The battlefield trembled beneath my feet, the air thick with the acrid scent of ozone and scorched stone. The primordial's eyes burned like molten gold, fixed on me with a hunger that made my fragments shiver in recognition.
Lysara clutched my arm, still trembling from her wounds. "Eryndor… it's not just the Watcher. It's… something older. Something that remembers the beginning of everything."
I nodded without turning. My wings—flame, water, shadow, clarity—flared wider, the air around me igniting with raw power. The fragments pulsed violently, whispering, screaming, urging me forward. For the first time, I understood them. They weren't just pieces of divine power. They were alive, and they chose me as their anchor.
The primordial roared, a sound that shook the battlefield like the collapse of a mountain. It lunged, and I surged forward, wings slicing the air, fragments coiling around me like living armor. Flame licked the edges of its shadow, water spiraled like a whip, clarity cut through the chaos, and shadow wrapped around my legs like tendrils.
I struck its arm with everything I had. The primordial staggered but didn't fall. Its laugh was metallic and hollow, echoing across the shattered field. "Mortal vessel… you dare challenge the forgotten?"
"Not dare," I growled. "I endure."
We clashed again and again, each strike tearing cracks in the battlefield, each collision sending shockwaves that rattled my bones. But then the fragments began to twist inside me—not in rebellion, not in fear, but conscious choice.
I could feel them shaping themselves, fusing, evolving, testing boundaries. They were becoming something more than tools. They were becoming… companions. Allies. A weapon with will.
The primordial's eyes narrowed. It roared and slammed its fist down, cracking the earth and sending a geyser of black smoke and golden light into the sky. My wings flared, and I rose, fragments screaming in unison, riding the explosion like a storm.
Then, something shifted beneath me. A tremor unlike anything before. The battlefield heaved violently, the cracks spreading faster, deeper, veins of light and shadow crawling across the terrain like serpents. The primordial's gaze flicked downward.
Something lurking beneath the ruins stirred.
Lysara gasped. "Eryndor… beneath us… it's awake."
The fragments pulsed frenetically, whispering warnings in unison. Not yet… not ready… danger…
I clenched my fists. "I don't care what it is. If it wants a fight, it'll find me ready."
The ground split open violently, wider than any fracture before, and a shadow rose—massive, formless, incomprehensible in scale. Its presence pressed against my mind like icy fingers, probing, testing, ancient and hungry beyond reason.
The primordial faltered, sensing the new arrival. Its molten-gold eyes widened with fear.
And the fragments inside me screamed in one voice:
"It knows you… it knows the fracture… it's coming for everything."
I raised my wings, energy spiraling outward in a defiant blaze, preparing to confront whatever emerged. But as the shadow began to rise fully, the Watcher's voice cut through the chaos, calm and omnipotent:
"This… was inevitable. And yet… your time is not finished… for now."
The shadow paused, almost as if acknowledging the Watcher, then withdrew into the fissures. The ground trembled violently, but silence followed—eerie, thick, waiting.
Lysara looked at me, wide-eyed. "It… left? But… it's still down there. Waiting."
I clenched my jaw, wings glowing with fragments vibrating in unison. "Yes. And when it rises… we'll be ready."
But deep in my chest, I felt something even colder than fear. A truth whispered in fragments:
It knows us. It knows the fracture. And it will not wait forever.
Above, the sky still crackled with fading light. Below, the shadows stirred. And between them… I realized the battlefield was no longer mine—it was a cage.
A storm was coming.
And we were standing in its center.
To be continued…