Burn, Aria. Burn for me.
Kaelen unsheathed his sword. The blade ignited black, sucking the light from the room.
He didn't just fight. He unleashed.
He spread his wings, ethereal constructs of shadow and flame, and took to the air. He roared, a sound that shook dust from the ceiling beams.
He flew a lap around the perimeter of the Forge, trailing a wall of black fire. The void creatures screamed as they burned. The shadows boiled away. The temperature in the room skyrocketed, the frost turning to steam instantly.
He landed back at the North point with a crater-making impact, sweat sizzling on his skin, and slammed his hands back toward the Anvil.
The white fire returned.
Aria gasped, color flooding back into her cheeks, or rather, a glow flooding back into the metal.
"We are running out of time!" Hephaestus yelled, discarding the tongs and grabbing Aria’s metal arm with his bare hand. His skin hissed.
"Incoming!" I shouted.
The main vent, the big one directly above the Anvil, groaned.
Something massive was squeezing through.
A blob of void matter the size of a carriage dropped. It landed on the Anvil, right between Aria’s legs.
It had no face, just teeth. Thousands of them.
It lunged at her abdomen.
"NO!"
I didn't think. I broke the circle. Again.
I leaped.
I tackled the blob, knocking it off the Anvil. It felt like wrestling a bag of freezing slime filled with needles. It bit me. I felt teeth sink into my shoulder, my arm, my chest.
I roared, not in pain, but in fury.
I drove my daggers into it, over and over, churning the void-muck. It shrieked, a sound like tearing metal.
"Flynn! Get back!" Thane yelled.
"Hold her!" I screamed back, kicking the creature away. It dissolved into a puddle of acidic goo, but I was already moving back to my spot.
I grabbed the connection.
Aria’s eyes snapped open.
They weren't human anymore. They were solid disks of magma, glowing with a terrifying, ancient light. The runes on her body ignited, turning from silver to blinding gold.
She looked at me. She looked at all of us.
And then she screamed.
But this time, it was a sound. A sound that shattered the glass gauges on the walls and cracked the stone floor.
"Now we can really begin!" Hephaestus swung the hammer with both hands, bringing it down on her heart.
