Lyn's rage for being denied the right to know about how identity fueled her ejection toward the obsidian titan. She threaded right through the titan's flank, slicing through its regenerative tissue with ease; she slid down and primed herself ready for an upward slash, clenching her teeth as she rushed toward the titan's descending arm. Leaping on its hulking frame, Lyn ascended toward the titan's head at blistering speeds, dodging sprouts of rotten black pustules lined across its arm bubbling with lethal intent.
As a combination of front-firing tendrils ejected from underneath the titan's shoulders toward Lyn, she dashed inside one of Arisz's timed projected portals to reappear above the top of its head. Flipping Déraciné in an off-hand position, Lyn reared forward and plunged her blade into the titan's shining blue orifice, sending a tremendously loud roar across the suspended stone bridge.
A burst of blue aether blasted her backward, clashing with several suspended rocks in the sky. After catching her own weight on one of them, she descended safely down beside the rest of the group, who defended against the titan's torrent of black rotten projectiles with Claire's barrier.
"That's the weak point," Lyn called, preparing herself to dash by leaning forward. "Arisz, get me back up there again!"
Ardine's eyes gleamed in blue as streaks of projectiles from the Rot Mother fragment's core atop the titan's head descended in a flurry of blurred blasts. "Watch it, watch it, watch it!" He shouted, ducking behind Claire's barrier.
Instead of repelling them, the blue streaks passed through Claire's barrier with ease, striking the chests of Lyn, Ardine, and Claire directly. All three of their eyes suddenly rolled to the back of their head, blanking out in a fog of white that electrified their minds.
Throughout Lyn's vision, remnants of the voices within the fragment whispered as followed:
Step back. Please. Listen to me.
Don't you dare spout that nonsense BULLSHIT!
I'm going to kill you!
Their eyes returned back to their normal state, forcing them to immediately glance at each other in bewilderment. Lyn could have sworn one of the voices within her brief vision sounded extremely familiar.
"Blade...?" Lyn whispered.
Ardine looked at Lyn's lips. "I heard..." He begun.
"He..." Claire was cut off by Arisz, roaring at them to spring them back to action.
"MOVE, IDIOTS!" Arisz yelled.
The obsidian titan had been charging a powerful attack from a distance, causing a heavy slate of putrescent Rot substance to descend from the sky above them in the shape of a spearhead. Before they could separate, the spearhead collided with the base of the bridge, splitting it in half. Lyn, Ardine, and Claire stumbled backward, losing their balance teetering on the cusp of plunging toward the dark descent to the abyss.
"NO!" Claire cried, lunging forward with her left hand toward both Lyn and Ardine. Her hand fired a golden beam of aether, suspending the rocks that tumbled downward and the two of them from falling.
Lyn and Ardine both stared at her, frozen in time. Clenching her teeth, Claire yanked them both up like a slingshot, sending them toward the edge of the bridge and deactivated her beam, exhausted from the force of her energy. She gasped at the horrifyingly new ability she had no knowledge of, glancing at her left hand in awe.
"How... how did I..." Claire whispered.
"CLAIRE!" Lyn shouted, reaching her right palm outward as the foundation of the bridge beneath her began to crumble.
Snatching her wrist, Lyn yanked Claire back toward the bridge, stopping her from plunging to her death.
"Thanks." Claire said.
"Don't thank me yet," Lyn said, turning back toward the obsidian titan. Her eyes shot straight at the blue hue emitting from the titan's head. "Focus on that weak point!" She commanded before dashing toward the creature at full speed.
"Got it," Claire said, turning toward Ardine before rushing with Lyn. "Aim at it!" She shouted.
Lyn and Claire charged toward the obsidian titan, who sprouted multiple black Rot spawn across the stone bridge. The creatures had foul and grotesque acidic lesions across its bodies all bubbling with acidic decay. Without eyes, the hookworm-like creatures charged at the duo with extended grasps, slinging their infected pustules at them like projectiles.
Claire emitted her barrier with her left hand, taking the charge as Lyn supported her from behind. She jutted Déraciné outward and slashed through the flanks of the passing Rot, blocking the acidic explosions that burst open upon their deaths. A singular Rot stopped Claire in her stride, swinging down with its powerful lesion-riddled arms.
