Morning didn't come with birdsong.
No gentle breeze rustling the leaves. No playful sunbeams poking through the canopy. Just… silence. And a deep, bone-humming thrum pulsing beneath the earth like the heartbeat of something buried—something waking up.
Nyra's eyes snapped open.
For a moment, she didn't know what had pulled her from sleep — then she felt it.
The glyph on her wrist, the one carved by the Obelisk days ago, pulsed a faint blue, casting ghostly light across her sleeping mat. It didn't hurt, not exactly, but it ached in a way that wasn't physical. Like a warning whispered straight into her bones.
"...KAIROS?"
His voice answered in a low register, unusually quiet.
"Field-wide Essentia distortion detected. Multivector pulses are sent across all local channels. I suggest you get up."
Outside, a strange hum rose — soft at first, like wind through hollow bones, but it grew. Layered. Sickly. It came from the north, from deep within the Ael'myra forest. The direction of the Chrono Obelisk.
Nyra pushed off her blanket and darted outside.
Mira and Kaeli were already out of their huts, equally wide-eyed. Mira's ears were flattened, tail lashed in agitation. Kaeli was clutching her staff tightly, eyes darting to the sky as if she expected it to split open.
Then the bell rang.
Not the usual morning bell. Not the alert for training or meals. This one was low, slow, and final — the village's ancient warning tone.
It rang once.
Then again.
And again.
The entire village stirred like a shaken hive.
Nyra turned toward the northern treeline, and then she saw it.
Skittering shadows. Hundreds of them. Insectoid shapes crawling over tree trunks, blotting out ferns and moss, glinting with oily reflections. They came in waves, and they were heading straight for the village.
"What… the actual hell are those?" Mira breathed, already drawing her gauntlets into position.
Kaeli's voice was a whisper. "They're everywhere…"
Within seconds, shouting erupted across the central square. Villagers were racing to defensive stations, calling out orders. Selya's healing wards flared to life, forming shimmering beacons. Tharen was already at the front lines, barking commands as he spun a blade of pure Essentia into shape from thin air. His presence was like a boulder in the stream — unmoving, unafraid.
"We hold here!" he shouted. "Get the non-combatants to the lower ridge!"
Selya stood behind him, her palms glowing with layered wards, weaving a barrier dome to shelter the fleeing children.
Nyra's heart hammered in her chest, the glyph pulsing faster now.
"KAIROS. What are they?"
"Autonomous Essentia constructs. Possibly summoned. Possibly evolved. Categorically hostile."
"So… monsters."
"Yes. Lots of them."
She grabbed her satchel and sprinted forward.
Mira caught up beside her. "Are we doing this?"
"Like we have a choice?" Nyra shot back with a breathless grin.
Kaeli followed, her wind sigils already beginning to glow, forming elegant patterns in the air.
Behind them, the hum crescendoed into a low screech, shaking loose pine needles from the trees.
The first of the swarm breached the village perimeter.
The battle had begun.
The ground shook.
Boots slammed across the dirt trails. Orders rang out like percussion. Children were hurried underground. Arrows zipped overhead in arcs of light. The outer perimeter was already on fire.
They hit fast. And they hit everywhere.
The insectoid swarm swept through the northern edge of the village like a flood of moving obsidian — jagged limbs, serrated carapaces, and needle-thin appendages clacking with unnatural precision. Some of the size of wild dogs. Others are the size of full-grown deer.
But the villagers were ready.
Kaeli stood at the centre of the second line, eyes locked in concentration. Her small frame tensed as her hands carved sigils in the air — a soft whistle built around her, wind gathering in swirling ribbons.
"Scatterleaf Waltz!"
She stomped the ground, and a gale tore through the battlefield. Dozens of the bugs were lifted, spun, and flung into nearby trees with bone-crunching force. Wind blades followed — sharp and almost musical — slicing their wings clean off mid-air.
Mira, further up the line, stood like a wall — legs wide, gauntlets flaring with stored Essentia.
"Get behind me!"
One of the larger creatures pounced — wrong move.
She caught it mid-air with a gravity burst that snapped it down to the ground, denting the earth. She didn't wait for it to recover. With a roar, she slammed her gauntlet into its thorax and detonated an explosive glyph from point-blank.
Splat.
Nyra danced between the chaos, eyes scanning, breath steady. Not every attack had to be loud. Hers were surgical.
She etched glowing glyphs into trees, rocks, and the ground — tracking runes that redirected the swarm, funnelling them into kill zones prepared by the older warriors. It was a strategy. Flow control. Battlefield engineering.
"One more to the left! Now!"
Her shout guided two hunters to flank a twisted bug that had broken through. They finished it cleanly.
And then—
A screech cut the sky.
A new one. Bigger. Deeper.
The forest groaned. Trees cracked.
Everything stopped.
From the treeline came a blur of motion — not a person. A blur of blades.
Veska launched into the fray like a shot out of a warbow, twin daggers spinning in her hands, Essentia crackling behind her like lightning.
"You're late," Mira muttered with a grin.
"Fashionably so," Veska answered mid-spin, as she severed the leg of a lunging creature. "Where's the big one?"
Before anyone could answer, the wind shifted.
A pulse of corrupted Essentia cut across the battlefield like a storm front.
Selune landed beside Kaeli with a graceful bound, her sigil tattoos flaring silver.
"The barrier won't hold. Something's coming."
"Something worse?" Nyra asked.
"Much worse."
Then the sky screamed.
A blinding light tore across the treetops — a beam of pure Essentia corruption, fired from deep within the woods. It struck the barrier dome on the village's eastern wall. The spell shattered like glass, sending shards of burning magic in every direction.
Villagers cried out. Healers scrambled. The mystics who'd been holding the chant were flung backwards.
Smoke. Fire. Screams.
In the clearing, all went still.
Then came the roar. Louder than anything before. The trees began to fall.
A single, towering figure stepped through the carnage — obsidian-armoured, its body pulsing with red veins of code-like patterns. Its eye, a perfect, cracked circle glowing like a dying star, locked on the village.
"It's here," Nyra whispered.
"What… is that?" Kaeli breathed, her voice trembling.
"Final boss," Mira said flatly.
KAIROS buzzed to life in Nyra's head.
"That… is not a monster. That is a failsafe construct. Architect-level. And it is not supposed to be awake."
Nyra's grip tightened. Her blood felt like static. The glyph on her wrist flared again, pain shooting up her arm.
Mira cracked her knuckles. "We charging it?"
Nyra nodded, jaw set. "Yeah."
Kaeli swallowed hard. "We're going to die, aren't we?"
"Only if we take too long," Veska grinned, wiping black goo off her blade.
A sixth presence arrived behind them — Tanya, dressed in dark battle leathers, eyes glowing faintly. She didn't say a word. She just nodded.
The six of them faced the creature.
It turned to them like it knew.
Its eye narrowed.
And then, the charge began.