Sunny
Sunny crouched in the shadows, breathing slowly, eyes fixed on the sky. Through the smoke and flickering ash, he watched the silhouette of a Titan spiral downward, vast wings flailing uselessly as it fell—a broken god bleeding lava.
Far ahead, a smaller form cut through the dust like a dying star. Kallen.
He fell, limbs slack, trident gone, no wind left to catch him. His body plummeted toward a ruined stronghold.
Sunny's gaze followed him in his dead fall. A heartbeat later, a dull crash echoed through the castle, barely even audible over the roar of the flames. Stone buckled under the impact, and a shudder ran through Sunny.
To his left, Nephis immediately sprung into action, disappearing, silent and controlled.
Seren stayed frozen.
She stood there, trembling, her face pale. He mouth moved, but no sound came out. Wide eyes stared at the distant smoke as if willing time to rewind. As if something precious had just slipped through her fingers.
Sunny clenched his jaw and turned away from her. He couldn't afford to hope things were alright, not right now. He allowed a silent prayer as he gripped Wyrm's Tongue. The one-handed sword felt odd in his grasp, but it ate away the heat.
The rain helped too, washing over his skin and grounding him.
Rain… how was she doing?
Then a deafening crash shook the earth.
The Titan had touched down. It wasn't a clean impact. A shockwave rippled through the shattered castle walls, hurling debris and shattering glass wherever it still remained. The roar that followed was pain torn from a throat savaged by burning wounds.
Sunny dropped to one knee as dust shot down the alley. Heat bled from the impact site, smelling of scorched stone and blood. He sprinted through the city, hand shielding his eyes. He turned every which way, using the stifling air as a compass.
When he rounded on the beast, he found boiling blood splattered everywhere. He was the first of Phase Three's defenders to make it.
There, Sunny found a Titan pushing itself up, heart still pounding, but its left eye gone, and its right staring into the distance.
A scraping, dragging sound came from the center of the crater it stood in as it clawed its way across the shattered ground. Another roar tore through the stormy night. But there was something wrong with the beast.
It warbled. It was misdirected.
… it was blind.
Kallen and Kai had taken its sight.
And worse for it, he could see the slump of its ruined wing as it dragged behind like a broken sail of shredded tendon and membrane.
One side of its body heaved, muscles clenching, trying to lift, to fly, but it couldn't gather any height with a crushed wing. Split. Dead.
The thing snarled, spinning its spiked head wildly, colossal mouth snapping at phantoms. Its good wing slammed into a nearby felled building, ripping through the useless structure.
It was angry, wounded, and desperate. But it wasn't defenseless.
Its ruined body seized, and orange light glinted from behind its ventilated body. Blind eyes blazed, empty and oozing, but its jaw unclenched, too wide, split with molten cracks at the sides.
The furnace inside raced out and the world became flame.
A torrent of fire exploded from its throat, sweeping wildly in a blistering arc. It wasn't aimed and it wasn't controlled. It was rage given substance. The Nightmare Creature spun in place, a massive broken hurricane of flaming death. Fire slammed against the ruins of the castle in every direction.
Sunny summoned his Kunai and hurled it toward the spire of a cathedral that still stood tall amid the ruin. The blade wrapped around stone, caught fast, and Sunny ran. He sprinted and leapt, swinging wide as heat curled at his heels, a living wave of fire snarling at his back.
The dragon howled.
It reared on its hind legs, and slammed its good wing into the ground with a thundering crash, sending out a ripple of force that turned rubble into shrapnel and hurled flaming debris skyward. Blinded, bleeding, and enraged, it thrashed in place, treating everything in reach as an enemy.
It didn't need to see to kill.
Caster was the second defender to arrive, striding into the fray with grim purpose. He must have drawn on one of the many Memories in his vast arsenal, something to blunt the oppressive heat. Effie appeared beside him, already armored and ready, with her powerful shield to accompany.
Tessai and Gemma followed, then a dozen more in their wake, each veteran hunters in their own right. Battle worn Sleepers.
