The chamber detonated into chaos. The armored heir lunged, molten claws tearing through stone like paper. Heat washed over them, blistering the air. Victor shoved Ethan behind him, throwing his body into the path of the blow.Steel met fire. Not steel his forearm, glowing faintly, catching the strike. The impact thundered.Victor’s eyes went wide. The heir snarled. “Your blood remembers.” Victor staggered, forcing the claws away. “Shut up!”Miriam was already moving, darting low across the ground. She scooped a jagged shard of collapsed pillar, gripping it like a blade, and slashed at the heir’s legs. The shard sizzled against molten flesh, cracking uselessly.The heir didn’t flinch. Julian sang from the sidelines, his voice rising above the carnage: “Curtain up, curtain up! Act two: the audience eats the actors!”“Julian!” Miriam snapped, fury burning. “Do something useful!”He tilted his head, smirking. “But I am. I’m watching.” The skeletal heir drifted closer, voice like silk. “R

The chamber was fire and ash, cracks bleeding light into an abyss that never ended. Ethan hung in the air like a broken star, golden fire dripping from his skin, voice fractured into three layers.His words thundered. “Kill me… or lose the world.”Victor’s hands trembled. His chest heaved, lungs scorched by the heat. He tried to move, but his feet felt cemented to the floor.Miriam, still bleeding, staggered closer, her shard raised. “He’s right. Look at him, Victor. He’s not Ethan anymore.”Victor’s head whipped toward her, fury sparking. “Don’t you dare.”“Don’t dare what?!” Miriam snapped, spitting blood. “Pretend you don’t see it? He’s merging! Every second we hesitate, those things.” She jabbed toward the heirs clawing at the cracks. “ get closer to walking free!”The armored heir laughed, molten spittle hitting the ground. “Yes. Stall longer. Debate. While your world cracks beneath your feet.”The skeletal heir’s voice slid between them, intimate and cruel. “Kill him. You’ll be

Cold air hit Victor’s lungs like knives. For the first time in hours, there was no heat, no choking fire just the smell of pine and frost. They were back on the surface.Miriam collapsed to her knees, clutching her burned side. “We made it… We actually made it…”Julian sprawled on the dirt, laughing breathlessly. “Curtain call survived! The actors bow!”The hybrid didn’t laugh. He crawled forward, trembling, his eyes locked on the crack in the ground. “No. No, no, no we didn’t escape. Look.”Victor turned. His stomach dropped. From the fissure, a golden hand still clutched the edge, its fingers gouging into stone like clay. The ground hissed under its touch, smoking.Miriam whispered, horror in her voice. “It followed us…”The hand flexed, talons curling, and the crack widened with a shriek of stone. The abyss wasn’t done.Victor surged forward, grabbing the nearest fallen branch and slamming it down across the hand. The branch vaporized instantly, leaving nothing but ash.Julian whis

The heir’s molten fingers tightened around Julian, his body audibly cracking. His laugh cut into a strangled hiss. Victor hurled himself at the golden wall again, fists blazing, but it blasted him back like a leaf in a storm. “Let him go!”The heir’s voice shook the trees. “He is mine. A herald of shadows, fit only to be unmade.” Julian coughed blood, but his grin never wavered. “Unmade? Oh, darling no stage is complete without a critic.”Miriam staggered forward, her shard glowing dangerously bright. “Victor help me channel. We’re not breaking it we’re breaking its grip.”Victor pressed his hands to the shard’s edge. Heat surged up his arms, blistering, but he pushed harder. Fire leapt skyward, a lance of molten light slamming against the heir’s wrist.The titan roared, jerking back slightly, but its hold didn’t break. Julian screamed, his ribcage caving. “A standing ovation indeed, ah! Don’t let the curtains close on me yet!”Victor’s veins bulged, his voice breaking. “It’s not enou

Victor’s jaw clenched. His own arms were blistered raw, bones aching from the last strike. He wanted to tell her to stop, to save herself. Instead, he growled, “Then we use it anyway.”Julian wheezed from the ground, his ribs shattered, his shadows twitching weakly. Yet his grin never faltered. “Oh, charming. Let’s all die beautifully together.”The hybrid crawled forward on hands and knees, trembling. “You don’t understand it’s not just this one. If it fully breaches, it calls the rest. The heirs don’t come one by one they come as a legion!.”Miriam’s head snapped toward him, eyes wide with terror. “You knew this? You knew.”He collapsed against the dirt, sobbing. “I tried, I tried to stop it.” The heir’s burning head tilted, molten teeth bared in something too close to a smile. Its voice rolled like thunder.“The mark is set. The Key burns last.” Victor’s blood turned to ice. Ethan. It kept saying Ethan’s name without saying it.“Shut your mouth!” he bellowed, charging forward. His