The seal screamed. Not in sound but in pressure, in a gut-deep, reality-warping push that made the air collapse inward before bursting outward in a deafening shockwave. Aloysius staggered but didn't let go of the god-spark. His eyes burned with an unnatural gold, threads of light tracing the veins in his skin.
The beast faltered for the first time, its feral gaze narrowing. It knew. This was no longer a mortal duel it was a trespass into the domain of the divine.
Aloysius moved, and the world couldn't keep up. In the space between one breath and the next, he was behind the beast, carving an arc through its armor-thick hide. The wound blazed, not with blood, but with an erasing light that consumed whatever it touched.
The entity beyond the breach reacted.From the swirling fissure above the crimson river, dozens of black tendrils shot out, each tipped with something like a claw, something like a tongue. They whipped toward him, raking the ground and shattering stone.
This isn't enough, the god-spark hissed.Then burn more, Aloysius answered.
The light within him surged to a brutal, searing crescendo. Golden flames burst from his back like fractured wings, arcs of lightning crawling through their edges. The ground beneath his boots crystallized into molten glass.
He leapt.One stroke cleaved a tendril. Another burned a hole clean through the beast's chest. Its roar gurgled into silence, the shock in its eyes mingling with… almost relief? As though it had been guarding the breach not for conquest but to keep something far worse from slipping through.
The tendrils didn't slow. They wrapped around his limbs, searing his flesh even as the god-spark fought back. His heartbeat matched the pulse of the breach. He could feel it the ancient hunger beyond.
Only one choice left. Burn the god-spark entirely, now, to forge a seal no one could break. Or keep some of it, survive… and risk the breach reopening someday.
Aloysius tightened his grip on the sword, flames licking higher.The decision would not be clean.