Archers now lined broken rooftops, others clung to high ledges along the slopes surrounding the Bright Castle's ruined hill. For the first time, Sunny dared to believe that they could win.
Kallen and Kai had crippled a Titan.
Now it was time for Phase Three. Sunny's part.
Below, Tessai charged first, his towering frame a mountain in motion. He raised a battleaxe larger than most men over his head and roared, closing the gap fast. Even with his aspect's control over cold, the dragon's burning aura would have melted flesh from bone if not for the sky crying rivers overhead.
Steam rose in thick clouds, turning the battlefield into a shifting blur of silhouettes and shadows. But the Titan was easy to find. It glowed and it loomed.
Sunny dashed in, followed by Caster and Effie. Arrows flew overhead, arcing high to avoid hitting comrades lost in the mist. Effie shouted something—a warning—as a red-orange light built before them.
Flame came spilling out.
The Stone Saint appeared in front of him, and he dove behind her as the torrent of fire roared past. Caster ducked behind Effie's shield. It should have killed them. Would have if not for everything Kallen had done… if the Titan wasn't wounded, exhausted, blinded, crippled…
But it was still a Titan.
Sunny groaned—his skin feeling as if it'd been lit on fire—and darted from behind cover. Wyrm's Tongue glowed in his hand, its fireproof enchantment working overtime. He flipped the blade in his left hand, summoning the Prowling Thorn in his right, and launched it toward a watchtower.
The blade found its target.
Sunny pulled.
He flew through the air, flipping mid-flight, feet over head, and landed high above the dragon.
Then, taking a page out of Kallen's book, he kicked off, launching himself straight down. He flashed past the Nightmare Creature's massive head, dragging his Gladius along its exposed neck.
The Titan snapped in his direction.
Sunny hit the ground in a roll just as its jaws passed above him. Tessai emerged from the gloom, axe slung behind him, steam pouring from his skin. With a grunt, he swung like a man possessed.
The axe collided with the beast's face, cracking bone. The dragon reeled back, stumbling, but its tail swept in retaliation, catching Tessai in the chest. He disappeared in a storm of rubble, crashing through a row of shattered homes.
Sunny had just risen when the tail swept past—he dropped again, breath catching. The titan continued stumbling around, its massive bulk betraying it on the uneven, broken slope.
Then, from the sky, Effie fell.
She must have leapt from some ruined tower. Shield activated, she fell like a meteor in armor, smashing into the dragon's skull. Her spear flashed forward. The hit connected, shallow but sure, before she rolled away from the heat.
Sunny followed, diving under the dragon's belly. He dragged Wyrm's Tongue in a line across, then vaulted out the other side as a cone of flame howled behind him.
How many archers or injured or people trapped under rubble had that fire killed?
Sunny didn't look.
He was too busy kiting the beast, drawing its wrath like bait, keeping it turned from the Bright Castle's best fighters.
It was the ruthless calculus of warfare, but the type he hadn't the luxury of solving differently. If his maneuver cost some Sleepers their lives to save his own, so be it.
That's what he told himself.
They were just too weak.
But even Sunny didn't believe that. He just needed something to keep him moving, something to stop him from the guilt. Because the truth was, he couldn't stop. If he faltered now, more would die.
Victory was close, but the Titan was stubborn, and dying monsters were always the most dangerous.
It was no longer a simple battle. It was the execution of something too proud to die quietly.
~~~
Kallen
"Kallen, get up!"
"Please! Please get up… they're dying!"
A voice both familiar and desperate.
Then came a much more dreadful voice. "She's afraid you won't make it."
Agony dragged Kallen from the dark. It hit all at once, sharp, and sudden, and wide, and crushing, as though a mountain had fallen on him and caught fire. Every breath dragged barbs through his ribs. Every blink reminded him of smoke. Of light too bright and red.
Another sound came next, muffled. Was it a voice?
Yes. It was.
Low, urgent, strained with pain and exhaustion.
"Stay with me," they said. A female he could tell… Nephis.
He blinked again and this time, the world sharpened.
A pale face hovered above him, white flame glowing through the darkness. Nephis's hands pulsed with radiance, washing over his shattered chest and ruined shoulder. Her armor was scorched and hair singed, but her pained expression didn't waver.
