The cultists attacked first—a wave of bodies and magic designed to overwhelm through numbers.
Valdris's team met them with professional violence.
Garrett became a one-man wall, his enhanced body tanking hits that would kill normal fighters. Every punch he threw shattered bones, every grapple ended with a broken cultist.
Cassandra's ice magic created kill zones—flash-frozen ground that sent enemies slipping into Yuki's blade range. The eastern swordswoman moved through the chaos like death itself, each strike precise and fatal.
Viktor and Brother Matthias formed a defensive pair—shadow magic and holy light working in unexpected synergy, countering cultist spells while protecting the team's flanks.
Elena worked frantically, healing injuries as they occurred, keeping everyone functional despite accumulating damage.
Thomas, surprisingly, held his position. His inexperience showed in clumsy techniques, but fear had transformed into determination. He wasn't skilled, but he was *trying*.
Kaelen and Lia, exhausted from the resonance armor use, focused on disrupting the ritual itself. Kaelen attacked the runic circle's structural points while Lia threw purification magic at the shadow energy flows.
And Marcus's four inner circle lieutenants moved to stop them.
"I'll take the ritual disrupters," one announced—a massive man with scarring that suggested repeated shadow corruption healing. He charged Kaelen with brutal directness.
Kaelen barely blocked the first strike. The lieutenant was *strong*, physically enhanced by shadow magic to superhuman levels. Each blow sent shockwaves through Soulrender, made Kaelen's arms scream.
"You're tired," the lieutenant observed. "Drained from your dramatic entrance. Poor tactical planning."
"Worked though," Kaelen panted. "We got here."
"To die," the lieutenant replied, pressing his advantage.
They fought brutally—no elegance, no technique, just desperate survival against superior strength. Kaelen used every trick Ronan had taught him, found openings through pure persistence.
Soulrender finally caught the lieutenant's exposed neck. Not a clean kill—the man was too tough for that—but a serious wound that staggered him.
"Your sword is impressive," the lieutenant admitted, blood flowing. "But not enough."
He activated some kind of last-resort technique—his body swelling with shadow energy, speed and strength doubling. He came at Kaelen like a hurricane.
Ronan intercepted him.
"Go help Lia!" Ronan shouted, engaging the enhanced lieutenant with grim determination. "This one's mine!"
Kaelen wanted to argue, wanted to help, but Lia was fighting two lieutenants simultaneously and losing.
He charged to support her.
Together, they drove back the attackers. Not defeated—they were too skilled for that—but stalemated. Forced into defensive positions.
"The ritual's still progressing!" Lia gasped between attacks. "We're not disrupting it fast enough!"
"Then we hit it harder!" Kaelen focused shadow energy into Soulrender and slammed the blade into the runic circle.
The circle shuddered but held. Marcus's construction was too robust for simple destruction.
"You're wasting effort," Marcus called from the ritual's center. He hadn't moved, hadn't stopped his channeling. "The convergence is past critical threshold. Nothing you do now matters."
"Then why keep defending it?" Valdris shouted back, her blades dripping with cultist blood.
"Because I'm polite," Marcus replied. "I'd rather you die exhausted than provide futile hope."
He was lying. Had to be lying.
But the Shadow Lord's presence was growing stronger. Kaelen could feel it—ancient consciousness pressing against reality's barriers, forcing its way into the world.
"Resonance armor," Lia said quietly. "One more time. It's the only thing powerful enough to break his ritual."
"It'll kill you," Kaelen protested.
"Maybe. Probably. But if we don't stop the ritual, we all die anyway. At least this way, there's a chance."
She was right. They were out of options.
"Together," Kaelen said.
"Together," Lia agreed.
They began the activation sequence—shadow from Kaelen, purification from Lia, spiraling together one final time.
The hybrid energy formed, but wrong. Lia's echo-scars were too advanced, her magic too corrupted. The resonance stuttered, failed to stabilize.
"I can't hold it!" Lia's voice was anguish. "The corruption's too deep!"
"Then I'll hold it for both of us!" Kaelen poured everything into the technique—all his remaining energy, all his Shadow Scar reserves, all his desperation.
Soulrender responded, amplifying his effort. The resonance armor snapped into full power, but only around Kaelen. Lia collapsed, her body unable to sustain the technique.
"LIA!" Kaelen caught her before she hit the ground.
"Go," she whispered. "Break the ritual. I'll be fine."
