Plaster cracked, ancient beams splintered with sharp reports, and a monstrous, organic groan reverberated from below, as if the mountain itself was tearing open its belly.
Students shrieked, scrambling back from the luminous fissures that snaked across the flags, eager to swallow them. Mirela stood frozen for a beat, her gaze fixed on the glowing cracks, then snapped to Dragos. His expression was a storm cloud, dark and grim. Bratok, still a monstrous hound of coiling darkness, let out a low, guttural growl, its eyes burning crimson.
"Zoran," Dragos hissed, a raw edge to his voice. "He's pulling it up, forcing it." The words were barely out before the floor beneath their feet buckled violently. A massive, pulsating mass of something wet and grey-green, veined with sickly purple tendrils, burst through the central courtyard, where moments ago Stjepan had been cowering. It rose with sickening speed, twisting and reforming, its surface resembling gnarled, diseased flesh and bone, reaching for the misty sky. It was a cathedral, but not of stone or brick – a blasphemous structure woven from living tissue and despair.
At its apex, suspended in the air, stood Zoran Vukovic. His Guild Master robes billowed around him, but they seemed to be made of solidified mist, tendrils lashing out. His eyes, once shrewd, now burned with an unholy amethyst light. From his outstretched hands, dark, ethereal filaments stretched, plunging into the chaos below, into the terrified students who clawed at the fractured walls, desperate to escape. Scream after scream tore through the air, then abruptly cut off, replaced by an unnerving silence. The filaments pulsed, drawing something unseen from the dying. Zoran’s form swelled, not in size, but in an aura of sickening, divine power.
[The Weeping Bell tolls! Zoran Vukovic claims the 'Harvester's Aspect'!]
[Souls consumed: 17. The apocalypse accelerates!]
"He’s harvesting them," Mirela whispered, her face paling. "He's using the Bell to siphon their life… their very essence." Her hand instinctively went to her belt, finding only the hilt of her broken blade. Her gaze hardened. "We have to stop him."
"We will," Dragos bit out, his rusted blade appearing in his hand as if conjured from the very despair around them. The sealed power, though limited, still hummed faintly around him. He needed to get to Zoran, but the way was blocked.
The ground continued to heave. More fissures erupted, spewing forth not just mist, but grotesque, multi-limbed horrors: Mist-Ghouls, their skin like damp parchment, their claws tipped with venom, their mouths agape in silent shrieks. They poured into the collapsing hallways, drawn by the raw terror and the scent of fear.
"Stand with me, Jovic!" Dragos yelled, his voice cutting through the din. He didn't wait for a reply. A carrion fiend lunged, its putrid breath washing over him. Dragos moved with impossible speed, a blur of motion. His rusted trench-knife flashed. The beast's head separated from its neck with a wet thud, dissolving into mist before it even hit the ground.
Another monstrosity, larger and more resilient, burst from a splintered doorway, its four arms flailing. Before Dragos could engage, Mirela was there. She lacked steel, but her boot shot out, cracking against the brute's knee, sending it staggering. Then her elbow followed, a brutal impact to its jaw. It bought Dragos a fraction of a second. His blade found the soft spot beneath its armpit, twisting, and the creature dissolved.
"Flank!" Mirela shouted, pointing with a bare arm. Her movements were fluid, decisive. A pack of horrors was converging from the left. Dragos nodded, trusting her implicitly. He moved like a dark current, sweeping around them, his notch-worn steel a constant, lethal flicker. Mirela, meanwhile, wasn't just dodging; she was directing. She kicked shattered masonry into the path of the creatures, her fists and feet landing with calculated force, opening pathways for Dragos to exploit.
Bratok, a swirling vortex of teeth and claws, tore through the thickest parts of the ghoul formations, a living shield and a monstrous weapon. He ripped and shredded, his growls a constant counterpoint to the screams of the dying and the groaning of the dying academy.
Their rhythm moved without a sound between them. Dragos covered Mirela's blind spots, Mirela anticipated Dragos's next move, her body language a direct command. They moved as a single, lethal entity, forged in the fires of mutual defense. Their gazes met for a fleeting moment over the dissolving remains of a ghoul, a flicker of something raw and profound passing between them – recognition, acceptance, and a shared, desperate resolve.
[Epitaph Gained: 'Synchronized Strike'!]
[Your bond with Mirela Jovic strengthens!]
They fought their way up the fractured levels, leaving a trail of dissipating mist-horrors. The air grew thick with the metallic tang of fear and the sickly sweet scent of the burgeoning flesh-cathedral. Zoran’s power intensified with every absorbed soul, the amethyst glare around him blinding.
Finally, they burst onto a precarious platform, overlooking the grotesque spire where Zoran floated, now nearly engulfed in the amethyst aura. His eyes, burning with malevolent euphoria, locked onto Dragos.
"Dragos Vranic," Zoran's voice boomed, amplified by the Bell's dark power, resonating directly into Dragos's mind. "You persist, a persistent pest. But now, you are merely a weak human. My ascension is assured. The Bell serves me now!"
"The Bell serves no one!" Dragos roared back, his sealed strength flaring, the black scales beneath his sleeve prickling with heat. He launched himself forward, a desperate leap across the chasm, blade held low. He poured every ounce of his limited, reined-in strength into the strike. Abyssal Severance, but a fraction of its former glory.
The blade met Zoran’s barrier with a deafening screech. Sparks flew, raw power clashing. But the barrier held. It shimmered, pulsed, then pushed back with overwhelming force. Dragos was thrown backward, skidding violently across the jagged stone, his arm screaming in protest. The suppression ring on his finger bit deep, trying to contain the fury that threatened to rip him apart.
"Fool," Zoran sneered, a cruel, triumphant smile spreading across his face. "You cannot harm a herald of the Bell with mere mortal strength. Not anymore."
Dragos pushed himself up, his breathing ragged, his eyes fixed on Zoran. The rage was a white-hot blaze in his core, but a cold, horrifying truth settled over him. Zoran was right. As he was now, reined in by the iron ring, by the need to shield Mirela from his own burgeoning darkness, he couldn't win. He couldn't even touch him.
The academy around them groaned its death rattle. More souls screamed and faded. Zoran was growing stronger, faster than Dragos could hope to fight him in his current state.
He glanced back at Mirela, her face streaked with grime, her eyes fierce and unwavering, ready to stand with him to the last. A bitter, resolute pang went through his chest. He had to keep her alive. He had to stop Zoran. But not as a human.
His gaze fell to the rusted iron band on his left hand. The very shackle meant to spare her was now condemning them both.
Dragos ripped the iron band from his finger, the metal biting into his flesh, leaving a livid red mark. He crushed it in his fist, the ancient metal groaning, then grinding into powder, scattering in the noxious wind.
He closed his eyes, his mind reaching out, not to the tolling, sorrowful chimes, but to the insidious pulse that now beat in time with his own heart. The Monarch's Seed, the curse, the thing that threatened to turn him into a monster. He embraced it.
*Fully germinate the Seed.*