Blackhaven convulsed as Elias ran.
Smoke dragged across the streets in low, choking veils. Roof tiles skidded down slanted beams. Entire facades had peeled away, exposing rooms like torn-open ribcages—tables overturned, portraits cracked, dinner plates still set beneath drifting ash. The city did not look like it was dying. It looked like it had already been judged and found wanting.
Elias moved through it with measured strides, Flow Circulation steady and deliberate. The rhythm within him had stabilized since his encounter with the kitsune. The turbulence that had threatened to tear through his channels now rolled in contained spirals. Not calm—but manageable.
He inhaled through his nose.
Exhaled through his mouth.
Flow descended along his spine, branched through his limbs, returned to his core.
Slowly but steadily, he was recovering.
People flooded the streets in uneven currents. Some ran from the deeper districts where the ground still erupted without warning. Others—hunters bearing potent beast slaying artifacts, city guards with cracked shields—ran toward the epicenter, toward collapsing towers and distant roars.
Toward danger.
Elias vaulted a shattered carriage, adjusting air density in front of him. The wind resistance thinned; his forward motion smoothed. He reduced inertia in his lower body just enough to extend each stride beyond natural limits. He was able to gather energy to manipulate parameters now, even if the degree was lesser than normal.
Still, his expression did not change.
'This is awful.'
The thought surfaced without heat. A child screamed somewhere to his left. A beam fell and crushed a market stall. A man tried to lift it and failed.
'But the damage is already done.'
He did not slow.
'If they are lucky, they will limit the spread. Contain it and prevent further casualties.'
Containment. That was all anyone could hope for now.
Salvation was a delicacy no longer on the table.
A high, thin cry cut through the roar of crumbling stone.
Elias' gaze shifted slightly.
A little girl, about his age, stood near the corner of a fractured bakery, alone, dress torn at the hem. Tears streaked through soot on her cheeks. People rushed around her, past her, nearly knocking her down in their haste.
He assessed.
The distance left to reach the Keep.
The energy reserves he had at the moment.
The probability of mother's condition worsening.
He sighed and continued forward.
The crying faded behind him.
His chest tightened.
Not from guilt.
From irritation at the inefficiency of human response.
Several streets later, he spotted a trio of hunters sprinting from the eastern quarter and leading a group of startled civilians behind. With them was a woman who was pleading that they go back and find her daughter, tears streaking down her face. They were moving away toward one of the safe zones.
'Tch.'
Elias adjusted parameters mid-stride.
He located the building nearest the crying girl in memory—its structural integrity already compromised. He nudged stress vectors and load distribution subtly, precisely.
The building groaned then collapsed sideways in a plume of dust and debris.
Not onto the girl.
Near her.
Close enough to demand attention.
The hunters shouted and veered toward the fresh collapse.
Toward the crying.
Elias did not look back again. He knew he had already changed the probable outcome. Instead, he pushed more Flow into circulation.
The strain prickled along his veins, but the resistance had lessened. The phantom pain of the kitsune's corruption had receded enough that he could endure drawing more energy without immediate backlash.
He thinned air density further, reduced his own inertia more aggressively. He remembered Jamie's reckless improvisations.
Ice.
Moisture condensed along the cobblestones in front of him, crystallizing into a smooth, glistening sheet. He stepped onto it and shifted his center of gravity.
Friction vanished.
He slid forward, wind tearing at his hair and clothes as the city blurred into streaks of gray and red. The sensation was almost clinical—velocity vectors aligning, momentum conserved, efficiency optimized.
He was nearing the hill that led to Blackwood Keep when the ground detonated beneath him.
No warning tremor.
No visible crack.
The street simply erupted upward.
Stone and soil exploded into the air. Elias' perception sharpened, but he was caught mid-slide. The shockwave hurled him backward. He tore through the wall of a house, splintering beams and furniture before bursting out the opposite side in a cloud of dust.
He twisted midair, redistributing mass to avoid snapping his spine on landing.
He hit the ground hard.
Rolled.
Came up already moving.
The monster clawed its way fully from the earth.
It was an aberration of mismatched limbs and chitinous plating, hide pulsing faintly with corrupted ooze. Its jaw hinged sideways, splitting its face into an obscene grin. Steam vented from fissures along its spine.
On raw metrics, it was stronger.
Faster.
It knew this and lunged. Elias adjusted velocity locally by a fraction. The beast's momentum overshot. Its claws gouged into stone where he had stood a heartbeat earlier.
He slipped beneath its reach, the Obsidian Dagger flashed into his left hand.
As the creature snapped down toward him, he drove the blade into its wrist joint.The dagger activated.
The monster's pupils dilated violently. Its head jerked sideways. It roared and lashed out—not at Elias—but at empty air. The Function of the dagger was to attack the psyche and this beast was no exception.
With its cognition destabilized, a brief window was opened.
Elias withdrew and drew the Jade Dagger with his right hand.
He summoned clones.
Not moving constructs—only stationary silhouettes of himself arranged in a loose perimeter. Each one required Flow he could scarcely afford. His channels burned under the demand but he endured.
The beast staggered, confused by multiplied presences. Elias moved between them in a measured dance and struck at different angles.
The Obsidian cut at mind, the Jade cut at soul.
He slashed from the left, from the right, from behind.
Each strike compounded the last, destabilizing thought and spiritual cohesion simultaneously.
