The moment Xander's strike hit Dren, something deep beneath Valenreach woke.
The First Flame, sealed under the academy for centuries, pulsed like a beating heart.
The snow lifted into the air —
The air folded inward —
And reality itself began to hum.
"Resonance surge—detected!"
Mira's voice broke through static. "Xander—what the hell did you do!?"
He couldn't answer.
Every nerve in his body was burning — every drop of blood vibrating with energy that wasn't his.
Lightning arced across his arms, then bled into liquid streams of silver-blue water.
The sky split open.
A crack of light erupted above Valenreach, spreading wider until it tore the clouds apart.
The Resonance Rift was born — a swirling scar of unstable energy, casting fractured reflections of the world below.
Selra shielded her eyes, shouting, "Everyone! Fall back!"
The Reclaimers scattered as raw resonance surged from the rift, annihilating anything it touched. Airships crumbled into glowing dust. The mountains shook as stone turned liquid, reshaping under waves of unstable power.
Renn sprinted through the chaos, pulling a wounded recruit out from a collapsing wall.
"Mira, we need extraction! The whole damn ridge is falling apart!"
"You'll have to hold!" Mira's voice crackled over the comms. "The resonance storm is jamming half our systems!"
He glanced toward the heart of the storm.
Xander stood in the center — arms out, eyes glowing white-blue. His voice was faint, almost pleading.
"Stop… please… just stop…"
The storm didn't listen.
Selra ran toward him, the ground fracturing beneath her. She pushed through the chaos, ignoring the burning light clawing at her armor.
"Xander! You have to let it go!"
"If I let go…" he said, voice shaking, "…it'll take everything."
She stopped just short of him — the air itself slicing at her skin from the resonance pressure.
"Then let it take me too," she said.
The world went white.
When the light faded, silence reigned.
No fire. No thunder. Just the hiss of melting snow.
Half the mountain was gone — erased. The once-grand fortress of Valenreach now lay broken, parts of it hovering in midair where gravity had lost its claim.
The Resonance Rift still churned above, smaller now, its glow dim and unstable.
Renn stumbled through the smoke, coughing. "Selra! Xander!"
He found them at the crater's edge.
Selra was kneeling beside Xander's unconscious body — his skin pale, faint traces of lightning still running beneath it like veins of light.
"He's alive," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Barely."
Mira's drones finally descended from above, scanning the ruins.
"I'm detecting… thirty percent of the city left intact," she said quietly. "The rest is gone."
Rina stared into the distance, eyes wide. "He did that? Alone?"
"No," Selra murmured. "The system did."
Hours later, inside the surviving medbay, Xander woke to the sound of quiet rain.
He blinked slowly, feeling the cold metal beneath his hand.
Machines hummed softly beside him — resonance stabilizers keeping his pulse steady.
Selra was sitting nearby, her arm bandaged, eyes heavy but alert.
"You're awake," she said softly.
He stared at the ceiling. "How many?"
She hesitated. "Too many."
He didn't speak. His reflection in the glass beside the bed flickered — faint arcs of energy still dancing beneath his skin.
"I lost control," he said finally.
"No," Selra replied. "You crossed your limit. And it changed you."
He turned his head. "What do you mean?"
"When an Elemental reaches death's edge, sometimes their resonance mutates," she explained. "New forms. New laws. You… fused your elements, Xander. That shouldn't even be possible."
He looked at his hand — faint trails of water and lightning twisting together like a heartbeat.
"So now what?"
Selra sighed. "Now? The Council will call you a weapon. The Reclaimers will call you a symbol. But I think…" She paused, eyes softening. "…you're just a boy who wants to fix a broken world."
He looked out the window — the rift still glowing faintly above the ruined academy.
"Then maybe the world doesn't want to be fixed," he said quietly.
Selra smiled faintly. "Then we'll fix it anyway."
Far away, inside the Council's citadel, a figure watched the rift through a holographic projection.
His voice was calm.
"So… the Resonant Child survived."
Another voice replied from the shadows. "His resonance is unstable. If left unchecked, he could destroy the balance entirely."
"Or reshape it," the man murmured. "Prepare the retrieval teams. The boy is no longer a recruit. He's a variable."
The projection flickered out — leaving only darkness and the faint hum of the Council's machines.