Elara didn't scream this time. She laughed. A low, rumbling sound that caused the magma lake below to ripple.
"Insects," she boomed, her voice vibrating in their chests. "You bring toys to fight a god?"
She raised one of her massive shadow-limbs—a twisting cable of violet muscle the size of a tree trunk—and swept it across the cavern. She wasn't aiming for them; she was aiming for the bridge they were standing on.
"Jump!" Aarav roared.
He grabbed Liora. Mara grabbed Kael.
CRASH!
Elara's limb smashed through the stone bridge, obliterating it instantly. Debris rained down into the magma, hissing as it melted.
They were falling.
"Liora!" Aarav yelled in mid-air.
Liora, despite the terror, clenched her hands. The silver Aether-robe she wore flared with light. "Wind-Step!"
A cushion of compressed air caught them just ten feet above the magma. It threw them forward, hard, onto the circular stone platform surrounding the Crystal Sphere.
They rolled to a stop. The heat here was blistering. The sphere loomed above them, pulsing with the frantic light of the trapped Ancient One. And clinging to the other side of the sphere was the mountain-sized monstrosity of Elara.
"Formation!" Aarav shouted, scrambling to his feet.
Elara peered around the sphere. Her violet eye locked onto them.
"Die."
She unleashed a barrage of shadow-spikes from her body. Hundreds of black needles, each the size of a spear, rained down on the platform.
"Oh no, you don't!" Mara leveled her new Magma-Caster. She didn't just pull the trigger; she held it down.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
The heavy brass weapon roared. It fired slugs of super-heated, condensed magma. The projectiles met the shadow-spikes in mid-air.
BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions of fire and shadow filled the air. Mara was a one-woman artillery battery. "I love this gun!" she screamed, grinning maniacally as the recoil shook her bruised body.
"Cover fire!" Aarav ordered. "Kael, Liora, hold this position! I'm going in!"
"Aarav, she'll crush you!" Liora yelled, erecting a barrier of wind to deflect the debris.
"She has to catch me first!"
Aarav charged. He didn't run towards Elara; he ran towards the massive shadow-tendrils anchoring her to the platform.
Elara saw him. She detached a smaller limb—still thick as a man's torso—and whipped it at him.
Aarav didn't dodge. He raised his left gauntlet.
CLANG!
He caught the shadow-whip. The force drove his feet into the stone floor, creating cracks, but the gauntlet held. The golden lines on the armor flared.
"My turn," Aarav gritted out.
He gripped the shadow-limb tight. The gauntlet amplified his strength tenfold. He spun his body, using the momentum.
He didn't pull himself to her. He pulled her to the ground.
With a roar of exertion, Aarav yanked the massive limb. Elara, top-heavy and unstable, shrieked as her grip on the sphere slipped. She crashed down onto the platform, shaking the entire cavern.
"YOU..."
She tried to rise, but Aarav was already there. He leaped into the air, his right fist glowing like a miniature sun.
"BREAKER STRIKE!"
He punched the ground right in front of her face.
He didn't hit her. He hit the stone beneath her. The Blade Sigil analyzed the fault lines in the floor. The impact shattered the platform's edge.
The ground beneath Elara's massive bulk gave way. She slid backward, one of her massive legs dipping into the magma pool below.
HISSSSS!
"AAAAHHH!"
Magma burned her shadow-flesh. It bubbled and boiled, eating away at the corruption.
"Keep hitting her!" Aarav yelled, retreating as she flailed wildly.
Mara reloaded and fired directly at Elara's exposed face-skull. THUMP! The magma slug exploded on impact, cracking the black bone.
Kael, sitting near Liora, spun his glaive. A group of smaller shadow-creatures—spawned from Elara's spilled blood—were crawling towards them.
"Come closer," Kael whispered.
As the spawn lunged, Kael's glaive became a windmill of death. The curved blades sliced through shadow-flesh effortlessly. He couldn't walk, but within a ten-foot radius, he was the god of death.