The monster roared and spun, sweeping a massive limb in a wide arc.
It connected.
Elias was hurled backward again, smashing through debris and into another fractured structure. He reinforced instinctively, Flow thickening under his skin to prevent bones from shattering.
Without reinforcement, he would have come apart like a mashed potato.
He hit the ground and lay still for half a second.
Accelerate Heal surged, knitting torn muscle, sealing internal bleeding. But his channels screamed.He had exceeded his the maximum amount he was able to output at a time.
"What's the use of having this much energy," he muttered through clenched teeth, "if I can't even use it?"
He forced himself upright.
The monster staggered from the ruins, still dazed by the mental assault.
Elias decided to use Flow Supression. If he withdrew now, he might be able to escape this situation and get to his mother.
His aura dimmed and his presence shrank.
He glanced behind him. The bast had knocked him back to where he had seen the crying girl. Luckily she had reunited with her mother and they were clearing some debris to make a path for them to escape to. Unluckily, he was the only thing standing between them and the monster and with his disapearing act complete, their roles as its next victims was set in stone.
'It doesn't matter either way.'
He was not their savior. He was not attached to them and would feel nothing regardless of whether they lived or died. To him, the outcome altered nothing in the larger calculus of the world.
But that was the very reason his anger was steadily rising.
'Why must innocents die because they happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time? Why must everyone fall prey to the unfairness of the world?'
He pushed the thought aside.
"It doesn't matter," he whispered.
"None of it does."
But he did not leave and rasied his blades.
A soft cackle brushed the inside of his mind.
"Well," a sweet voice chimed, "you are quite the strange one."
Elias' eyes sharpened. He scanned the street.
No one else was there.
"Who's speaking?" he demanded.
"Oh?" The tone turned teasing. "We spoke not long ago. Have you forgotten already?"
The voice resonated within. The image of a shadow fox flickered through his mind.
"Kitsune?"
"Yes dear," she replied lightly.
"I've been thinking about what you said. About negating the world."
The monster shook of the mind hex abd charged again, earth cracking beneath its weight.
"What do you want? I'm kinda in the middle of something here."
"Because," she hummed, "I heard your thoughts and I believe we could work very well together."
He barely dodged a snapping jaw.
"Is that because you think I'm some hero?"
A melodic laugh.
"No. It's because you're a fool who believes he can negate the world itself."
"Why should I trust you?"
She answered not with words. Instead his blades ignited.
Golden-black flames spiraled along their edges, neither hot nor cold but impossibly hungry.
"I'll give you a trial run of my power," she said sweetly.
"My fire that devours mind. My fire that erases soul. I think its a significant boost to the two toothpicks you've got there."
The monster lunged.
Elias shifted into the 'Stellar Aegis' stance. He crossed his arms, then slid under the monster and slashed outward in a precise 'X'.
The blades cut and the flames caught, consuming and spreading spreading. The monster shrieked as golden-black fire devoured its essence. Within seconds flesh, chitin, lack veins—all collapsed into ash that disintegrated midair.
Silence fell.
Elias stared at his daggers as the flames faded.
Before he could speak, something seized him from behind.
A second monster, larger than the first.
He was slammed into the ground.
Once.
Twice.
Stone fractured beneath his back. Accelerate Heal struggled to keep pace.
The creature pinned him with one massive limb crushing his chest. Another appendage—long and scythe-like—descended slowly toward his face.
He squirmed enough to free both arms and crossed both daggers to block.
Jade screamed against chitin.
The scythe pressed closer.
Inches from his eye. He managed to just barely deflect it into the ground beside his head.The force cracked stone. His cheek was nicked, warm blood sliding down his skin.
"Kitsune," he called internally.
"Help me."
A soft hum.
"Well..." she replied, contemplating.
"I can't do that."
"What?!You just—"
The monster slid the scythe burried beside Elias' head closer to his neck as if to decapitate him. He blocked with his knives but would not hold on for long.
"I gave you a taste, of how useful I can be to you." she interrupted gently.
"Now if you are to be useful to me, you must prove it."
The scythe pressed harder.
"If you fail," she added sweetly, "I will simply take over your body as intended. So don't fail."
Her presence receded.
The monster knocked his daggers aside and the scythe rose high, prepared to descend.
The air shifted.
Pressure expanded outward from the hill.
From the Keep.
Not a shockwave.
A Dominion.
It expanded in a perfect sphere, encompassing the entire city. The moment the area of effect passed over, the monster above Elias imploded.
Its mass collapsed inward violently, compressing into itself before rupturing in a spray of blood and fragments that drenched Elias where he lay.
Up on the hill, within Blackwood Keep, Elara Dukker lay at the center of her domain. She gripped both sides of the bed as the pressure of giving birth and using her authority but starin on her. The wood splintered and Aina held her hand to comfort her while the other women, despite thier anxiety and fear, followee the directives of Miss Gable.
"No aunt stop. You are already weak as it is, if you use any more energy you may die." Aina pleaded tearfully.
Elara did not answer. She had felt the destruction going on in her city. She had felt the other two saints struggling to contain it and the loss of the lives of her people. She even felt the clash between the Dishonoured several kilometers away.
But what caused her to finally act was her son's peril.
Ignoring the cost to her own body and ignoring the strain already tearing at her — she made her decision.
She chose...
....To expand her Zone.