She was calm and focused.
But her jaw was clenched too tightly. Her hands trembled just enough to betray the truth.
She was scared.
Kallen opened his mouth, but all that came out was a cough.
Nephis's eyes shot to his. "You're awake," she breathed, something in her voice cracking. "Good. That's good."
A small sound to the side made him tilt his head. Or at least try to. He couldn't move too much and his body listened to the pain more than him. A smaller figure came into view.
Seren…
Her hands were balled into anxious fists, and her cheeks were streaked with soot, blood, and tears. Her braid had half unraveled, and he knees were scraped to hell.
But her eyes… her eyes were red and terrified.
"Kallen," she whispered. "Kallen!"
He winced as a thread of starlight wrapped around him, gifting him surprising strength. He hadn't felt its boon in quite a while, she'd gotten stronger at some point.
"Careful…" Nephis muttered, a gloss of fatigue slipping through her eyes. "I'm…" she exhaled, her shoulders suddenly looking as though they held the weight of the sky. "I'm almost done…"
The white flames that wound Kallen together began to sputter, then completely fade as the heir to the immortal flame clan collapsed right into Seren.
She barely caught Nephis, nearly falling onto her back as she did.
Kallen cursed under his breath, shoving his elbows back, forcing himself through the ache with a grunt.
Looking down, he saw Widow's Mantle dented, crushed and mangled, but still in tact.
Good.
"Seren…" Kallen mumbled. "Go… go get someone. We can't leave…" he took a breath, steadying his aching chest. "We can't leave Nephis."
She nodded fiercely, and went to turn around, but he stopped her.
"Did Kai…"
"He's alive," she said, giving him a reassuring smile.
"Okay," he breathed. "Now go…"
She turned and ran off. He didn't want it to be her, but he didn't have an option. It broke his heart to send his own kid sister out there… out there into that hell, but he couldn't do it himself, and he couldn't leave their best healer alone to be crushed by falling rubble.
Of course, if any rubble decided to fall now, he would be crushed as well. He just had to hope something like that didn't happen.
It could have been hours, or minutes, but eventually, Seren returned with a few familiar faces.
Mira, Kallen's pathfinder, as well as Lyss.
She was alive. That was a relief.
"Help me up," Kallen mumbled.
Lyss was at his side first, steadying his arm with careful hands. Her hair was matted, just as Mira's, with fresh sweat and blood.
They both maintained impressive focus. Methodical Hunters doing their job just like any other day. Neither spoke, but they didn't need to.
Together, they hoisted him up, slowly and carefully, until he was upright. Pain shot through him as shrapnel, but he gritted and held on.
"Nephis, he said, his voice hoarse. "Watch her… get her out of here, it's not safe."
"We've got her," Lyss said firmly. "Just please don't die this time, okay?"
Kallen smiled. "I'll work on it." Then, past them, "Seren."
She stepped forward, small and smudged with ash. Her shoulders were drawn back with a kind of trembling resolve.
"Can you use two threads on one person?"
She shook her head.
"Try."
She hesitated, then moved in front of him. Her hands came up, fingers curling as she summoned the thread. A faint shimmer lit her skin, soft and radiant.
The thread formed before sticking to Kallen's chest. Warmth flowed through him, but it wasn't enough. Enough to breath, enough to feel his feet again…
To hell with not enough.
Though a second thread never came, Kallen shoved past the pain and fatigue, groaning as he rose. Before he could fall, he reached for her, her eyes were wide and panicked as if she hadn't expected him to go through with it.
She tucked herself under his arm, bracing against his weight with more strength than he'd ever seen from her.
"Take me to the fight," Kallen mumbled.
Seren took a step, and so did he. Then another.
Only one thread of light bound the two of them together. He shouldn't have been able to stand with just one… he had never withstood such pain and exhaustion, but he kept going anyway, because when had he ever been stopped by what should be?
They exited the ruined building without a word. Only the sound of Kallen groaning, fires roaring, and buildings collapsing one by one. A battle still raged in the city, not far from where he was.