"Break away!" Lyn shouted, shoving Claire to the side as her barrier canceled itself.
As the two separated from the swing, Lyn dove down and swung her blade toward the pale thin legs of the Rot before Claire stabbed inside its jagged maw, executing it. As it begun to combust in acid to take the two along with it in death, Claire pulled Lyn backward and summoned her barrier once more, successfully blocking the blast.
Three more of the Rot creatures hurled themselves on the two, intending to use their combined weight to silence them. Luckily, Ardine's accuracy was on point, countering them with accurate bullets toward their maw to kill them on the spot. Claire spun around for a brief moment and locked eyes with Ardine, watching him affirm the kills with a resolute nod.
"UP!" Lyn shouted, catching Claire's attention as the obsidian titan's gargantuan makeshift arm descended from the skies, intending to pummel them to death with a singular blow.
Claire clenched her teeth and yelled before lunging her left hand forward, blasting a time-halting beam toward it. Astonished by her new evolutionary ability, Claire gave Lyn a direct stare, giving her the green light to ascend the arm once more to strike the weak point.
Lyn swiftly dodged several pustules raining down above from the titan's sun-blotting view before climbing up its arm. To weaken it, Lyn plunged Déraciné down into the titan's skin as she ascended, slicing through its tissue by using the force of her lightning fast dash in order to do so. She kept momentum with her blade, as she sliced it upward from the titan's skin, carving a path through the numerous rotten thorns jutting from its arm.
Before Claire could continue to hold the time-slowing beam in place, a black tendril swung against her from the side, prompting her to release her grip and emit her barrier. However, the force of the tendril sent her directly off the bridge, tumbling into the darkness. Her ears rang with the force of the blow, almost rendering her unconscious with the lethality of the strike.
"PORT HER!" Ardine shouted at Arisz, who broke off between the two with his rampaging spear in hand.
Arisz leaped across several vehicles and lunged his left hand outward, summoning a portal toward Claire's ejected position and onward toward the titan's left arm.
"KID!" Ardine shouted toward Claire, hoping to awaken her dazed senses.
Claire awakened from his voice and rotated her body around, imbuing her folded blade with golden aether from her left hand. After she passed through Arisz's portal toward the opposite side of Lyn on the obsidian titan, she stabbed through to gain leverage. Peeking toward the side, she watched as Lyn bolted herself up at rapid speeds, encouraging her to do the same.
"We fight." She whispered to herself.
She kicked her foot off of the titan's molten skin, charging upward with her left hand shoved in front of her. She leaped through several bubbling pustules underneath her and dissolved the sprouting rotten thorns that laid in her wake.
As the duo leaped into the skies to strike down upon the titan's blue core, a pulse of aethereal energy ejected both Lyn and Claire backward, stopping their assault. Lyn flipped backward, free-falling from the force of the blast as Claire projected her barrier in the nick of time, reducing the force and stabbing down on the shoulder of the titan to recover.
"LYN!" Claire cried, lunging her left hand toward Claire, intending to save her with her new time-halting ability.
As the beam failed to reach her in time, a portal opened behind Lyn and caught her, sending her toward the back of the titan's head.
Lyn dug Déraciné onto the titan's skin as she watched Arisz ascend it, using his deceptive ability to gain momentum and height. A charged blast from Ardine's rifle was timed seemingly perfectly, striking the titan's core to stun in momentarily. Claire dashed forward with Arisz's spear from atop its head, diving toward the core and slicing through a ribbed gap in between the core to expose it.
Upon striking the core once more, the titan forced both Claire and Arisz toward the stone bridge with another pulsating blast. Lyn, however, stayed on the back of the creature, shaken by the titan's mighty roar in agony. Before she could ascend to deliver a presumed final blow, she watched as the titan's shoulders begun to burst in black and red blood, ejecting a set of massive bat-like wings to carry it upward with the intention of escaping.
"It's going to RUN!" Lyn shouted at her allies who descended safely with the support of Arisz's deception. "We have to-"
Before she could finish her decree, another set of blue streaks passed through Lyn's head, following the others moments afterward. Her head tensed up in pain, forcing her to ignore the titan's escaping maneuver. As she pressed against her forehead with her left hand, more voices came through, echoed from the soul of the Rot Mother's fragment.
