The village still smelled like scorched bark and wet earth.
Charred remains of outer structures stood like broken teeth along the forest's edge, the ground beneath them littered with ash and the shattered remnants of Essentia-infused barriers. Birds had yet to return. The air felt... wrong — like it hadn't exhaled yet.
Nyra sat on a log near what used to be the training grounds, her eyes fixed on her open palm.
The glyph was gone.
No hum. No pulse. No voice in her head offering sarcastic quips or warnings.KAIROS was silent.
And it terrified her more than the monster they'd just fought.
She flexed her fingers. Nothing. Even her basic Essentia manipulation felt... heavy. Sluggish. Like trying to move through syrup with a fractured limb.
She glanced to the side. Mira was hunched over a small patch of earth, poking at it with a stick. "Think he'll come back online soon?" she asked without looking up.
"I don't know," Nyra answered. Her voice was dry. Small. "I've never seen him shut down. Ever."
From a few feet away, Kaeli sat cross-legged, her hair a mess, cheeks streaked with soot. She was quiet, eyes unfocused, legs idly swinging. She seemed somewhere else entirely, like her mind had taken a walk without her.
The three of them had barely spoken since the fight ended.
"Maybe the Obelisk took more than we thought," Mira muttered, chucking the stick across the path.
Nyra frowned, a familiar itch crawling under her skin — a tension she couldn't shake like a string was pulling at her insides.
Something wasn't done.
"I'm going for a walk," she said, standing.
Kaeli blinked. "Now?"
Mira stood too. "Alone? Hell no. We're coming."
Nyra opened her mouth to argue — then sighed, defeated. "Fine. But stay close."
The three of them moved through the forest, deeper than they'd gone since the battle. The sky filtered through cracked canopies, twilight hues weaving between trees like half-forgotten dreams. The silence deepened as they went further.
Then they saw it.
Half-buried in the base of a crooked tree, the forest floor charred around it like a fallen star — the creature.
Another one.
Dormant. Slouched forward like a broken statue, its black armour cracked, its core dark and silent.
Mira instinctively raised a hand, summoning a flicker of defensive mana.
"No," Nyra said softly, stepping forward. "It's not moving. Not breathing. Not reacting."
Kaeli tugged her sleeve. "What if it's playing dead?"
"Then I'll wake it up," Nyra said — more bravado than confidence.
She knelt beside it, reached out, and gently touched the creature's flank. Her fingers met cold metal and something like skin, smooth and dry.
Nothing happened.
"Huh," she exhaled, standing. "Guess this one is toast—"
"Wouldn't it suck if it woke up right now?" Mira joked, flashing a grin.
Kaeli giggled. "We'd have to fight all over again. I'd cry."
Nyra rolled her eyes. "Please. If it so much as twitches, I'll—"
The creature twitched.
Then it shuddered.
Then it screamed.
A shrill, metallic shriek split the air as it lunged upright — obsidian eyes blazing red, limbs snapping into motion with horrifying speed.
All three girls stumbled backwards, barely forming barriers as a corrupted claw tore into the earth where they'd just stood.
"Oh for F—" Mira yelled, blasting it with a concussion burst.
"It's weaker than the other one!" Kaeli shouted, slicing through a tendril. "But still nasty!"
Nyra's breath caught as she tried to form a high-level glyph — and failed.
KAIROS was still offline.
And they were now officially fighting this thing without him.
"Guess we're doing this the dumb, heroic way!" Nyra shouted, raising her hands.
The battle had begun again — and this time, they were down their ace.
The creature didn't roar—it howled, like a chorus of scraping metal and broken speakers vibrating through bone. Red glyphs flickered erratically across its body, unstable, almost twitching with rage.
Nyra ducked under a sweeping claw and rolled, hissing as her elbow slammed into a root. Sparks of dull-blue Essentia danced from her fingertips — but the control wasn't there. Her Architect protocols were dead weight.
"KAIROS, I could really use a sarcastic comment right now!" she shouted.
Nothing. Just static in her mind.
Mira shoulder-checked the creature mid-charge, her reinforcement spell holding just long enough for Kaeli to rip through its flank with a scything wind blade. It staggered, shrieked, but didn't stop.
"We need backup!" Kaeli cried, eyes darting. "Now would be great!"
"No time!" Nyra snapped. "We hold until it drops!"
The creature lunged, tail sweeping across the field. Mira caught the brunt of it and flew back into a tree, barking a curse as she slid down.
Nyra cursed under her breath and charged, gathering what little power she could. Glyph sparks. A half-formed sigil. She slammed it against the beast's leg. It fizzled — a weak puff of force. Not nearly enough.
She was out of juice, out of sync, and alone inside her own magic.
"Get away from them!"
The forest screamed again — this time from human lungs.
Tharen came barreling through the underbrush like a wall of armor and fury, his Essentia blade blazing red and gold. With a roar, he cleaved into the creature's shoulder, staggering it just as Kaeli and Mira regrouped.
Selya was right behind him, barrier sigils snapping into place mid-air, slowing the monster's advance with radiant webs of protection.
"I told you to rest, damn it!" Selya shouted at Nyra, forming a glyph with one hand while shielding Kaeli with the other.
"I was! Then this thing showed up!" Nyra shouted back, panting.
Moments later, the rest of the cavalry arrived — Tanya, Selune, and Veska, all with expressions ranging from grim to furious.
