Chapter 37

Pyre stepped through the gate that Veylan found, joining the others in the Deep Nether.

For a heartbeat there was light, then it collapsed, the glow of the Forlorn Plains vanishing behind him as if snuffed out, replaced by the thin, trembling halos of the Anima lanterns.

Darkness rushed in from every direction, not empty but dense, swallowing sound and depth alike. Gravity lurched, not enough to knock him down, but enough that Pyre’s stomach clenched.

Dust and rocks hung suspended in the air just as Sura had said it would, the debris drifting slowly as though caught in thick water. Beyond, massive structures loomed out of the darkness of the Deep Nether, the landmasses jagged and glacial, torn free from various realms and frozen mid-collapse.

Pyre couldn’t judge the distance; near and far had no meaning here.

The ground beneath his boots felt solid and wrong at the same time, hard enough to stand on, yet faintly elastic, as though it might recoil if struck too hard.

So this is it, he thought as Veylan shifted past him.

The strange old man turned back toward the gate, monocular already raised. He pushed half of it through the shimmering surface, and the gate rippled violently, its glow warping, Veylan’s white eyes shining brightly for a moment. Pyre could no longer see the Forlorn Plains on the other side as Veylan continued his procedure, the rim of the gate starting to trickle back.

Pyre was still trying to understand where they were, trying to reconcile the sensation of standing and floating simultaneously, when the first warning came.

“Shadowyrm!” Ronark called. The dwarf planted his back foot and squeezed his bellows. Anima surged forward in a blinding arc, briefly illuminating the void as something enormous lunged into the light.

The shadowyrm was long and thick-bodied, easily carriage-sized, its form wrapped in dark gray flesh bristling with coarse hairs. The creature’s mouth was a nightmare of layered baleen plates, serrated at the edges, flexing as it surged toward one of the lanterns.

Ronark’s blast tore into its side. The beast convulse but didn’t stop as it continued its mad rush toward the nearest lantern. The Shepherd pivoted in front of it, where he brought his crook around in a single, compact motion and struck.

The shadowyrm came apart, hulking body collapsing inward, crumbling as though its structure had been undone rather than broken. Pieces of it disintegrated midair, scattering into ash-like fragments that drifted away on currents Pyre couldn’t feel.

What kind of attack is that? Pyre wondered for just a brief moment before he summoned his Sigil.

Fire blossomed along the broken length of the blade, its light cutting a wider circle through the darkness. The flames twisted oddly here, stretching and spiraling in slow, exaggerated arcs as more shadowyrms descended upon them.

They poured out of the dark in uneven waves, their bodies slicing through drifting debris, drawn unerringly toward the lanterns. Beyond them, Veylan remained focused on his tack, movements precise and unhurried as he worked on the gate.

A smaller shadowyrm slipped between two of the larger beasts, the wiry monster darting low. Pyre moved instinctively, launching toward it, where he brought his blade down in a brutal arc. The flames tore through its neck, and the creature collapsed into writhing pieces that evaporated as they hit the ground.

Sura froze another mid-lunge, time locking around it in a distorted shimmer as she stood there with her watchface shield.

Balefor took it from there, moving past her, greataxe biting deep. Marrowsven vaulted impossibly high—far higher than any sane jump should allow—and landed atop the beast. She drove her blade into it and rode the shadowyrm down as it thrashed, its body slamming into something solid.

So that’s how it is here, Pyre thought, aware now that he wasn’t bound the way he should have been.

The ground was firm, but it gave beneath him when he pushed off, returning force like a coiled spring.

A shadowyrm exploded nearby, Irix destroying it from within. Its body ruptured outward in a soundless burst as Pyre launched through the debris.

The flames around his sword spiraled wildly as he met another shadowyrm head-on. It snapped at him, baleen plates closing, but Pyre twisted in midair and arced downward, close enough to drive the broken end of his blade up into its belly.

The creature convulsed as its entrails spilled free, dissolving into dark mist as Pyre soared past.

An Anima blast from Ronark cut across the dark. Tallow surged forward, no longer humanoid, his form massive and brutal, arms reshaped into bladed extensions. He carved through two shadowyrms in a single motion, their halves spinning away and skidding to a halt near Veylan’s feet.

Calm as ever, Veylan nudged one aside with his boot and kept working.

Pyre didn’t see the next one until it hit him.

The impact sent him flying. He struck the ground hard and rolled, flames guttering as he tumbled into deeper darkness.

Have to keep moving, Pyre thought as he pushed himself up, sword blazing again just in time to see it.