I'm gonna fucking kill you.
DO IT!
"Claire...?" Lyn whispered with her trembling voice. Pain caused her mouth to part in stunned disbelief, realizing that the voice of the one threatening to kill resembled Claire's unbridled rage.
The obsidian titan reared its back, attempting to shove Lyn off of its carapace. Lyn, who regained her senses immediately as any mistake would have been life or death, descended the titan's skin with her blade still embedded inside. Sprouts of black and red tendrils ejected from the titan, prompting Lyn to ascend by using a kick of momentum to gain speed.
Realizing that the titan was beginning to ascend with its translucent and bloodied bat-like wings, Lyn clung onto the nape of the titan as gravity altered her course of movement. The titan howled as it began to hover above the bridge, dropping pustules of bubbling Rot toward her allies. She watched briefly as Claire bunched up together with Ardine, defending him from the acidic rain as Arisz sliced through them, unaffected by the acid on his crystalline skin.
She reared her head down towards Ardine and shouted at the top of her lungs. "SHOOT THE WINGS!" She commanded.
Claire glanced over at Ardine, who nodded, realizing he would need to activate the true potential of his rifle's coil to even make a dent in the titan's hardened skin. Realizing that it was the dreamscape's illusion that rendered him safe from drawback of utilizing the tesla coil, he knew that such an attack would scorch his skin toward a point of irreparable damage.
Despite this, he knew time was ticking. He pulled the lever back on his rifle and primed the coil with a separate lever, charging the timed blast at a rapid rate.
Lyn watched as the rifle's imbued glow signaled the final attack. She desperately clung onto the flying titan with her blade, searching for a way to strike the core with a mighty blow to knock it out of its skull.
The chance slipped away as the black Rot spawn emerged from atop its hide, ambushing Lyn as the titan flattened its back to cradle its children. As a burst of freezing cold air sliced through Lyn's skin with their adjusted altitude, Lyn dug Déraciné out of the titan's skin and parried an overhead lunging strike, driving her blade through it only to and kick it back off the platform. Two more assaulted her from behind, grabbing her shoulders with their mottled hands.
She switched Déraciné toward her off-hand and swept through their legs, releasing their strengthened grip on her shoulders before decapitating them with one swift horizontal slice. Realizing that an entire army of Rot spawn had risen in innumerable numbers to drown Lyn in death, she prayed that Ardine's rifle hold the line to end it.
"Hurry up, hurry up!" Claire cried toward Ardine, continuing to protect Ardine from the raining pustules. She agonized in horror as she watched Lyn from afar, locked in a desperate struggle fending for her life against over twenty of the Rot spawn, powerless to support her.
As Ardine clenched his teeth to steel his resolve he primed the rifle's crackling charge. He shut his eyes in acceptance of the inevitable backfire before snapping them open. He leveled his aim directly at the titan's right wing. The trigger fell, unleashing a searing bolt that tore through the air like a lightning strike. Upon impact, the wing dissolved immediately off in a torrent of molten ruin, sending the titan in a horrifying shriek of agonizing fury.
The blast hurled Ardine on his back as the rifle's recoil scorched through parts of his leather jacket, melting his right sleeve off entirely. His skin flushed red from the burn as Claire lunged toward him, desperately wishing to ensure the safety of himself and their dream together for the future. Once the pustules ceased its descent entirely, Claire knew they were temporarily safe.
Electricity crackled through the sky as the titan arched forward, sending its blackened Rot spawn tumbling like descending dominos. Lyn seized herself and adjusted her weight to slide across the sides of the titan's spine. Upon reaching the end of its back, she leaped off with her blade angled downward, stabbing and penetrating the thick hide of the left wing. Blood seared through the skies, raining down upon further crushing force.
Arisz reappeared beside Lyn from a downward angled portal and cackled in excitement over her precise blow. Although his envy in combat fueled his desire to overpower Lyn in a positive manner.
"Watch this, apprentice!" He cackled, burying his spear deep into the wing as he rode toward the end. A cascade of blood sent the titan hurling down upon the stone bridge, intending to use its massive weight to topple the stone bridge entirely.
