught him across the ribs, sending him sprawling.
It didn't even turn. Its entire focus remained on Raven, who scrambled backward over broken ground, chest heaving.
Cel pushed upright and charged again.
This time he reached it. Silent Moon came down in a vicious arc—
The blade skittered across gray flesh without cutting. Like striking stone.
Cel's eyes dropped to the weapon.
Two crescents. Only the outer edges glowed, dim and weak.
'Shit—'
The creature's clawed hand caught him across the chest. The impact launched him backward. He hit the ground hard, rolling through burning ash.
Raven moved.
Not scrambling anymore - flowing. He sidestepped the Ashlurker's lunge with minimal motion, letting its mass carry past him. As it overextended, he drove his fist into the joint where its serpentine body met its humanoid torso.
The creature hissed but didn't slow. It whipped around with that uncontrolled fury, needle-ringed mouth gaping.
Raven ducked under the strike, movements economical and precise.
Cel forced himself upright. Silent Moon felt dead in his grip, the two faint crescents mocking him.
'Focus.'
The Ashlurker lunged again.
Cel moved, intercepting it mid-strike. Silent Moon scraped uselessly across stone-like flesh, but his shoulder check caught the creature's torso, disrupting its trajectory. It hissed and twisted toward him.
Raven repositioned, circling to its flank.
Its tail whipped at Cel's head. He ducked under and drove his fist into its side - harder than intended, his uncontrolled strength launching it sideways.
The Ashlurker recovered instantly, eyeless head snapping in Raven's direction
Then it lunged again.
Raven twisted aside—
His foot caught on a fissure in the ground that wasn't there before.
He went down.
The creature loomed over him, needle-ringed mouth gaping wide.
Silent Moon left Cel's hand. He hurled the useless blade aside and sprinted, closing the distance in three strides. His fist caught the Ashlurker's shoulder, spinning it partially around—
But not enough.
Its clawed hand shot down toward Raven's throat—
Raven grabbed a chunk of obsidian and drove it into the creature's eyeless head.
It recoiled, hissing.
Raven rolled to his feet, backing toward—
The ground groaned.
The fissure that had been a hairline crack suddenly yawned wide behind him. Stone crumbled. Ash poured into the gap like water.
The Ashlurker twisted back toward Raven, its body uncoiling like a released spring.
Cel dove for its tail, missing it by inches.
Raven dropped low and twisted, redirecting the creature's momentum toward the opening—
But its clawed hand shot out mid-lunge, closing on his shoulder in an iron grip.
They both went over the edge.
"Raven!"