My light magic streams outward in golden ribbons, carving a path through the chaos. But the Veil fights back. It always fights back. Shadow creatures materialize from the smoke itself, drawn to my power like moths to flame. They want what I'm channeling—want to devour it, corrupt it, make it part of their endless hunger.
The massive horror behind us roars again, closer now. So close I can feel its presence pressing against reality like a thumb against thin fabric. The Veil screams in response, tears opening in the air around us, revealing glimpses of other realms—a frozen wasteland, a sea of liquid fire, a place where geometry itself has given up trying to make sense.
The creature before us is a horror torn from the deepest nightmares of the Veil - a specialized hunter that materializes from dimensional tears with terrifying purpose. Standing perhaps seven feet tall when fully extended, its body defies conventional anatomy, constructed from overlapping plates of chitinous material that shift between translucent and opaque, allowing glimpses of something viscous and wrong pulsing beneath.
Its limbs - and there are too many of them, the number seeming to change each time you look - are serrated with bone-like protrusions that curve inward like the teeth of some ancient trap. Each limb moves independently, giving it a spider-like quality as it scuttles and leaps with impossible speed.
It latches onto my leg before I can react.
The pain is immediate and absolute. Teeth—dozens of them, arranged in concentric circles like a lamprey's maw—punch through flesh and muscle, grinding against bone. I feel them inject something cold and viscous into my bloodstream. Not just poison. Something worse. Something that feels wrong on a fundamental level.
It burns through my veins like liquid ice, turning my blood to sludge. Whatever this venom is, it's attacking more than just my body—I feel it reaching for my magic, trying to corrupt it at the source. My light magic flickers, stutters, threatens to collapse entirely. The golden ribbons I've been channeling waver and thin.
I grit my teeth and push harder.
Because if I stop now, we all die. If I lose focus for even a heartbeat, the magic I'm wielding will backlash. It will explode outward in an uncontrolled wave that will tear us apart from the inside. I've seen it happen before—watched a sun wielder lose control during battle and incinerate everyone within fifty feet, friend and foe alike, before their own power consumed them.
I will not let that be our ending.
The creature on my leg tightens its grip, digging deeper. I feel tendons tear, feel bone crack under the pressure. My vision whites out with agony, but my magic doesn't waver. Can't waver. I force it to flow steady and true, even as poison races toward my heart.
Elçin moves like lightning. Her blade—forged from meteoric iron and tempered in demon fire—comes down in a perfect arc. It severs the creature's head from its body with a single clean strike, and the thing dissolves into smoke and malice.
But its teeth remain embedded in my leg, pumping poison even in death.
"Keep moving!" Elçin shouts, already turning to face three more creatures that surge from the chaos behind us. Her blade whirls in patterns I taught her decades ago, each movement economical and deadly. She's holding the line, buying us seconds we desperately need.
Kaan's shadows explode outward, forming a protective barrier between us and the pursuing horde. They don't just block—they attack. Living darkness with minds of their own, they tear into shadow creatures with savage efficiency. Where they strike, enemies dissolve. Where they wrap around limbs, bones shatter.
But even Kaan has limits. I feel it—the strain of maintaining his shadows while carrying Banu, the exhaustion eating at his control. He's burning through power faster than he can replenish it, and the Veil is a terrible place to run dry.
Through the binding, I sense Yasar's focus shift. Feel him reaching through our connection with maddening patience.. Every instinct screams at me to slam barriers between us, to protect what's mine from his theft.
But then I feel what he's doing.
He's not stealing. Not this time. Instead, he's taking the wild, chaotic power I'm channeling and giving it structure. His magic wraps around mine like vines around a trellis, providing a framework without constraining growth. The binding hums between us, and for the first time since it was forged, I feel it workingwithme instead of against me.
My light magic stabilizes. The golden ribbons strengthen, cutting through the Veil's interference with renewed force. The exit shimmer blazes brighter, more solid, actually navigable now instead of just theoretical.
I hate that I need his help. Hate that the binding makes us stronger together. Hate that some small, traitorous part of me recognizes the efficiency of our combined power and wants more of it.
But I'll deal with that self-loathing later. Right now, survival matters more than pride.
The poison in my leg reaches my hip, spreading through my torso in waves of ice-fire agony. My breath comes in gasps. Each heartbeat pushes posion deeper into my system. I can feel it probing at my magic's core, trying to find purchase, trying to turn my own power against me.
"Thirty seconds!" Kaan shouts. "The exit's thirty seconds away if we can maintain this pace!"
Thirty seconds might as well be thirty years.
The massive horror behind us chooses that moment to catch up. Its approach distorts the Veil so severely that up becomes sideways and forward becomes through. I feel reality buckle under the weight of its existence.
A tentacle-like thing swings at me—though calling it a tentacle doesn't really capture how alien and wrong it is. It barely misses, passing so close I can feel how unnatural it is. Wherever it touches, reality itself seems to flinch away and try to repair the damage.
"GO!" Elçin screams. She's fallen behind, three creatures piling onto her. Her blade flashes, and two dissolve, but the third drives her to one knee. "I'll catch up! Just GO!"
"Like hell!" I redirect some of my light magic toward her, forming a blade of pure radiance that materializes in the air above the creature. It plunges down, spearing through the thing's center mass.
The effort costs me. My leg buckles, and I stumble. Kaan's free hand shoots out, catching my arm, keeping me upright. His shadows wrap around my torso, supporting my weight without slowing our desperate flight.