But Elara was adapting. She pulled herself out of the magma, her burnt limb regenerating instantly with sickening squelching sounds.
"Enough games," she gurgled.
She turned her back to them. She faced the Crystal Sphere.
"She's ignoring us!" Liora realized with horror. "She's going for the Core!"
Elara raised all four of her massive arms. She formed a giant hammer of condensed void-energy.
"OPEN!"
She slammed the hammer into the already cracked Crystal Sphere.
CRACK!
The sound was agonizing. It felt like a psychic scream. A massive spiderweb fracture appeared on the sphere.
Pure, blinding white Aether leaked out. It was wild, radioactive energy.
Elara didn't shy away. she inhaled it.
The white light rushed into her mouth, into her chest.
"She's absorbing it!" Aarav yelled. "She's eating the Ancient One!"
Elara began to change. Her black shadow-flesh turned translucent white. She grew larger, shedding the monstrous shape to reveal something more terrifying—a towering figure of pure light and void, pulsating with infinite power. She floated off the ground, no longer bound by gravity.
"YES..." Her voice wasn't raspy anymore. It was a chorus of thousands. "LIMITLESS."
A wave of energy blasted out from her.
It hit the team like a physical wall.
Mara was thrown against a pillar, her cannon clattering away. Kael was knocked flat, shielding his face. Liora's barrier shattered instantly, and she was blown backward, sliding dangerously close to the edge of the platform.
Aarav crossed his gauntlets to block. The force dragged him back twenty feet, his boots carving grooves into the stone.
He looked up.
Elara was glowing. She looked like a star born of hatred.
"The test is over," Elara announced, raising a hand. A ball of energy the size of a small sun formed above her palm. "Antima is mine. The world is mine. And you... are dust."
"We failed," Mara coughed, blood trickling from her ear. "We were too slow."
Aarav looked at the giant ball of energy. Then he looked at the crack in the sphere. The Ancient One inside was thrashing, weakened, being drained alive.
He looked at his gauntlets. They were smoking, overheating.
"Liora," Aarav said calmly, not taking his eyes off Elara.
"Aarav, don't," Liora sobbed, knowing that tone. "Whatever you're thinking... don't."
"Can you launch me?" Aarav asked. "One last time."
"She'll vaporize you before you get close!" Kael yelled from the floor.
"Not if she's distracted," Aarav said. He touched the Blade Sigil. "I can feel the Ancient One. It's scared. It wants to be free. If I can widen that crack... just enough..."
"You'll let the Aether out," Liora realized. "It will blow up the cavern!"
"It will blow her up," Aarav corrected. "We just need to survive the blast."
Elara prepared to throw the sun-bomb.
"LIORA! NOW!" Aarav screamed.
Liora didn't argue. She screamed in defiance and thrust both hands forward. A concentrated jet of wind hit Aarav's back.
He launched into the air like a missile.
Elara saw him coming. She smiled. She shifted her aim from the group to the lone, flying boy.
"Goodbye, Breaker."
She threw the sun-bomb at him.
Aarav didn't dodge. He brought his gauntleted fists together. He focused every ounce of his will, his anger, his love, and his structure-vision into a single point.
He punched the sun-bomb.
"PARRY!"
He didn't block it. He hit it at the exact angle to deflect it. The massive ball of energy grazed his shoulder, burning his skin, but it flew past him...
...and slammed into the ceiling above Elara.
BOOM!
Hundreds of tons of obsidian rock crashed down on Elara, burying her for a split second.
It was enough.
Aarav landed on the Crystal Sphere itself. The heat was unbearable. His boots started to melt.
He stood directly over the massive crack. He could see the Ancient One swirling inside—a being of pure thought and light.
"I'm sorry," Aarav whispered to the entity.
He raised both fists high. The gauntlets whined, glowing white-hot.
"BREAK!"
He slammed both fists into the crack.
The sphere shattered.