The Shatterling lunged, its claws slashing through the air, green eyes blazing with malice. Invia threw himself aside, rolling across the shattered floor, the beast's talons carving gouges where he'd stood.
He staggered upright, breath ragged, the silver sword necklace thumping lightly against his chest. His eyes swept the wreckage of their apartment; Rose huddled safely in a corner.
The bulb dangled dark and useless, laundry scattered like fallen leaves, glass from the blasted window glinting like cruel stars. His gaze stopped on a jagged shard, long and sharp, its edge a promise born of desperation.
He seized it, the glass biting his palm, blood welling hot and silent.
The Shatterling roared, its limbs twitching—a mindless engine of chaos, yet lethal.
Invia pressed back against the wall, mind racing. No Resonance pulsed inside him, but he wasn't defenseless. The Rifts had taught him to watch, to think, to turn chaos into a weapon.
An overturned table lay amidst the ruin, igniting a spark of an idea.
The Shatterling charged, a blur of claws and snarls, and Invia kicked the table forward, wood splintering as the beast's limbs tangled in its frame. He darted in, shard raised, and drove it into the creature's flank. Blue ichor sprayed, and the beast shrieked.
A claw lashed out, catching his arm with a sickening snap. Pain seared through him, his left arm dangling uselessly, broken. He stumbled back, teeth gritted, blood dripping to the floor.
Through the gaping window, a flash—lightning split the sky, gold and shadow clashing as Harmonics battled the Tyrant. A roar shook the earth, the city groaning under the weight of their war.
Invia's fight was smaller, but no less desperate.
The Shatterling circled, one eye dimmed by Invia's strike, the other glowing with feral hate.
Invia loosened his grip on the shard, switching it to his right hand, slick with sweat and blood. His broken arm pulsed with agony, his strength fraying, but he couldn't stop—not yet.
It lunged again, and Invia ducked low, driving the shard into its side once more. The beast howled, claws raking his back in a deep, tearing gash.
He gasped, vision blurring, the shard slipping as he crashed to his knees. Blood soaked his shirt, warm and relentless.
The beast loomed, ichor oozing, its breath rugged. A distant crash thundered outside, stone crumbling, Harmonics shouting as the Tyrant's chaos swallowed the skyline. The Shatterling hesitated, head twitching toward the sound.
Invia clawed for the shard, fingers trembling, his back a map of fire.
He grasped it, turning as the beast refocused, and thrust upward with a ragged cry. The glass sank into its throat, blue blood washing over him.
He twisted, desperate, and the beast's remaining eye flickered out, blinded. It didn't fall. Wounded and sightless, it thrashed, claws scraping wildly.
Invia slumped against the wall, one foot from Rose, who huddled across the room, her breaths sharp and jagged with terror. The beast stood between them, a broken monument of fury.
Rose's eyes locked on Invia—his blood, his ruin—and her breathing grew louder, a beacon of dread.
The Shatterling snarled, drawn to the sound, and lunged at her, claws outstretched.
"Mom!" Invia's voice cracked, weak against the chaos. He shoved against the wall, legs trembling as he rose, only to collapse again, pain swallowing his strength.
It was going to kill them, and he couldn't do anything about it. First Rose, then him.
If only I were stronger, anguish twisting his mind. If only I weren't an useless, utter failure.
He watched as the beast flew—just out of reach, an arm's length too far. The glass shard was too short, too useless. It lay in his hand, streaked with blue and red. Just like him.
His fingers instinctively brushed the silver sword necklace at his throat, a cold comfort. His mind emptied, and for the first time, the craving stopped.
Everything vanished—only the problem remained, sharp and impossible.
Then, like a frame taken out of time, a memory struck—his father, years ago, performing an upward slash from a downward stance, the motion fluid, inevitable.
Invia's arm moved on its own, following, mirroring the memory. Raising the shard, tracing that arc through empty air toward the lunging beast.
Time paused. A shimmer whispered across the shard's edge—and the air split with it.
The Shatterling halted, mid-strike, a clean line splitting its form. It fell in two, blue ichor pooling like spilled ink.
Invia froze, arm outstretched, the shard trembling in his grip. Reality snapped back, sharp and disorienting, like a frame coming back to be a part of something larger.
What happened? The beast disintegrating into ash, severed by a strike he hadn't touched.
His chest heaved, a mix of disbelief and adrenaline. Had he done that?
The craving came back, hungrier this time, as if tasting something delicious had made it yearn for more
Outside, the battle roared on—lightning, shadow, the Tyrant's wrath—but here, silence reigned, broken only by Rose's shaky breaths.
She stared at him, eyes wide with fear and awe. "Invia… what was that?" Her voice trembled, fragile as the moment.
He had no answer. His light grey eyes searched the ichor on the floor, searching for a clue, for an explanation.
The shard felt heavier, its edge catching the Rift's pale glow. Whatever that was, it was gone now. But it gave him a newfound hope.
That must've been a Resonance, Invia thought, but which one exactly? It can't be a sword one, I had all my life to feel a 'pull' towards that. Same with glass. An abstract one? All I remember is following the memory of my father's sword strike. Mirroring, maybe?