Tanya's chains burst from her sleeves, glowing with spectral flame. They snared the creature's limbs like hunting traps, locking it mid-swing.
Selune summoned lightning from above, tracing storm runes in the air before launching a full barrage into its core.
Veska didn't wait for fancy. She leapt, warcry tearing through the clearing as she drove both blades into its side, Essentia screaming along the steel.
The creature thrashed wildly, damage finally accumulating. But still — not enough.
Then the world stilled. A strange hush rippled across the battlefield.
They all turned.
Elder Yaro stepped forward, robes torn, beard wind-tangled. He looked older than they'd ever seen — but impossibly steady. Unshaken.
He raised his hand, and the wind stopped.
His voice, barely above a whisper, echoed like thunder.
"You've done enough."
Tharen turned, stunned. "Elder—"
"No more blood today."
Yaro's eyes locked onto the creature — not with anger, but almost with recognition. He knelt, fingers brushing the dirt as he drew an old, forgotten glyph. It wasn't just magic. It was memory.
The air rippled as the glyph expanded across the forest floor, linking with the very roots of the earth. A quiet chant slipped from his lips — ancient, melodic, final.
The creature paused.
Then it began to tremble. Its body locked up, runes seizing in red-hot panic. It let out a screech — not of rage, but of fear.
Yaro's voice was firm now. Calm. "Return to the void from whence you crawled."
He slammed both hands into the earth.
Light erupted — not bright, but deep. Like the sun setting beneath the sea, pulling everything unnatural with it.
The creature glitched. Broke. Vanished. A soundless detonation of disintegration.
And with it, Yaro collapsed.
Silence.
Nyra was the first to move. She sprinted, falling to her knees beside him.
"Yaro—no, no, no—damn it, not now!" she cried.
His chest still rose — faint, flickering.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Tanya knelt beside him, eyes wide, trembling. "Why… why would you use that spell? That one's—"
"A legacy," Yaro said with a soft smile. "And now, so are you."
He reached out, fingers brushing Tanya's hand.
"Carry the flame. You'll do better than I ever did."
His gaze swept the others — Mira, Kaeli, Veska, Selune, Tharen, Selya, Nyra.
"You're ready… even if you don't feel it yet."
One last breath.
And then, only stillness.
The forest was still, save for the slow rustling of leaves and the faint echo of the spell that had just undone a monster—and a man.
No one spoke at first. They couldn't.
The spot where Elder Yaro had knelt was quiet, marked only by a scorched ring of grass and faintly glowing roots. His body lay there, peaceful. Too peaceful.
Tharen stood frozen. His blade had lowered long ago, but his fists clenched until the knuckles turned white.He opened his mouth—then shut it.Again. Nothing came.He just… kneeled beside Yaro's body and let his head fall forward. Silent. His breath shook, but he didn't cry. Not yet.
Selya knelt beside him, hand resting on his shoulder, grounding them both. Her lips trembled—just once.Then she whispered, "He waited… all these years… and still chose to die like that. Alone."Her voice cracked at "alone."She blinked fast, but the tears came anyway.
Veska was pacing, fists curled, rage all over her face—not at Yaro, but at the fact that she hadn't been strong enough."He shouldn't have had to do that. We were right here." she spat. "Why the hell didn't we stop him?"She kicked a tree trunk hard enough to splinter bark.Selune walked to her quietly, gently touching her arm. "Because… he didn't want us to stop him."Veska gritted her teeth, lowered her gaze. "Then he was a damn fool."But she didn't move away from Selune's touch.
Kaeli sat cross-legged on the ground, staring at the fading light with an expression that didn't fit her usual cheer."I don't think… I've ever felt a song die before."She wiped at her cheek. "It's quiet in my head. Even the spirits are sad."Mira sat beside her, not saying anything, just bumping her shoulder into Kaeli's gently, then offering her hand. Kaeli took it.
Mira didn't cry. Not yet. Her grief simmered like pressure behind her eyes—held back by sheer force of will."He died like a hero," she muttered, mostly to herself. "But that doesn't make it fair."She looked at Nyra, eyes quietly asking: Are you okay?
Nyra wasn't sure.
She stood a few steps away, staring at the charred ground. The mark on her wrist had faded almost entirely—just a faint outline now.She didn't feel KAIROS.She didn't feel Yaro anymore, either.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to run. But mostly, she just wanted to go back five minutes and undo it.
"He gave everything," she whispered. "To protect us. And I couldn't even hold a proper spell."Her voice broke. "I wasn't ready. I'm still not ready."
Tanya—quiet until now—stepped forward.
Her knees buckled, and she collapsed beside Yaro's body. Her hand hovered over his chest, afraid to touch."He… he chose me," she said, dazed. "He said I'd do better than him. How the hell do I live up to that?"No one had an answer.
Tharen finally stood. He placed a hand on Tanya's shoulder. "You don't replace him. You just carry what he gave you. Piece by piece. Day by day."
Selune crouched down and started drawing a memorial sigil into the earth with her finger—slow and reverent. Veska knelt beside her without a word and helped.
Kaeli hummed a melody. Not cheerful. Not sad. Just soft. Respectful.
Nyra stepped closer and placed her palm over the soil. "Goodbye, Yaro," she murmured. "I'll make sure your choice wasn't wasted."
And for a long, heavy moment, the only sound in the forest was the whisper of wind through trees.
A world moving on—reluctantly.