Narrated by Veyren
Auren hovered above the ruined Vault, motionless but deadly. The Scale pulsed louder now, its glow warping the air around him. Light cracked and twisted, moving like liquid flame as if the world itself bent to breathe with him.
He wasn't attacking.
But he didn't need to.
The Scale was already fighting for him.
"We move on my signal," I said.
"Let's just hope he doesn't rip the sky in half before that," Ruzakai muttered.
"Seven seconds," Nyavell said. "I can't make the weave hold without full channeling."
"You'll get your seven," Caelith replied, tightening his shield straps. "Or we die trying."
We fanned out.
Nyavell vanished shadowstepping across the plaza, leaving flickering sigil traps behind. Runes hovered in the air where she passed, spinning, ready to react.
Ruzakai charged up the center path, fists already glowing with burning sigils and chainfire.
Caelith took the left flank slow, steady, immovable. His shield glowed white-blue now, etched with frost seals from the Glacial Order.
I circled wide, activating tri-cast runes from the Emerald Codex designed to trap, not kill.
Auren didn't move.
But the space around him did.
The moment we entered the inner circle, the Scale reacted unleashing a kinetic wave that shattered debris across the courtyard.
Caelith blocked it with his shield. Nyavell ducked under a spear of warping light. Ruzakai tore through it, laughing.
"You want a fight, starboy? Let's go!"
He launched into the air, spinning into a double-fist strike, both gauntlets blazing red. He slammed into Auren's barrier and—
BOOM.
The shockwave rattled the sky.
Ruzakai hit the ground hard, dragged backward through the stone but came up laughing, blood at the edge of his mouth.
"He's tougher than before. That Scale's feeding him like a god."
Nyavell's sigils ignited.
Arrows of violet energy fired from every angle, laced with containment glyphs. They pierced Auren's shield and anchored in the air around him. It flickered. Dimmed.
Then…
He moved.
Fast.
A blur of red-white light sliced across the plaza.
He reappeared behind Caelith, hand wreathed in unstable arc-light.
Caelith raised his shield just in time.
The blast struck.
Stone shattered.
The shield glowed white-hot.
"That's not Auren's magic," Caelith growled. "That's the Scale's."
"Keep your distance!" I snapped. "Don't let him pin you down!"
I triggered the bind-grid runic traps I'd laid earlier. Green lines lit up across the stones, locking Auren in a containment hex.
For one breath, he froze.
Nyavell's voice rang out:
"Binding weave is active. Four seconds!"
Auren's head turned toward her.
And he vanished.
"Nyavell, MOVE!"
She blinked just as he reappeared behind her. She spun midair, arms sweeping wide in a defensive arc. A shadow veil shimmered into being.
The blast hit her hard but the veil softened it. She slammed to the ground, rolled, and vanished again.
Caelith and I converged.
I launched three tracking sigils, targeting Auren's energy signature. Caelith raised a prism shield a bubble of frost and pressure, dampening Auren's aura.
Ruzakai dropped from above.
"I'M YOUR TARGET!"
He came down like a meteor, fists ablaze. This time, he landed a clean strike just enough to knock Auren off-center.
Auren spun midair, eyes now void-black, and released a pulse of raw, ancient force.
Ruzakai took it full in the chest.
He flew back, slammed into the Vault wall and didn't rise.
"Two seconds left!" Nyavell shouted from the pillars.
"Now!" I yelled. "Drop the weave!"
Nyavell raised her hands. Magic surged across the field.
Chains of violet fire erupted from every trap point, spiraling skyward and slamming into Auren's chest.
He roared.
The Scale screamed with him.
Power lashed out in shockwaves that scorched the courtyard.
I ran, sword glowing with the counter-rune.
"This ends now!"
I jumped, flipped, and brought the blade down.
Straight into the center of the glow.
The Scale pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Then detonated in a flash of crimson light.
We were thrown back.
Caelith landed shield-first, protecting Nyavell. I hit the ground hard, skidding across a stone. Ruzakai groaned from across the plaza, steam rising off his armor.
Auren dropped.
Flat.
Limp.
Out cold.
The scale still glowed faintly.
But the fight was over.
Auren was down.
His body twitched once then stilled.
The light at his chest flickered. His breathing slowed.
None of us moved.
Not yet.
"Is he…?" Nyavell asked softly.
"No," I said. "Just drained."
I stepped forward, blade still raised. His eyes were closed now. The pulses had stopped.
But the Scale was still there glimmering faintly in his chest.
It wasn't finished.
"Containment," Caelith ordered, already unrolling a scroll. "High-tier. Mystic-grade chains."
Nyavell knelt beside Auren, drawing glyphs in blood and ash. Her hands were steady. Her voice, not so much.
"He's not burning out. The connection's retreating. It'll come back."
"Not if we bury it," I said.
We worked fast.
Caelith and I locked his wrists and ankles with Thorns of Oath relics once used to bind the first demon-touched.
Nyavell sealed the glyph cage twenty-four-point weave, hand-scribed in old Tenshyrian. Suppression, shielding, and pain-triggered disruption layered in one.
Ruzakai stood at the edge of the circle, limping, silent.
He didn't speak.
He just stared.
At his brother.
When the last seal burned into place, we stepped back.
Auren hung there.
Bound.
Stripped of motion, magic, and will.
And for a heartbeat.
Silence.
Then the Scale cracked.
Not shattered.
Cracked.
A sharp, brittle snap that echoed like bone under pressure.
We turned as one.
The light inside the crystal flickered then flared.
Another fracture raced across its surface.
And then
It shattered.
And the sky answered.
It didn't rain.
It didn't thunder.
It screamed.
A rip tore through the sky above a jagged black wound spilling light. Not divine. Not golden.
Ancient.
Not a spell.
Not a summon.
A rupture.
A tear in the world.
And through that rift
They came.
The first creature dropped like a meteor scaled, four-armed, black fire bleeding from its mouth. It crashed into the plaza, roaring, and smashed a Watcher post like it was driftwood.
Three more followed.
Then five.
Then a dozen.
They were demons.
But not like the ones we'd faced before.
Older.
Pure.
Born of something deeper.
Twisted into form by the rage of a greater will.
The wound widened.
Crimson lightning forked through the sky, veined and pulsing.
And then….
Through the center of the storm…
Zybaah stepped through.
The one we feared would never rise again.