But he didn't quite need to make it to the fight. He just needed a clear line of sight.
Seren remained quiet. She walked, matching his pace without complaint. Every step they took jarred something in his ribs, but his sister was there, pushing through, and somehow that helped him keep going as well.
A twelve year old girl bearing half the weight of a dying warrior in full armor.
Kallen glanced at her. She looked so small, too small next to the towering flames and the ruins around them, and still she held. She didn't break.
"How are you going to kill it?" She asked, eyes steady forward.
"With a trick I taught myself back at the academy."
Seren hesitated. "Why do you need me here, though? I can't heal you, and you can't fight like that…"
He smiled, allowing the barest of laughs. "You're an idiot."
She threw a peek his way, an offended expression present. "What do you—"
"Becuase I couldn't do it with anyone else at my side," Kallen said, refusing to look at her. "And don't make me say it again."
To her credit, she didn't.
She simply stayed quiet, and delivered him to the fight.
Then, impossibly, a second tether—which had been continuously rejected over and over again—latched onto him, gifting him breath and strength.
With that, he began to believe he'd actually make it.
No, he knew he was going to make it. But whether or not he'd succeed; whether or not he could still draw on Olympus's power.
That was the true test, but to get there, he needed line of sight.
Before long, he'd gotten his wish. Seren stumbled beneath his weight, but kept going. He could see her fear as they grew closer, walking up a difficult slope for higher vantage.
Down below, the blind titan, its body a menagerie of wounds, fought back with desperation and dwindling vitality.
Kallen could see at least ten fresh corpses scattered across the ground—new, people who'd died because he couldn't do more in his fight in the skies. Sunny, Effie, and Caster fought alongside Gemma, and two other hunters from what Kallen could tell.
They assaulted the Titan with a barrage of strikes, most unable to cut deep enough to be fatal. Though the thing was blind, it still lashed out every which way. It was still a danger. More fighters would probably die… maybe even his friends.
So Kallen told Seren to stop and began the slow and arduous process of mentally preparing himself.
He felt for the connection with Olympus, finding that its enchantment: [Unworthy] was suddenly lifted through his intent to fight the Titan.
"Steady me…" he groaned. "Please."
Seren's muscles were probably on fire, but he couldn't worry about that now. He needed to trust her to do her part.
Kallen closed his left eye, blinking the right one hard. He wound his arm back, wind gathering in droves.
Activating th enchantment [Skybringer] nearly stole his strength away, but that was what Seren was here for.
"Steady."
Kallen could have led the fight with this maneuver. It was a potential one shot kill on the Titan. The problem was, it would cripple his ability to fight, both due to his lack of experience with wind, as well as with the technique itself.
He would try the mantis fist again, but this time, with no water to help him.
This time with a different fluid, one he wasn't sure would even work. He didn't have time to contemplate the science behind it, or calculate what would happen to him afterward.
The fight needed to be over hours ago, but the best he could settle for was right now. And so he took a deep breath.
The air around was already swirling, bent and warped by the heat, by the Titan's wings, by the remnants of buildings still crumbling, but Kallen wasn't pulling from the chaos. He was shaping his own.
It gathered at his back, spun tighter than before, tighter than he'd ever managed. It was far harder to control than water, it wrapped around him, coiled vertexes resting at first, then yielding and twisting and aligning.
No water. No forgiving medium to hold the pressure. Just air, so volatile, so light it shouldn't have worked.
But it did.
Spirals folded in on themselves, forming pressure rings down his arm, building kinetic tension with every millisecond he held the pose.
Just like the shrimp, Kallen. Just like the shrimp.
His arm trembled. It would collapse any moment. He could feel feedback building through his shoulder, joints locking into place, tendons straining.
The Trident of Olympus glowed faintly in his grip, accepting him and acknowledging his rule. Unworthy, he was not.
Kallen visualized a phantom latch of wind, taut and screaming like hell to be undone.
He released.
Wind detonated.
There was no delay. No recoil, and no room for error.
