The blast tore through them.
Heat. Shrapnel. Noise like the world had cracked in half.
Solari didn't scream — there was no breath left for it. Her molten grip slipped as the ground buckled beneath her, lava fracturing mid-flow. For a moment, everything became weightless — soundless — like falling through smoke and fire.
Then came the impact.
Stone and ash crushed into her side. She hit the ruins hard, skidding through broken debris until her back slammed into a half-melted pillar. Her vision blurred. Her bones hummed with ruin.
Somewhere behind the ringing in her ears, she could still hear Varek's words echoing.
"We're going to be alright…"
But as the dust cleared, and the abomination's silhouette emerged again, bigger, wilder, burning with stolen energy — she knew that lie had been too kind. The ruin's whispers grew louder, their words digging deeper into Solari's skull like nails scraping against stone. She couldn't escape them — couldn't escape the truth that was creeping into her mind.
"You are already losing."
"You have always lost."
But she wouldn't listen. Not now. Not when they were still breathing. Solari's chest heaved as she focused all her energy on the molten rock surging in her hands. She could feel it — deep within her bones, a flickering pulse that wasn't just lava. It was power, heat, rage, and desperation. She slammed her fists into the earth, sending rivers of molten stone surging across the field, consuming everything in its path.
The creature lunged again, but this time, Solari was ready.
With a roar that shook the ground beneath them, she launched a massive burst of molten rock at the abomination, the heat from the blast so intense it warped the air around them. The creature shrieked, a sound of fury and agony, as the rock collided with its shifting body. The lava surged around it, sizzling and hissing as it burned through its patchwork flesh.
But the creature wasn't done. It shifted, adapted, and lunged once more, its jagged limbs whipping through the air with terrifying speed. It was too fast, too powerful.
Teya, still struggling, stumbled back, her metallic limbs shaking as she tried to steady herself. Sirel's laughter faded, her eyes filled with raw panic.
"This isn't working!" she cried out, her voice cracking as another burst of lightning shot off her arms, missing the creature by mere inches.
"We can't win like this," Teya muttered under her breath, staring at the abomination. "We're too exhausted."
Solari felt the weight of their failure. Her body was trembling, her molten power flickering uncontrollably. The ruin had already taken so much from them. Her power — their bond — was slipping through her fingers like sand. But something — something deep inside her — refused to let go.
Fight. Fight to live. Fight for yourself.
Solari's hand trembled, but she forced it forward, reaching out to her team, trying to rally them, trying to remind them who they had been.
"We're not finished!" Her voice cracked, but she pressed on. "We fight for each other. We fight to survive. We go home or we die here!"
She felt the cracks in her resolve, the hesitation clawing at her. But in that moment, she saw it — Teya's gaze meeting hers, a flicker of determination in the midst of the madness. Sirel's body stiffened, the wild energy in her limbs fading, her face contorting with something more controlled now. Varek — he'd never stopped moving, never stopped calculating, even as the ruin-creature clawed at him.
"We're not done yet," Solari repeated, her voice gaining strength. "Not yet. Not while we still have breath."
Teya was the first to break the tension. With a mechanical growl, she charged forward again, her blades gleaming in the dim light. Her limbs were sharp, efficient, deadly. This time, when the creature swiped at her, she dodged, weaving through the air with a grace that felt more like a desperation-driven instinct than skill. The creature roared in frustration, its body twisting around, trying to catch her in its many jaws.
Solari's breath hitched, her vision tunneling as the molten fury inside her finally found its focus.
This was it.
No more doubt. No more hesitation. Just one, perfect moment to end this nightmare.
With a cry that tore from the rawest part of her soul, she slammed her fists into the scorched ground. The cracked earth responded like a living thing — fissures splitting outward in violent veins as a torrent of molten rock erupted with blinding intensity.
The heat was unimaginable.
