The world seemed to listen.
Not like something hearing a sound — but like something ancient recognizing a mistake being corrected.
Brígida spoke.
Not to the world.
Not to the boundary.
But to that which had already been,
before the name "existence" had weight.
"Lasair naomh, fill arís.""Ní ghlaoim thú — cuimhním ort.""Tríd an tine bheo…""bí iomlán arís."
The last word did not spread.
It imposed itself.
The boundary opened by Éon yielded a degree — offering an unstable, imperfect breach… sufficient for Brígida.
Reality lost alignment for an instant, as if it had been contradicted.
Planes did not align.
Directions did not agree.
The Drakkoul screamed.
Not in pain.
In refusal.
The creature began to unravel like something that should never have had form.
Flesh slid away in silence, bones folding inward, annulling themselves.
The profane core pulsed — not seeking survival, but begging for function.
It found none.
Brígida advanced.
Where the Drakkoul came apart, something was taken.
Black filaments tore free from the collapsing creature, serpented through the air like roots ripped from the wrong soil, converging on Brígida's raised arms.
The spiritual form lost transparency.
It gained shadow.
Weight.
Consequence.
She raised her hand.
Not toward the Drakkoul.
Toward Brianna.
Golden eyes ignited like embers remembered by fire.
"Tar chugam."
Brianna screamed.
Not in fear — in violation.
The filaments coiling around her reacted as if something had pronounced a right older than will itself.
The black strands tore through the air, ripped from her, merging with those of the Drakkoul, wrapping Brígida in violent spirals.
The sound that followed was not an explosion.
It was formation.
The dry crack of bones finding their place.
The wrong weight of a body being imposed upon the world.
The storm around them intensified.
It did not push.
It denied approach.
Whirok felt it first.
Morriah too.
They did not advance.
Because there was no possible combat there — only consummation.
Morriah watched with the serenity of one who has already seen empires born worse than this.
"I suggest you leave, reaper."
"There are things happening that were not made to be witnessed… much less survived."
Whirok answered with a look heavy with fury.
"And since when do you believe you have authority to tell me where to stand… or where to go?"
When he blinked, Morriah was already in front of him.
"No."
"You receive warnings."
Whirok straightened, stopping before her.
Morriah passed through his body like a cold breeze, reappearing behind him with irritating ease.
"That child expanded a boundary," she said, calmly. "One that does not ask permission."
"And you, as a wanderer who has roamed the Abyss for far too long, know exactly what that implies."
Whirok turned slowly.
A crooked, defensive smile formed at the corner of his mouth.
"I am a prince of the Abyss."
"Keep speaking like that… and I may need to remind you of what happens when you forget who I am."
The rain kept falling.
Morriah did not look at him.
She stared into the emptiness ahead, as if counting something invisible.
"We both know…" she began, after a deliberate silence "…that this title has always been more your desire than something the Abyss itself ever acknowledged."
He stepped forward.
Shadows stretched behind her, vibrating with his irritation.
"If I were fully here… I would tear your head off."
Morriah smiled.
Slow.
Certain.
"The boy has begun to gain ground within Tartarus' territory," she continued, as if he had not spoken. "Root. Not passage."
"And I imagine that by now, even you have understood…"
She turned her face slightly.
"…that the child is now beyond your reach."
"So I suggest you retreat… while you still have somewhere to return to."
Whirok drew a deep breath.
The tone lost a degree of confidence.
"You used me from the beginning, didn't you, witch?"
Morriah remained silent for a few seconds.
The smile that followed was small.
Definitive.
"It seems your time is over."
Whirok felt his own abyssal form give way.
The presence sustaining him began to retract.
His body lost density, returning to human appearance.
His arms trembled.
Bones vibrated, on the verge of breaking.
Morriah spoke without turning around.
"That is approaching rapidly."
"If you do not leave now, you will be devoured… and reduced to a convenient resource for his ascent."
A brief pause.
"After all… your shadow has already begun to devour everything he recognizes as an enemy."
Whirok did not answer.
Like a wounded beast, he retreated.
He pressed himself against his own shadow — and it rose like a cloak, swallowing him whole.
The wind weakened.
It did not cease — it merely lost conviction.
The rain still fell, but now there were wrong intervals between the drops, as if the sky were counting something and miscounting.
The ground did not respond to Brígida's weight.
It accepted it.
Reluctantly.
Like something that knows it has no choice.
She breathed.
Once.
And the air around her thickened, charged with a presence that did not push… it simply remained.
Brígida's human form was not ordinary.
Her skin reflected a gentle heat where there was no fire, like embers remembered beneath the surface of the world.
Her eyes — amber-gold, dense — did not illuminate.
They observed like something recognizing structures too ancient to be named.
Her features existed with excessive precision, as if that body were a calculated concession, not a necessity.
What had once seemed translucent now had weight.
Life.
Consequence.
Her gaze wandered.
First, it settled on Brianna, fallen, unconscious after the draining of profane magic.
