The dust hadn't even settled.
Ryker's hand trembled, his fingers twitching against the cracked stone as he tried to summon mana from a body long emptied. His palm flickered faintly with golden light, then dimmed out like a dying flame.
Around him, the cathedral lay in ruin.
Stained glass windows were spider webbed with cracks, bleeding fragments of colored light across the broken marble. Stone columns, once grand, now lay collapsed, half sunk into the floor like fallen giants. From above, what remained of the dome filtered soft golden light but even that flickered, unstable, like the very simulation around them was unraveling.
Lia leaned against Dean, her chest heaving, blood dripping down her temple.
Sasha was on one knee, eyes glazed, daggers dropped beside her. A deep gash ran across her cheek, staining her face crimson.
Lucas stood near the altar, his cracked spear still sparking. One eye was nearly swollen shut, the other locked forward, unblinking. Sweat poured down his brow, trailing down his neck.
Arthur crouched in front of them, one arm over his ribs, Voidfire sputtering along his blade brightly then dull, then flickering again.
They had done it.
They had survived the impossible, faced the simulants, twisted reflections of themselves, and triumphed. But it had drained them, gutted them, stripped them bare.
And then…
BOOM!!!
A detonation rolled through the cathedral like the strike of divine judgment. Dust exploded from the shattered throne and from within it,
The figure that was hovering above it,
Came towards Ryker and his team,
It hovered, draped in robes of crimson code that shimmered and shifted like glitching data threaded with something ancient and unnatural. The fabric warped constantly, phasing between silk and circuits, reality and something else.
Its face was no face at all.
Smooth.
Pale.
Porcelain like.
Where features should be, there was only a blank, glowing mask etched with jagged crimson lines pulsing with unreadable energy. Each pulse sent shudders through the broken floor below, warping space like heat over stone.
The air bent around it.
Like gravity obeyed it.
Like the world knew it.
Arthur's eyes widened. "Form up"
They rose.
Broken.
Bleeding.
But they stood.
Arthur took the lead again, jaw clenched, his blade reigniting with sputtering Voidfire. Lia summoned flickering flame to her palms. Dean raised his shield, battered and cracked but steady. Sasha limped back into position and Lucas flanked the group, lightning crawling down his injured arms.
Ryker stood in the center.
Mana flickered dimly in his hand.
They faced the figure.
Together.
"NOW!"
They charged.
CLANG!!
BOOM!!!
WHOOSH!!!
It wasn't a fight.
It was an execution.
Dean was the first to fall, his shield met the figure's cloak and the next instant, he was sent crashing through a pillar.
The stone erupts around him.
Lia launched her flame but it met a barrier and dissolved mid air.
Sasha flickered into the shadows but the figure didn't need to aim. A crimson ripple burst outward, slamming her into a wall. Her body went limp, eyes closing.
Lucas's spear struck the figure's shoulder…
But,
Crack!!!!
It shattered in half. He stumbled backward, stunned.
Ryker tried to raise 'Luminous Barrier'
He didn't even finish the chant.
SLAM!!!
A tendril of crimson light whipped toward him, wrapping around his chest and flinging him through the air. He crashed across the cathedral floor in a blur of blood and cloth.
Everything spun.
He coughed, tasting iron.
The figure was above him in a blink.
A long, clawed hand reached down, wrapping around his throat.
Ryker gasped.
Then it lifted him, feet dangling inches above the fractured ground.
His teammates cried out.
RYKER!!!
Arthur's voice thundered through the cathedral, raw and desperate.
He staggered forward, Voidfire blazing anew. "Let him go"
The figure tilted its head at Arthur,
And with a flick of its fingers,
Arthur froze.
His body locked mid stride.
Eyes wide.
Trembling.
"No…" Arthur whispered. "This happened before…"
His sword clattered from his hand.
"I couldn't… I couldn't save him either…"
The words weren't from this battle.
They came from somewhere else.
From another life.
Another failure.
The figure turned its mask back toward the dangling boy in its grip.
"Do you understand your role now?"
The voice wasn't a sound. It was a vibration.
Thought.
Pressure.
It echoed through Ryker's skull like thunder against glass.
"W….what?" Ryker gasped, the grip on his throat tightening.
"You do not belong here. And yet… you were placed."
Ryker's lungs burned. The figure's words pierced deeper than bone. Something inside him twisted…
Something old.
"You were meant to be nothing. But someone tampered with it."
His vision swam.
Blood dripped from the corners of his mouth.
"Someone moved the pieces. Shifted the script. Stole your name… and gave you a lie."
The figure knew.
It knew.
"You speak like you know me," Ryker gasped,
"I know what you were… before the masks."
"Before the Light buried the truth beneath your skin."
The grip tightened. Ryker's vision darkened. A low ringing filled his ears.
"You see them, don't you?" the figure whispered.
"The flashes. The mirror. The voices. That's your soul remembering the truth."
Yes.
He had seen them.
A battlefield of white flame.
A sword of light stained in blood.
A shattered sky.
A name, maybe his name was screamed by someone who loved him.
"What… Do you want from me?" he choked out.
The figure leaned closer.
"There is one among you. One that was never meant to be."
"A fracture in the weave. A cosmic mistake."
Ryker's heart thundered.
"No…"
"They call it god." The voice thickened. "You call it…The Extra."
Ryker's mind reeled.
The figure knew everything.
"Who is it?" Ryker gasped. "Give me a name"
The figure offered no answer.
Only silence.
"Your purpose is entangled with theirs. If you do not sever it…"
Its mask pulsed red.
"....You will both be consumed."
The hand tightened one last time, then hurled him.
BOOOOOM!!
Ryker's body struck the stone floor like a comet.
The impact cracked the tiles, a crater forming beneath him. His back arched from the force, a strangled cry escaping his lips.
Blood pooled beneath his side.
Everything blurred.
Static screamed in his ears.
RYKER!!!!
Arthur's voice broke like thunder, echoing across the cathedral.
He surged forward again, Voidfire bursting from his core,
Only to freeze once more, his body paralyzed by unseen force.
"I won't fail again" Arthur screamed.
"I won't…."
"I WON'T!!!"
His sword ignited with uncontrolled fury but the figure didn't even flinch.
Behind them, reality trembled.
The cathedral's edges shimmered like heat waves. Walls peeled like paper. The simulation or whatever it was was breaking apart.
Dean groaned, crawling from the rubble.
Lia stumbled upright, bloodied and dazed.
Lucas pulled himself to his feet, jaw clenched, electricity sputtering from his hands.
They all turned.
Ryker lay in a crater.
Barely breathing.
The figure hovered above them all, crimson light flooding the broken sanctuary.
And in that silence, its final words rang out.
Not as sound.
But,
As the truth.
"Wake up, Luminary."
The world shattered.
*****
[A/N: I am back from my the break. Updates will be regular from now.]