They thought it was over.
They thought wrong.
As they stepped from the central chamber, the ground beneath them pulsed again no longer the slow, ancient thrum of a waiting heart…
…but a scream.
A twisted, layered shriek formed of countless voices anguished, enraged, broken.
The ruin groaned.
From behind them, the chamber lit up in a sickening radiance as the blackened husk of the Core twitched no, fed. Corpses of the wretched and scourgeborn littering the ruin twisted in reverse death, drawn toward the center. Mangled limbs, shattered bone, tattered essence all pulled inward by invisible claws.
The Core rebuilt.
But not as it once was.
It birthed itself anew, not as a thought, but as a godless thing. A monstrous fusion of ruin and wrath veins of iron, eyes of countless fallen, limbs made of broken weapons and failed pacts. The ground warped as it rose, hunched and shifting. The ruin screamed with it cracks crawling up walls like lightning, stone bleeding memory.
Elen spun. "It's feeding on everything!"
Sorin's eyes flared with ancient glyphs. "The Core isn't a source. It's a seed. We just helped it hatch."
The monster roared.
Reality bent.
Seren's hair lifted with heat. Her sword ignited, not just with flame, but with flame that screamed. It cracked the air. Burned the wind. The edges of the ruin warped around her melting, reforming, shivering in her wake.
"I'll hold the front," she said, voice burning.
Lira's hands moved in a blur sigils within sigils, snowflakes turning into entire magical engines. Complex rings of frost hung mid-air around her, each one casting different spells in perfect sync.
"I'll shatter its defenses."
Sorin stepped back, glyphs spiraling down his arms, eyes glowing like ancient moons. "I'll feed you predictions. I see its next moves."
Elen vanished then reappeared mid-leap, slicing one of the Core-beast's limbs clean off in a flash of shadow and steel. "I'll carve a path to its heart."
Vera stood still eyes distant. She whispered a name, and time cracked.
Everything stopped.
The beast.
The ruin.
Even fire froze.
But Vera fell to her knees, blood pouring from her nose and ears. Her body shook as the paradox of stopping time tore through her very cells.
But in that stolen moment
Seren moved.
She crossed the gap.
Brought her blade down.
The Core twisted violently, even in frozen time. Its body responded instinctively, arms rising. But too late. Her blade struck its chest Sorin's glyphs activating in perfect harmony with Lira's spellbursts, while Elen drove a strike into its exposed spinal core.
The monster roared..
and exploded inwards.
But not before sending out one last pulse.
The ruin collapsed.
Ceiling stone groaned and shattered. Sigils failed. Pillars toppled.
Sorin grabbed Vera, glyphs forming a healing weave over her. "Stay with me, Vera don't vanish!"
Lira layered frost barriers around them as falling debris crushed paths. "MOVE!"
Elen carried Seren, half-unconscious from the final blow. "Out! There's a tunnel east I mapped it!"
The world fell behind them.
They ran.
Past corpses. Past echoes. Past glory.
The ruin died around them, stone returning to the silence it was born from.
They didn't look back.
Only when the stars greeted them again, cold and uncaring, did they stop.
And breathe.
And bleed.
And live.
Seren lay on the grass, staring upward. "Is it over?"
Sorin looked at the ruin now a smoking crater. "For now."
Vera stirred. "No power-ups again?"
He smiled gently. "Only the stupid kind. Sacrifice. Loyalty. The good stuff."
Seren looked at her team.
The broken.
The bonded.
The ones who chose each other over power.
"We're not done," she said.
And they walked into the night.
Together.