The sky screamed.
Knox hit the ground like a meteor, carving a crater into the mountainside, metal and flesh grinding against ancient stone. Shards of obsidian spiked into the air, sent hurtling by the sheer momentum of his fall. Smoke hissed off his armor. The land trembled beneath him.
Above, Seraph cut through the clouds like a vengeful comet. Argent wings left contrails of celestial flame in her wake, each beat warping the wind into searing currents. She raised a hand, the air around her twisting into a radiant blade, just in time to parry a spear made of pure soulfire.
Zareth hovered in the air, eyes burning like twin eclipse stars.
All around him, his army moved.
They were countless now—ghostly, humanoid forms of the fallen. Some wore the armor of ancient kings, others the battle-scarred robes of slaughtered priests, shadow-wrapped children, even collapsed gods with holes in their chests where hearts should have been. Each soul he'd taken over centuries, summoned like puppets of silence and rage.
The sky was no longer blue.
It was violet-black, streaked with spiritual stormlight and soaked in entropy.
Zareth raised both hands—and his warriors surged.
Knox launched upward, smashing into three soulbound knights mid-air with a flurry of brutal strikes. Their forms buckled, screamed, then reformed behind him. He grunted.
"They're not tethered by flesh," he muttered. "Killing them doesn't mean anything."
["Correct,"] Kaelina replied. ["These constructs are embedded directly in his system memory. Until Zareth himself is compromised, they'll continue to regenerate."]
Seraph's voice cut through. "Then we break the tether."
["Target his core. Animavorax uses a central binding signature. If we sever the spiritual umbilicus, they'll fall apart."]
Zareth heard her—his smile widened.
"You think you understand," he said, his voice rolling like thunder made of silk. "But you don't see the shape of the deeper tapestry."
A flick of his hand—and a new wave appeared.
This time they weren't faceless.
Seraph froze.
Knox saw it too.
One of them wore his face. The armor was cracked and blackened. The eyes were lifeless.
His doppelganger raised a hand, mimicking Knox's fighting stance perfectly.
"A mirror from another world," Kaelina growled. ["He's tapping into cross-timeline soul records. He's digging deeper."]
Zareth whispered to the void, his system responding like a lover.
["Soul conduits widened. Tapping external wells. Multiversal fragments converging."]
Luminara's voice sharpened. ["He's creating a lattice. He's not just summoning the souls—he's using them as a framework. A living network. If he completes it… he could rewrite the rules of this layer."]
"Not happening," Knox growled.
He blurred forward, faster than sound, faster than memory.
His fist collided with his own twisted counterpart. Bone cracked. The figure exploded into mist—but even as it dispersed, another took its place.
Seraph surged downward with a scream, her blade of judgment slicing through ten at once—but still, they rose.
For every soul shattered, Zareth summoned two more.
And his smile never faded.
Then he moved.
He appeared behind Seraph in a blink, hand glowing with sickly green light. Knox shouted—too late.
Zareth touched her back.
Her wings flared—and buckled.
Seraph gasped as something tore at her. Not her body—her essence. Her self.
Luminara shrieked into her mind. ["Soul intrusion! He's bypassing conventional shielding! Initiating rollback protocol!"]
Knox collided with Zareth a second later, blasting him away in a collision that detonated the atmosphere like a bomb. Lightning exploded across the sky. Thunder screamed.
Zareth was flung through the veil of clouds—but laughed as he vanished, voice like falling glass.
"I tasted her," he called. "Her soul is… divine. I will have it."
Knox caught Seraph as she staggered mid-air. She clutched at her chest, breath ragged.
"I'm okay," she whispered. "He didn't… get it all."
Knox's hands trembled. Rage curled at the edges of his focus.
["We need to shift tactics,"] Kaelina said. ["He's using the soul lattice to expand his processing field. If we don't cut the anchor point now—"]
"Where is it?"
["Central node. It's within his chest. Buried under thirteen spiritual barriers and a fractal recursive lock. I'll begin decrypting. Buy me time."]
Knox nodded once, turning toward the storm-wrapped sky.
Zareth had returned.
Now flanked by hundreds more. Not just people this time—creatures. Beasts. Ethereal dragons whose scales were made of screaming faces. Serpents spun from regret. Titans formed from genocides.
The battlefield had expanded. The war had turned.
Seraph floated beside Knox, her wounds mending, her gaze resolute.
"I'm with you."
He didn't reply in words.
He simply stepped forward.
And together, they rose.
The city below trembled.
Reality frayed.
And the war of souls began in earnest.