The mountain roared.Stones rained—black shards trailing sparks like meteors.Weight doubled, then tripled; the air turned thick as molten glass.
Damian hit the slope first.Something slammed into his chest—small, light, trembling: Adrian.He rolled mid-fall, twisting hard to cage the young man's head with one arm.White fire burst from his palms, carving a line of molten light down the wall.Rock liquefied under his touch, glowing like a river of silver heat.
He was a streak of flame cutting through chaos, every muscle precise, controlled.Ten years of war had burned panic—and almost everything soft—out of him.He'd survived worse: corpse tides, collapsing towers, cities on fire.Not today. Not with him in his arms.He would not lose this one. Not again.
The smell of ozone bit at his lungs.He vaulted a rolling slab, sparks bursting under his boots, heat trailing like wings.
Ahead, Marcus moved through falling stone in a single, brutal motion.He slammed both hands into the ground; dust spiraled upward.When it cleared, Noah was already on his back, arms hooked tight around his shoulders, legs braced against his ribs.Marcus straightened, stone crawling over his skin like armor. "Hold tight."Noah did.
The others fell into line behind—shadows in the storm.The ground heaved beneath them.
Adrian stirred.His eyelids snapped open—gray eyes no longer dull but lit from within by a pale, shifting glow.He exhaled once; his fingers unclenched.A handful of crystal cores crumbled to ash, gray dust spilling between them.
"Stop."
The word cut through the roar—calm, resonant, unarguable.
Damian obeyed before thought could interfere.He dug his heels in; white fire blinked out.A quick glance down—Adrian's face was pale but steady. That was enough.
Marcus almost slammed into him, Noah jolting on his back.Pebbles rained past. Wind howled through the cracks.Marcus caught his balance, half-snapped, "What—"
Behind them, Caleb and Ethan were still dodging debris, voices clashing in static bursts.Noah raised a hand, cutting them off.His eyes unfocused, head tilted as if listening to the rock itself.He'd been tracking every vibration since the fall, but now the frequencies had changed—aligning into a single, heavy pulse."It shifted," he said quietly. "Something's still alive down there. Maybe… a way through."
The mountain seemed to pause, listening back.Then it growled.
Cracks spidered beneath their boots.Steam hissed from the seams; red light bled through.Noah pointed toward the glowing fissure. His voice was flat, certain."There. Open it."
They moved without question.Years of fighting together had burned command into reflex.
Damian couldn't use his hands—Adrian was still in his arms—so he struck with his feet.He drove his heel down.White fire burst from his boots, pouring into the cracks.The heat spread fast, veins of molten light racing outward like roots of flame.
Ethan waited for the glow to peak, then hurled twin spears of frost into the burning seams.The shock of cold met the molten heat; a sound like shattering bone tore through the air.
Caleb's field dome slammed down next, forcing the debris outward, widening the wound.Marcus didn't wait. He surged forward, granite fists swinging.The Breaker's Punch landed square.
Fire met ice, force met stone.The energy compressed, then inverted.
Light.Sound.Nothing.
And then—
the world dropped out beneath them.
Damian's arms tightened around Adrian.Not thought. Not choice. Just the pull of something deeper than instinct.
Then they were falling.