The city quaked, the Rift's hum swelling. A reminder that their fight was but a flicker in the storm.
"Let's figure out what just happened later. We need to take you to a Harmonic with a healing concept first." Rose said, running up to him, face filled with both dread and concern.
Invia relaxed, adrenaline and the little strength he had leaving him.
"Haha… I did it, right, mom? I actually did something." Invia said with a half-broken smile, his grey eyes flicking with a spark that was never there.
"You did," she acknowledged, her voice thick with emotion. "And I hope now you finally see what I've always seen."
A shriek, loud and terrible, unlike any of the previous ones, echoed from outside, as if to remind them that it's not over.
"We can't go, not until that thing is out there. Help me take a look." Invia said tiredly.
Rose, despite her worry, knew it was true. She helped Invia move across the room to the hole that originally held their window.
Through the shattered frame, the city lay in ruins, a testament to the battle's fury.
Buildings that once stood tall now leaned or crumbled, their entire sections gone, as if consumed whole. Fires burned in distant corners, casting an eerie, flickering glow.
Invia's gaze traced the streets below, where the pavement bore spiderwebbed, blackened scars—branching patterns etched into the stone by the Harmonics' lightning, like the roots of an ancient tree.
Between these scars, there were voids: irregular patches where the ground simply ceased to exist, the edges frayed as if reality had unraveled. It was as though chaos had reached out and plucked away pieces of the world.
In the heart of the devastation, the Tyrant's massive form wavered. Its many eyes flickered, then dulled, and with a final, shuddering breath, it dissolved into a cloud of ash that swirled and vanished on the wind.
The Rift pulsed—a wound in reality—before it began to close, its edges knitting together.
Rose slumped down, her voice a fragile thread. "It's over." Her gaze swept the ruined city, expression a mix of relief and sorrow.
Invia nodded, conserving whatever energy he had left. The fight was done, but the city was scarred, reshaped. Yet, even amidst the ruin, an ounce of excitement bloomed inside him.
"Oh god… " Exclaimed Rose, worry seeping into her voice. She sat behind him, discovering the deep, still bleeding gnash on his back.
"We—I need to bring someone to treat you, now. You are losing too much blood, too fast. Stay here, I will bring someone." She was already moving by the time she finished speaking.
So, Invia sat, taking in the sight of the city before him.
The destruction.
The distant sirens, finally growing louder.
The Lighting Harmonic, holding the no longer cloaked figure in his arms. A woman, as apparent by the hair streaming down the air like a black waterfall. Was he wailing over her? Was she a lover? Invia could not make it out, his vision becoming increasingly blurry.
He didn't know how much time has passed. It could've been seconds, several, or even dozens of minutes.
He was tired, so, so tired. All he wanted was to close his eyes and let the warm embrace of sleep take him into one of its many worlds.
"Found you," a voice chimed, sudden and clear, cutting through the haze. A girl materialized before him, her form outlined in a shimmering blue haze, almost transparent, as if woven from mist and starlight. "Took you long enough to become visible, but no matter."
In his stupor, Invia's mind stumbled. Was he slipping into sleep? Hallucinating? The edges of the world softened, and he wondered if this was a dream pulling him under.
"Poor soul," she said, her voice a melody of sorrow and promise, "I'm sorry, but this is just the beginning, barely a first step."
Her blue haze embraced him as she continued, "Be brave, be strong, and be curious, and you may yet piece all the broken puzzles together."
He tried to speak, his throat rasping. "Wha—"
The word fractured, unfinished, as the world dissolved around him.
The ruined city, the sirens, the wailing Harmonic—they all remained, but Invia was no longer there.
Only the glass shard remained where he sat, now dry, its surface a grim canvas of blue and red, the clashing colors of two alien worlds.
----------------------------
Far, far away, in a mountain where snow always raged and life barely clung to existence, a lone man stood on its peak.
A single, ordinary sword rested in his hand, the surrounding blizzard parting around him, untouched, as if the harsh world feared to breach his stillness.
Below, a Rift gaped—a vast, dark maw, the city's one but a speck of sand next to its ocean. From its depths rose a presence, no mere beast but a being of Entropy, its essence a suffocating weight that could erase cities with a breath.
Yet it knelt, broken, one arm lost, its visage twisted in terror before the man above.
"This is ridiculous. Aren't you supposed to be weakened?!" the being rasped, looking up at the solitary man. The huge mountain, seemingly impossible to move, looked small next to him, like a rock near a real peak.
The man moved—a single, simple slash, the first lesson of any swordsman. No spectacle flared, no space tore asunder, no force thundered forth.
Yet the being's eyes widened in horror, its form cleaved in two, dissolving into ash. A heartbeat later, the Rift itself shuddered and split, its edges sealed by an unseen will.
"I am." the man replied, his voice calm, his face a mask of stone.
He turned, as if his eyes could pierce through the veils of time and space, a faint smirk curling his lips.
"So, it's finally time…"
"Good luck, son."