The trident cracked from his hand with a shriek that tore through the battlefield, bending air, igniting it in a focused ring of heat around its shaft, breaking the sound barrier before it had cleared a dozen feet.
The dragon hadn't registered a thing.
One moment it was coiling its body for a breath to drown Gemma the hunter, and the next, there was a hole through its skull. Through bone, through brain, through heat and fury and scale.
It tore out the other side, fading into sparks mere moments afterward.
The Titan didn't sway. It just fell.
A booming shockwave, then…
[You have slain an Awakened Titan, Greater Wyrm of the Depths.]
[A Legendary Leviathan has been slain!]
[Your Aspect Legacy mastery level has increased.]
[You have received the right to claim a Legacy Relic.]
[A Defiled Leviathan has been subjugated.]
[A Leviathan has pledged allegiance to your crown.]
Kallen sagged, but Seren held steady beneath him, his shattered arm dangling at his side. He didn't need to look to know what it looked like. He should have passed out from shock or bloodloss, but his body was strangely healthy from Nephis's healing. He was just exhausted. His soul was exhausted.
The Mantis Fist technique had worked.
[The depths are overflowing with power.]
[Your influence grows.]
A strange feeling began to permeate from him. He wasn't sure—
[Your ascension is complete.]
[You have received a new Tideform.]
[Your Subjects have grown.]
Something within him exploded, drowning him in indescribable pain. He couldn't even remember when his eyes had closed.
~~~
Kallen awoke floating in a void of inky darkness. He ground his teeth to force back the phantoms of pain wracking him.
Actually… he found that his body felt rather good. Energetic, powerful, as if another of Seren's starlight threads had wound around him.
Quickly, he abandoned this place and dove into his soul sea. There, his right arm was as good as new, for now, and Puddle came zipping up to him immediately.
But there were a few things different.
He inspected Puddle, finding that he was the first noticeable change. The Veilray had grown slightly. It wasn't much, but it was just barely noticeable.
Additionally, there was a newcomer in the breathtaking depths of his sea. A dragon, small in comparison to the Titan he'd fought for so long, but a dragon nonetheless.
It was still large, maybe around the size of a full grown horse. But dwarfed by its previous incarnation.
Kallen swam toward it, but it looked down its proud nose and snorted, too prideful to meet him in earnest. He stared at it for a moment, and checked his runes.
It's a Dormant Monster…
He switched to Puddle's runes.
He's a Dormant Monster as well…
Kallen shifted around, staring at his single core—staring at two cores of shifting water in the distance.
I'm… am I a Dormant Monster?
Kallen had to stop himself and leave his soul sea. He could get caught up in all that nonsense when he knew who had made it and who hadn't.
He woke up to the feeling of being dragged by the collar of his armor across the ground. Seren was heaving with effort, dragging him in bursts of movement, messing up his already ruined right arm.
Hearing his pained shout, she stopped and looked down at him, concern written on her face. Then anger.
"What the hell?" She shouted, cursing for the first time in front of him. "I thought you—I was taking you to Nephis! You just passed out on me and I didn't know what to do and I—"
"I'm… okay," Kallen murmured, watching her expression soften from anger to relief. Then to tears.
"I thought you…"
She let go
"I'm okay, Seren."
He really was okay. Somehow. Of course, he was exhausted, and his arm was broken in gods knew how many places. There were burns everywhere, and cuts and lacerations and everything under the sun.
But he struggled to his feet with effort, and brought Seren into a half hug with his one good arm.
"The place where Nephis had healed you got hit with a fire blast," she told him, exhaling deeply into his chest.
Kallen placed a hand on her head and took a labored step back. "Mira and Lyss were with her. They probably took her somewhere… "
He stopped talking.
Over the din of the rain, he heard quick, shallow breaths. Not too far away. Not too far from death.
He squinted into the chaos, face twisting with effort to see.
Then he saw…amid rubble, half buried, lay Lyss. Motionless. Tears carving lines down her burned cheeks.
Kallen forgot everything. The pain, the blood, the exhaustion, and the fire devouring the castle. All of it faded. All that remained was a lone, dying girl, and the sound of her breaking breaths.