The wind howled like a warning across the high peaks of the Hallowed Spires. Snow churned in spirals, blanketing the path ahead in blinding white. Alaric's boots crunched against frost-hardened stone as he climbed. Beside him, Kael's cloak fluttered like a storm flag, sparks of lightning trailing in its wake. Lysera, eyes sharp, tread lightly behind them—her presence cloaked in a faint shimmer of astral energy.
They had arrived at the threshold of the Summit of Echoes, the place where the next convergence of titan remnants was foretold to occur. A place now saturated in primal tension—where forgotten gods had once bled starlight into the bones of the world.
"I don't like this," Kael muttered, his hand tightening around his stormforged spear. "The aether is too dense. It's… twitching."
Lysera nodded. "There are too many threads pulling in different directions. Either someone's watching us, or worse—they're already here."
Alaric said nothing, but his eyes were locked on the sky. The clouds had shifted. Not naturally. Something large had parted them with force. His core pulsed—hot, molten aether humming through his limbs. The fire-and-stone core within him, once a flickering ember, now blazed with city-cracking intensity. But even so, he could feel the edge of something greater drawing near.
Then the scream shattered the stillness.
It was no human sound—more like the echo of an ancient horn bent into a cry of rage. Trees on the distant cliff snapped, birds scattered in chaos. From the forest below, titanic limbs began to emerge.
"Contact," Lysera said, already leaping from the ledge, light gathering around her in dazzling pulses.
The creature that crawled into view was not a titan—at least, not fully. It was malformed, like something shaped from memory and broken dreams. Its arms were too long, its head a crown of thorns carved from obsidian, and the void between its ribs shimmered with the sigils of the Voidbinders.
Kael surged forward first. "I'll hold it! Alaric, go!"
"Not happening," Alaric said, slamming his palms together. Fire burst around his fists as he summoned a blazing glyph, twisting with ancient runes. "This is our fight."
The ground split beneath his feet as he launched forward, slamming a molten punch into the beast's leg. It staggered, shrieking. Lightning struck its shoulder a second later—Kael's follow-up cracking open its arm like a ripe shell.
Lysera appeared behind it, twin daggers of starlight slicing deep into its shadowed flank. The beast wheeled, caught between three coordinated assaults.
But even wounded, it laughed. A voice echoed from deep in its throat, warped and wrong.
"The Convergence belongs to us."
From the cliff above, a figure emerged—hooded, wrapped in silver chains, eyes gleaming violet.
"Vaelion's chosen," Lysera whispered.
The figure raised a hand, and the beast surged with new energy. Its bones reknit with dark aether. It slammed into Kael with brutal speed, sending him crashing into the mountainside.
"Kael!" Alaric roared.
His vision flickered red.
He drew his greatsword—Solarbrand, its hilt etched with fire-glyphs from the Crucible Trials. It flared to life in his hands, a living tongue of flame. A single swing carved a molten arc into the air, colliding with the beast's chest and blasting it back.
Kael rose, battered but alive. Sparks danced across his shoulders as his Thundercore reawakened. He thrust his hand into the air—and the sky obeyed. A bolt the size of a spire slammed into the monster's back, pinning it.
Lysera leapt upward, weaving a star sigil mid-air and hurling it downward. The seal locked the creature in a field of radiant stasis.
Alaric sprinted forward, fire trailing from his blade like a comet. With a final roar, he drove it into the core of the beast—right into the Voidbinder sigil pulsing in its chest.
The monster detonated in a blast of fire and starlight.
Silence returned. Snow fell again, gentle now.
Kael knelt, breathing hard. "That… wasn't a random attack. They sent it as a message."
Alaric nodded. "The Convergence is coming. And we're not the only ones climbing to meet it."
From afar, the hooded figure melted into shadows.
And above, the stars shifted—silent witnesses to the beginning of a new war.