A vast, jagged opening yawned in the ground ahead of him, its edges cracked and uneven. Shadowyrms streamed out of it in writhing masses, their bodies overlapping as they clawed their way free, the monsters oblivious to the fact he stood just a few feet away watching the madness unfold.

A nest?

Pyre broke into a run. He leapt, the ground throwing him higher than it should have, and rejoined the others just as Balefor attacked another incoming shadowyrm. His greataxe cut deep, locking into the creature as Balefor used its own momentum to smash it into the ground.

Beside him, Marrowsven twisted sideways, slipping beneath a shadowyrm that came way too close to biting her head off. Quickly recovering, she stabbed into the beast’s tail, hauled herself up, and plunged her Sigil into its back again and again, gore spraying as Irix detonated another nearby.

The darkness answered with movement as more shadowyrms spilled forward. Their bodies tore through the void, segments flexing and contracting as they burrowed through nothingness, baleen plates flaring and clattering as they strained toward the group.

“There’s a nest!” Pyre shouted as soon as he saw the Shepherd. “A nest!”

The Shepherd crumbled another shadowyrm, turned to Pyre, and offered up a brief, acknowledging nod. He pointed without hesitation in Pyre’s direction. “Tallow, Ronark!”

“On it!” Ronark yelled over to him.

Tallow surged forward beside the Ronark, body warping mid-stride.

His frame elongated and thickened, reshaping into something like a warhorse bred for siege, with massive shoulders and a lowered head armored in dense, thorn-covered ridges. Fire licked along the seams of his form as Ronark grabbed hold and vaulted onto Tallow’s back, boots digging in as Tallow thundered toward the nest.

Ronark fired indiscriminately as they charged, each squeeze of his bellows sending lances of Anima streaking forward, tearing through shadowyrms as they burst from the hole. The blasts lit up fragments of the nest—slick walls, bodies writhing over one another, the ground splitting where the structure was coming apart.

“Wait for me!” Sura leapt after them, her jump violently extended as Irix released a concussive vibration beneath her. The sound cracked through the darkness, propelling the pair forward in a blur of distorted time.

“Another down!” Balefor shouted, cleaving one shadowyrm cleanly in half.

“Good, good,” Veylan said as he approached, calm as ever, the older man carrying his monocular at his side. A ringed glow spiraled around its end, one that hadn’t been there before.

Pyre had just finished cutting through another shadowyrm with Marrowsven when he glanced back to find that the gate had completely vanished, its light had folded in on itself, leaving only darkness where it had been.

Retreat is no longer an option, Pyre thought as Balefor started toward the nest.

“Let’s move—”

Veylan caught the lion-man’s arm. “No,” he said in an even voice. “Let them do what they came here to do, Unclaimed. You must save your strength. All of you. Your Sigils are not yet formed, and if they are,” he said, eyes moving to Pyre, “they are an anomaly.”

The Anima lanterns shifted, clustering around Veylan and the three Unclaimed, their glow tightening into a defensive perimeter that made it hard to see beyond its edge. Pyre and Marrowsven slowed as the Shepherd advanced toward the nest, batting smaller shadowyrms aside with efficient, almost casual strikes.

Their leader reached the nest in a matter of moments, his arrival met with the wet collapse of bodies and Sura’s voice—short, clipped commands—cutting through the chaos. Occasional flares of Anima lit the darkness in brief, violent flashes, silhouettes of shadowyrms jerking and tearing apart before the light vanished again.

Pyre’s grip tightened on his sword. “We can help,” he said, the flames of his blade flaring brighter. “We can’t just stand here and watch them fight!”

“You can,” Veylan said, steady, hands clasped around his monocular. “And you will. Triggering a Domain Trial out here would be a mistake. If it happens, it needs to happen where you can be better protected.” He didn’t look away from the fighting. “They’ve weathered worse.”

“And to get back to the Forlorn Plains, to Aevum,” Marrowsven asked, eyes fixed on the distant flashes, “you now carry the gate?”

“I do.” Veylan tilted the monocular slightly, showing her the ring of light twisting around its end.

“Is that an artifact or your Sigil?” Balefor asked.

“Both,” Veylan said. A sudden, concentrated burst of Anima detonated near the nest, bright enough to wash the lantern light pale. “Good, this fight is over.”

“Are you certain?” Balefor asked.

Rather than reply, Veylan lifted his monocular to his eye and turned, where he focused on one of the massive landforms rising out of the Deep Nether—a towering slab of broken terrain ending in a jagged, fin-like ridge. “That one there,” he said, examining it. “I’m certain. We will regroup with the others and begin our exploration. And it’s important we do so, especially with all the dead shadowyrms. We must move from this location before the scavels arrive.”