She wouldn't be fine. Her echo-scars had consumed her completely, dark lines covering every visible surface. She might be dying right now.
But she was right about priorities.
Kaelen gently set her down, turned to face Marcus with the resonance armor blazing.
"Impressive," Marcus acknowledged. "You're sustaining it alone. That shouldn't be possible."
"Lot of things I do that shouldn't be possible," Kaelen replied.
He attacked.
With the resonance armor at full power, he could match Marcus's speed, strength, and magical capacity. They fought across the ritual chamber, Forbidden Blades clashing, shadow energy and hybrid power creating shockwaves that cracked stone.
"You're good," Marcus admitted between strikes. "Better than I expected. But you're still just one person against a prepared defense."
His inner circle moved to support him. Three lieutenants attacking Kaelen from different angles while Marcus maintained pressure from the front.
Kaelen couldn't win this. Not against four opponents of this level, not while exhausted, not while the resonance armor slowly ate through his remaining vitality.
"KAELEN!" Ronan's voice cut through the chaos.
Kaelen looked and saw Ronan had defeated his opponent. The lieutenant lay unmoving, Ronan bleeding from a dozen wounds but still standing.
"I'll handle the support!" Ronan charged Marcus's inner circle with suicidal bravery. "You focus on Marcus!"
Ronan engaged all three lieutenants simultaneously. It was a death sentence, and he knew it. He was buying seconds with his life.
Kaelen used those seconds.
He drove at Marcus with everything the resonance armor could provide. Not trying to kill—that was probably impossible—but to disrupt the ritual, to force Marcus to defend instead of channel.
It worked.
Marcus had to disengage from the ritual to block Kaelen's assault. The shadow energy flow stuttered, the convergence slowed.
"Enough!" Marcus brought both Forbidden Blades down in a crossed strike.
Kaelen blocked with Soulrender and the resonance armor, but the impact was apocalyptic. The hybrid energy shell cracked, then shattered.
Kaelen flew backwards, smashing into a stone pillar hard enough to break ribs.
The resonance armor died completely.
He tried to stand, couldn't. His body had nothing left.
Across the chamber, the rest of his team was losing. Garrett was down, overwhelmed by numbers. Cassandra had exhausted her magic reserves. Yuki and Viktor fought back-to-back against impossible odds. Brother Matthias and Elena held a defensive position, but cultists were closing in.
And Ronan—Ronan was dying. The three lieutenants had surrounded him, and even his exceptional skill couldn't match their combined power.
They'd failed.
Marcus returned to the ritual circle, resuming his channeling.
"Admirable effort," he said, not unkindly. "But insufficient. The Shadow Lord manifests regardless. You've lost."
The shadow energy surged higher. The Lord's presence grew overwhelming.
They had maybe five minutes before full manifestation.
Kaelen looked at Lia's collapsed form, at Ronan's dying struggle, at his team's desperate last stand.
At the impossible situation that required an impossible solution.
Soulrender whispered in his mind. *There is one option.*
"No," Kaelen said aloud.
*You know what I offer. Complete power, full integration, perfect control. Let me consume your soul entirely. Become the blade's vessel. The resulting power could stop Marcus.*
"And I'd lose my humanity completely," Kaelen said.
*But your friends would live. The world would survive. Is your humanity worth more than everyone else's lives?*
It was the same utilitarian logic Marcus used. Sacrifice one for many. The logic Kaelen had rejected.
But this time, the sacrifice was himself. His choice, his life, his humanity.
Was he willing to make that trade?
He looked at Lia again. At their impossible dream of a house and cat and normal life.
At the future he'd never have if he accepted Soulrender's offer.
"Kaelen, don't!" Lia's weak voice somehow carried across the chamber. "Don't give yourself to the blade! There has to be another way!"
"There isn't," Kaelen said quietly.
He gripped Soulrender with both hands.
"Do it," he told the blade. "Take what you need. Just stop Marcus."
*As you wish*, Soulrender replied.
The blade's power exploded through Kaelen's body, consuming everything—his Shadow Scars, his resistance, his barriers against corruption. His humanity burned away like paper in fire.
And something else took its place.
Pure power. Absolute control. Perfect integration between wielder and weapon.
Kaelen Voss, as he had been, ceased to exist.
Something new rose in his place.
And Marcus, for the first time in their conflict, looked genuinely afraid.