It lingered there for an interval slightly too long to be casual.
Then it moved on.
There was no visible reaction — only acknowledgment.
Slowly, Brígida turned her eyes to Morriah.
They regarded each other for a few moments.
Neither advanced.
Because force was not measured there — only cost.
Brígida raised her hand.
It was not a wide gesture.
Only two fingers parted from the thumb — like one separating matter from meaning.
The word came low.
It did not echo.
It did not ask for an answer.
"Fóram an luaith…"
The command did not spread.
It was accepted.
The thick dust covering the plains was not thrown far away — it was withdrawn, like something that should never have remained there.
The air opened in layers.
The ground resumed existence.
As if the world, embarrassed, had been reminded of its correct form.
The terrain revealed itself.
Plains scarred by wrong fissures.
Shadows from Éon's boundary spreading like uncontrolled roots, consuming the remaining Drakkoul without haste, without resistance.
Farther on, the wall of the Eastern Kingdom rose — destroyed, open — with soldiers and Awakened crossing the rubble, too small before what moved behind them.
And at the center of the shadows…
A figure.
Walking.
Slowly.
It did not react.
It did not look.
It simply advanced, as if the world were finally reorganizing itself around its passage.
Brígida watched.
And the silence that followed was not relief.
It was recognition.
The rain did not stop.
It fell insistently, thick, heavier than the wind that carried it.
Each drop seemed to arrive late, as if the sky struggled to accept.
The profane core still pulsed.
Not strong.
Not alive.
But insistent — like an error refusing to accept that it had already ended.
Remnants of the Drakkoul lay scattered around, matter without function, bones that no longer remembered why they sustained form.
At the center, the core maintained an irregular, faltering rhythm, carrying fragments of intention that no longer had anywhere to anchor.
Brígida approached.
Water ran over her skin without cooling it.
It evaporated on contact, turning into low vapor that did not rise — it lingered, as if it too had lost instructions.
When she extended her hand, she did not touch the core at once.
She tilted her head slightly.
Not in respect.
In assessment.
"Ferrum terrae… respond."
The word was not spoken to the world.
It was spoken to its foundation.
The ground reacted too late.
A deep sound rolled across the plains, not like a tremor, but like forced acceptance.
Iron rose in dense silence, torn from the earth in raw, dark lines, without shine, still dirty with the weight they had carried since before writing.
The axis took shape slowly.
Brutal.
Inevitable.
Rain ricocheted against the hot metal, evaporating in low crackles, as if the air itself recoiled.
When it touched the core, the pulsing faltered.
The rhythm broke.
She spoke again — not as an order, but as an assignment of function.
"Accipe… et permane."
The core was drawn to the center of the staff.
Not absorbed.
Contained.
The sound that followed was not violent.
It was correct.
The error found its frame.
Brígida planted the staff into the ground.
The water around it opened into an imperfect circle, as if the rain had been instructed not to cross that point.
Then she spoke.
Her voice came low, scraped by time, laden with an ancient weariness that did not need justification.
"This…" — a short pause — "is not a trophy."
The world seemed to listen.
"It is a reminder."
The rain lessened by a degree.
Not in obedience — in recognition.
"This is how I returned to this era."
She lifted her gaze slightly.
"And this…" — another pause, longer — "was the price."
There was no lament.
There was no pride.
The sentence fell like something too heavy to echo.
Brígida straightened.
The staff remained — not as a weapon, but as an anchor, fixing a presence that now had consequence.
Morriah approached Brígida with a smile on her face.
"Ah…" she said, with almost polite softness "so I was not the only one to act ahead of time."
She took a slow step around Brígida, like someone examining a work she had not expected to see again.
"First, the son of Chaos…" — her head tilted slightly — "and now, an ancient divinity, taking advantage of my movements with such… precision."
Her tone carried no irritation.
Only interest.
"I confess I am intrigued." — the smile warmed — "So many adversaries emerging at once…"
An elegant pause.
"It seems the gods have decided to offer me enough entertainment to last."
Brígida turned slowly to face her.
"All I can feel coming from you now…" she said "…is uncertainty."
The word landed with surgical exactness.
Morriah's smile did not vanish.
It merely adjusted.
"Uncertainty…" she repeated, as if tasting it. "How curious. That is usually what others feel around me."
Brígida raised the staff.
The profane core pulsed once — uncomfortable.
"Remember…" — her voice dropped a degree — "…there will always be someone capable of foreseeing…"
She stepped forward.
"…and positioning pieces that shake the entire board."
The staff touched the ground.
The theurgic wave spread low, dense, inevitable.
The rain was pushed out of the impact, the air folded — and Morriah's form began to lose definition, like ink dissolving in water.
Still, she smiled.
Serene.
Satisfied.
As her projection unraveled, the voice remained — soft, intimate, dangerously calm.
"So…" she said "I suppose now it is your turn."
The last shadow dissipated.
Brígida remained motionless.
The staff steady.
And the world understood — not with fear, but with clarity — that the game had just become interesting.