Realizing that Arisz's careless attack would mean the death of them all, Lyn had to put the utmost faith in Claire's abilities. She leaned forward with Arisz as the descending weight of the titan spelled only ten seconds of time for her before calamity.
"CLAIRE!" Lyn cried for the faith of her ally. "Don't think! Just DO IT!"
Ardine gently nudged Claire aside. "Go for it, kid...!" He encouraged, weakened by the burns on his skin.
Turning toward the titan's rapid descent, and using Lyn and Ardine's words of encouragement to fuel her own power, she abandoned her folded blade on the ground beside her and surged forward for a brief lapse of speed. Clutching her left forearm, she screamed with all the might her breath had in her, unleashing a planetary-sized time halting beam toward the titan to halt its advancement entirely. The titan's vast frame resisted temporarily, halting its momentum only mere seconds as the beam struggled to envelop its immense perimeter.
It was only several meters from colliding with the ground and taking everyone else with it.
Claire closed her eyes and drew further strength to stop it.
When her eyes had opened, she found Lyn smiling down at her, proud of the power she had unleashed to halt the titan's advance. Their eyes met with each other, with Claire giving a steady nod of acknowledgement.
In that moment, Lyn knew her trust had been well-placed. There was hope.
She gazed down at the exposed core atop the titan's cranium, realizing the pain from both of its frail wings had rendered it weak. Assuming it would not retaliate with a shockwave of blue aether, Lyn wrenched Déraciné free from the titan's wing and roared, driving the blade into titan's pulsating blue core. Upon impact, the titan shrieked in pain, sending wild spirals of tendrils that hurled Lyn and Arisz forward, flinging them toward Claire and Ardine's position.
The four watched as the titan rose upright, howling in the night sky as its insides began to swell and inflate grotesquely. The stone bridge shuddered beneath them with the force of its roar, forcing Lyn and the others to cling onto the collapsed railing for safety. Chunks of stone from the bridge tore free and lifted skyward from the titan's overbearing aether. A final set of blue streaks crossed their bodies once more from the titan's core, rendering Lyn, Ardine, and Claire into an illusioned daze.
You'll just have to wait a bit longer.
NO!
Lyn's chest convulsed with a sudden pang, sending a violent surge of pain through her body without cause. Freed from the illusion, she recognized Alfaic and Claire's voice once more moments before Ardine and Claire recognized it too.
But before they had a moment to spare, the titan's entire body swelled up to the size of a pufferfish. Its cries were suddenly cut off as white aether shined light through its many orifices, exploding into defeat as a blinding wave engulfed Lyn and the others. The world around them dissolved into pure, endless white, devoid of any trace from their former surroundings. Silence pressed in from all sides, leaving the four figures suspended in limbo.
Lyn turned around as a glimpse of Alfaic emerged from behind her, staring down upon her with a gaze heavy with regret. Unknowing if the image of him was an illusion, she called out to him, wishing that he could have joined her in the battle after a relapse of judgment for how hostile she acted toward him.
"Blade?" Lyn called with an affectionate tone.
Alfaic did not respond. He turned his back and vanished entirely.
"Lyn?" Claire's soft voice called to her.
Turning around, Lyn met the eyes Ardine, Claire, and Arisz, each staring into her with disbelief. It was the disbelief as though her vision of Alfaic was nothing but delusion.
Streaks of glistening blue light spiraled toward the sky, forcing the four to trace its travel. It was only a brief moment of silence until the white aether gradually began to dissipate, returning them toward the stone bridge.
Claire smiled at Ardine after watching as the blue Rot Mother's fragment descend from the titan's previous position toward the center of the bridge. Lyn nodded at the three in profoundness at their combined efforts to seize victory before approaching the fragment from a distance.
A blinding streak of sunlight carved through the cloudy skies; only it was impossible, as dawn had not risen yet. For a instant, the light's brilliance blinded their vision before dimming back into the shrouded sky, still lingering within the clouds.
When Lyn had readjusted her vision, she watched as Joy, one of Krin's disfigured hunchbacked clones, leaning forward with its drooling mouth atop the Rot Mother's fragment. As he snatched it upward toward its chest, his lower jaw nearly hung to the floor as it cackled in excitement like a hyena, eyes bulging nearly out of their sockets.