It warped the air around them, turned oxygen into fire, and filled the ruined arena with the scream of vaporized stone. The ground shook beneath their feet as the lava surged forward, not wild and chaotic like before, but controlled — precise. Directed.
Solari didn't aim for the limbs.
She went for the heart.
The core.
The place where the ruin's whispers were loudest.
The lava collided with the abomination's center mass, and for the first time, it shrieked — not with rage, but with pain. True, soul-piercing agony. Its distorted body twisted violently, spitting sparks and black ichor as limbs convulsed. The mouths stitched across its flesh opened in soundless screams, while its jagged form buckled under the onslaught.
For a moment, no one moved.
The air turned still.
Even the ruin held its breath.
Then—
With a thunderclap that split the arena wide, the creature collapsed.
Its towering frame crumbled beneath the weight of molten stone and its own twisted anatomy. Metal tore like paper. Flesh boiled into steam. Its big eye dimmed, extinguished like candles in a storm. The last jaw clacked once in a desperate, animal snap — then sagged open.
Gone.
The silence that followed wasn't peaceful. It was the silence after a scream. The silence of aftermath. Of disbelief.
Solari swayed where she stood, her body smoking, her molten power flickering like the last embers of a dying fire. Her arms trembled at her sides. Not from weakness — but from everything it had taken to still be standing. Teya staggered back, the glow of her augmented limbs sputtering as if drained. Her voice was barely a whisper. Her wounded side now patched up mysteriously, metal replacing the flesh wound.
"We... we did it."
But the words fell flat. There was no relief. No cheer. Just the sound of their own breathing — ragged, uneven, choked with ash and the bitter taste of what they had just endured.
"It's not over," Varek muttered, scanning the mist-stained horizon with sharp eyes that had lost none of their edge, even now. "Not by a long shot."
Solari turned slowly to look at each of them — at what remained of them. Sirel's electric madness had faded, but her hands still shook. Lightning fizzled from her fingertips in weak, confused pulses. Her eyes were wide, haunted. She was somewhere between relief and collapse, balancing on a razor's edge. Teya stood, but her posture was off — unsteady, hollow. Like her body remembered the fight but her soul hadn't caught up. Varek… even he seemed diminished. His movements, once surgical and sure, now carried a weight. A hesitation.
Something had broken in all of them.
And Solari could feel it — the ruin, still pressing in, not defeated but waiting.
Smiling.
She closed her eyes and breathed deep — not to calm herself, but to anchor what little of herself was left. The whispers hadn't stopped. They hadn't weakened. They were inside her now, murmuring promises, twisting memories, slipping doubts into the cracks of her heart.
No.
Not yet.
Her voice was soft, but it carried.
"It's not over," she said, her gaze hardening, sweeping across her fractured team. "But we will fight. For each other. For the homes we left behind."
No one responded.
They didn't need to.
Because even in their silence — their scorched, broken silence — they stood. They breathed. And they had chosen not to fall. The ground trembled faintly beneath them. Not violently. Not like before. This time, it was gentle.
Teya touched her side — where metal now pulsed faintly beneath shredded fabric. It hadn't always been metal. That patch of skin was gone. Replaced. She hadn't even felt it happen. It was just… there now. Cold. Efficient. Wrong.
Sirel looked at her reflection in a shard of fractured obsidian. Her hair was streaked with static, and her irises flickered — not just with lightning, but with something deeper. Something unnatural. Her laughter, once wild and defiant, felt like it belonged to someone else. Someone she barely remembered.
Varek adjusted his exoskeleton — but his hand trembled slightly. Not from fatigue. From the realization that he hadn't blinked when Sirel nearly fried him. He had hesitated... not out of fear, but calculation. Like he was starting to think like the ruin.
And Solari... Solari knew. Not just suspected — knew — that when she summoned lava now, it didn't come from her anymore. Not entirely. It came from the ruin. It responded too quickly. Too hungrily, like she had unlocked a part of her self.
They had survived.
But something inside them hadn't.