Kairo's breath hitched as the sky above cracked—not with thunder, but with silence. A pulsing, violet light flared from the riftstone tower at the city's edge, tearing reality open with a jagged screech.
The siege had begun.
Mana cannons fired in volleys from atop Aetherguard ramparts, lighting the horizon like a firework show gone mad. Each shot ripped into the Riftborn tide charging the city's outer walls—twisted beasts with bones for armor and black flame dripping from their maws. They weren't just monsters. They were war-born nightmares, responding to the call of something worse.
The Elder.
Kairo crouched behind a collapsed stall, the heat from a nearby impact still curling the wooden beams like dried paper. Around him, rubble and mana ash choked the air. His heart pounded with a rhythm not entirely his own.
"Focus," Lira barked from ahead, her hand raised in a gesture. Her eyes, burning with sapphire mana, scanned the smoke like a hawk. "Team B, flank left. We intercept the second wave before they hit the barracks."
She turned to Kairo, her voice dipping into something colder. "You stay behind me. That wasn't a suggestion."
He opened his mouth to argue—but a tremor surged through his spine. The Voidheart pulsed. It had been silent since the ruins beneath Dunhall, but now it beat in sync with the rift's energy, like it wanted to wake up.
No. Not now.
He forced the sensation down like bile, gripping his stave tighter. Across the square, Taryn and Milo were already moving—Taryn sweeping her scythe in calculated arcs, cleaving through Riftspawn that leapt from rooftops. Milo dashed between cover, his black cloak fluttering like a shadow stitched into reality, tossing crystal flares and detonating traps that lit the monsters with burning sigils.
"Three on your left!" Milo called.
Taryn didn't flinch. She slid under one, hooked her scythe upward, and bisected it mid-leap. Black ichor sprayed. Another lunged—she spun and cracked its skull against a stone pillar.
"I see them," she muttered, unfazed.
Kairo forced his legs to move. He followed Lira, watching her carve a path through the smoke with rapid fire runes and razor-sharp precision. Her spells didn't waste a flick of mana—just clean execution.
They reached the fountain square. It was chaos. A Riftborn giant, twelve feet tall and plated in black shale, roared as it slammed through the outer barricades. Guards scattered. Screams echoed. Its arms pulsed with runes not of this world.
And behind it—like the conductor of some grotesque orchestra—floated the Elder.
It wasn't humanoid. Not anymore. Cloaked in writhing void tendrils, it had no face—just a mask of chiseled bone etched with hollow glyphs. Its voice echoed directly into their minds.
"He has awakened. The Vaultbound fails to slumber. We answer."
Kairo doubled over. His chest burned. The Voidheart surged, trying to tear itself open. Don't. Please not here—
Lira's hand was on his shoulder. "Stay with me."
He nodded, trembling. Vaultspace, he thought. Go.
He blinked—and time fractured.
Inside Vaultspace, everything slowed. The siege's roar dulled into a whisper. The world turned pale and still. Kairo stood in the white abyss of his inner realm, panting. His limbs felt lighter here. The pain was distant. But even this place trembled.
Cracks had formed in the distant ceiling of the Vaultspace, spiderwebbing across the sky like fractures in porcelain. Something was pressing in from the outside.
Even this place isn't safe anymore...
He looked around—his training dummies, the ancient martial scrolls he'd studied, the slowly forming landscape of his growing space. It all seemed smaller now. Tighter. Like the void was taking up more room than it should.
Then he saw it—a reflection of himself, hunched over, eyes glowing black.
"You're slowing down," it said. "They'll all die. Because of you."
Kairo clenched his fists. "I'm not using the Voidheart. Not unless—"
"Unless it's too late?" The reflection sneered. "What are you training for if you can't even use what makes you different?"
He turned his back on the voice. He didn't have time for internal arguments.
Not today.
Back in the real world, only a blink had passed. But he felt steadier.
Just hold the line. Don't break.
Lira was already in motion. With a cry, she hurled a lance of crystallized air into the Riftborn giant's chest. It staggered. Then shrieked.
Taryn leapt atop a fallen cart, shouted, "Kairo—get clear!", and hurled a spell scroll his way. He caught it instinctively. It unfurled in his hand: "Sealglyph: Phase Trap."
He nodded, pressing it into the cobbled street with a surge of mana. Lines erupted outward in concentric rings. The Riftborn giant stepped forward—
And froze mid-step, its limbs caught in a prism of runic light.
Lira didn't hesitate. She raced up its frozen leg, carved a sigil across its neck, and detonated it. The creature's head exploded in a burst of black flame and dust. She landed beside Kairo, breathless.
But the Elder was unfazed.
It raised a clawed limb and sliced open the sky.
A rift tore across the sky itself—and from it emerged three more Riftborn, these ones airborne, with wings like broken glass and limbs that shimmered with anti-light.
"I'll take the air," Milo muttered, already ascending a fire escape with his grappling rune.
Taryn snarled. "The Elder's mine."
"No," Lira said. "He's too strong."
But Kairo had already stepped forward. "Let me try something."
The team turned. The Voidheart pulsed again, but this time... he didn't resist. He pulled just enough. Not to fracture his body—but to access its vision.
His eyes flooded with glyphs. His hearing expanded. He could see every Riftborn on the battlefield.
He raised his hand—and shadows from the Vaultspace itself spilled into the square.
The Elder stopped.
It turned. It recognized him.
"He... speaks in echoes..."
Kairo released the spell. The shadows lunged forward—not attacking, but binding. Chains of dreamlight and void wrapped around the Elder's limbs. He screamed. It took everything Kairo had not to collapse.
"I need cover," he gasped. "I can hold him... but not for long!"
The team rallied.
Milo unleashed a barrage of explosive hexes on the flying beasts, forcing them to dive low. Taryn slashed a rune into the stone and summoned a storm of scythe blades that arced into the Elder's back. Lira placed her hand on Kairo's shoulder and whispered a stabilization chant.
It was working.
Until the Elder began to sing.
The chains snapped. The world went white. A pulse of pure Rift energy exploded outward, leveling the square and hurling them all backward.
Kairo hit a wall and blacked out.
When he woke, the sky was red.
The rift had stabilized above the city, a gaping wound in the heavens. The Elder was gone—but its message lingered.
"He has awakened."
Lira sat beside him, blood on her forehead, hands trembling. "You scared me."
Kairo tried to speak, but only managed a cough.
Milo dropped beside him, grinning with a split lip. "Next time you decide to dance with an Elder, maybe give us a warning?"
Taryn stood guard, her scythe at the ready. "He's not done. This was a scouting attack."
Kairo looked up at the sky. He could still feel the Elder watching. The Voidheart inside him stirred.
He wasn't sure if he'd won… or just invited something worse.