"NO!" Claire cried, lunging forward. However, Ardine dragged her backward, noticing someone watching them from atop the suspended stone slabs from the bridge.
It was Abel, the final Krin clone, who kneeled in an angled position, with his smug gaze fixated on Lyn and the others. The white aether expelled by the titan wrapped around him and Joy, coating their bodies in a radiant aura as they absorbed it fully. They rose with power beyond the ordinary.
"Have you been dreaming recently, Desir?" Abel chuckled.
Lyn and the others watched as Joy began hovering toward the sky, joining Abel by his side on a separate stone slab with the Rot Mother's fragment in hand. Joy cackled once more, placing the fragment in the back of Abel's tightened black pants.
"This place brings back memories," He continued. "Memories of the time you abandoned me when I asked for THIS COWARD in return..." He finished, pulling Alfaic from behind him in sword form, edge gleaming in the false light.
"BLADE!" Lyn shouted, heart filled with regret for abandoning him. Ardine, Claire stood their ground.
"ALFIE!" Arisz howled.
Abel laughed in tandem with Joy, lowering Alfaic toward his side. "Don't worry," He said. "You'll all be joining him very soon after what you did to my brothers. You heartless wretches. Cain and Seth were my family, my own flesh and blood, and you killed them!"
"They got what they deserved," Ardine retaliated. "And so will you."
Flared into rage by Ardine's words, Abel's eyes grew larger before they narrowed into a cold and controlled glare. He placed his left hand on Joy's shoulder, combining the white aether together; even including Alfaic along with it.
"We'll see about that," Abel replied, smiling like a fiend. "Envie! Desir! Watch as your nightmare unfolds!"
The suspended air beneath them trembled as their auras flared with white aether coursing violently through their veins. White tendrils of light wrapped around them both, pulling their bodies closer in unison. Abel and Joy roared as their voice fractured into echoes, harmonizing and weaving into a singular resonance. Their forms blurred together, sending a cascade of white aether colliding with the four as their outlines collapsed into one being.
A towering figure cloaked in a blinding aura descended from the skies, staring upon the four with the same smug grin Abel had given previously. The fused form of Krin opened his eyes. His irises burned with fury and joy, quaking the bridge underneath their newly profound form. Their features were reminiscent of Cain's silky long hair and Seth's muscular and burly frame. With Alfaic in their right hand, Krin lifted his left hand in the air as he endlessly smiled upon them.
Krin then flicked his fingers down. In an instant, a set of vehicles lined upon across the stone bridge collapsed into a singular planetary sized ball, launching it toward the four. Before they had time to react, the collision destroyed the bridge beneath them, separating them apart.
"MOVE!"Ardine shouted.
"LYN!" Claire called as the torrent of stone blocked her vision. A tornado of wind spread through the suspended bridge, knocking her away from Lyn as Arisz protected Ardine, whisking them away into the unknown.
Lyn leaped from rock to rock as the collision continued to tear through the foundation of the bridge. The vortex of wind carried her upward, giving her momentum to dash from pillar to pillar and platform to platform to gather enough distance to safety. After dashing up a set of wires that held up the railings of the bridge, she leaped faraway as the glare of the sunlight reached her eyes, blinding her momentarily.
Slices of stone and metal shards carved her shoulders and her LYND32 tattoo, bleeding profusely upon impact. Her tethers were severed, but not her resolve. Braving through the pain, she carefully performed rapid leaps through the air and landed across a lengthened part of the stone bridge still suspended in aether. She lifted her eyes to the sky, where fracture stone platforms angled beside her. They were caught in a spiral of wind and aether and orbited around them, suspended in a storm of power.
She lifted her gaze to the sky's glare, enraged at Alfaic being used once more against her will. She had to save him, no matter what, despite the circumstances. Holding onto Déraciné firmly in her right hand, she was prepared in whatever was to come.
The sweltering winds whipped her elongated black ponytail behind her. Lips pressed tight, she fixed Krin with a furious glare, bracing herself for the final battle.
She watched as Krin descended, drifting several meters above her in his newly acquired form. The Lightning Huntress braced her self and planted her feet firmly as Krin landed in front of her.