I DESTROY THE LAW'S OF HEAVEN

THE PRICE OF RUIN

Pain did not just hurt; it tore Thorn apart from the inside out.

His skin burst open in tiny red tracks as blood leaked out from every pore along his arms, chest, and neck. The feedback from the stone hit him like a runaway cart. He doubled over into the mud, clutching his ribs and spitting dark red drops onto the cold ground.

"Stop," Thorn choked out, his fingers digging into the hard lump in his chest. "Stop, just stop right now."

The artifact inside his body did not listen. It vibrated with a dark, heavy rhythm that echoed through his bones, shaking his entire frame.

"What is wrong with you?" Thorn gasped, trying to pull his hand away. "I used your power, so why are you killing me?"

Under his boots, the ground began to act wrong. The heavy rain stopped falling downward. Instead, fat drops of brown water floated sideways, hovering in the air like glass beads. The heavy rocks along the ravine wall lost their anchor to the earth, drifting upward into the grey sky as if they weighed nothing at all.

Thorn took one shaky step back, but his boot found no solid ground. The wet dirt beneath him dissolved into a swirling pit of pitch-black nothingness.

"No, nononono!" Thorn yelled to the empty air, scrambling wildly with his bleeding fingers to catch a thick tree root. "Hold on, move!"

The mud beneath his hands crumbled into floating dust. The natural rule that held the ground down was gone. The earth was falling upward and sideways at the same time, opening a jagged hole that swallowed light, air, and stone.

A loose boulder floated past his head, missing his ear by an inch. Thorn kicked off the rising stone with his heel, throwing his upper body onto a solid ledge of clay that had not yet broken apart. His fingers dug deep into the wet earth.

"You stupid stone," Thorn panted, staring down into the growing void beneath his dangling legs. "You are going to kill us both!"

The void did not answer, but the air around the edge of the pit turned a strange, unnatural purple color. The mud on the rim turned into glass, frozen solid despite the warm air. The world was not fixing itself. The hole stayed open, a jagged scar carved directly into the land, refusing to close or heal.

"Hey!" a voice suddenly echoed from the top of the cliff above him.

Thorn froze, his fingers caked in wet dirt. He looked up through the rain. A lone patrol guard from a local border sect stood at the cliff edge, staring down into the ravine with wide, terrified eyes.

"What did you do down there?" the guard screamed, pointing a shaky spear at the floating rocks. "Who are you?"

"Get away from the edge!" Thorn shouted back, his voice raw and cracking. "The ground is not real down here!"

"You broke the earth!" the guard yelled, his face turning pale as bone. "I saw the flash from the path! You used forbidden magic!"

"I did not do this on purpose!" Thorn grunted, hauling his torso higher onto the ledge. "If you come down here, you will fall into nothing!"

"Liar!" the guard shouted, reaching for a brass horn strapped to his belt. "You are an outcast rogue! The overseers will skin you alive for this!"

"Put the horn down!" Thorn snapped, dragging his blood-soaked legs out of the pit. "If you blow that, you bring them all here!"

"That is the point, trash!" the guard roared, lifting the brass horn to his mouth.

Thorn did not have time to think. He shoved his bleeding right hand toward the cliff top. He did not use a massive wave of power this time. He just flicked a tiny, desperate pulse of black force straight at the guard’s boots.

"Wait, do not!" Thorn yelled, though he knew it was too late.

The black pulse hit the cliff face beneath the guard. The stone holding the guard up simply ceased to exist. The ledge vanished into grey dust, and the guard let out a short, terrified scream as he plummeted into the void.

"No!" Thorn gasped.

The guard hit the edge of the purple void and did not crash onto the ground. He floated sideways, trapped in the strange gravity loop, spinning around in circles like a leaf in a windstorm.

"Save me!" the guard shrieked, his spear drifting away into the sky. "Pull me out! It is pulling my legs apart!"

"I cannot!" Thorn shouted back, crawling onto his hands and knees on the top trail. "I do not know how to turn it off!"

"You monster!" the guard wailed, his voice growing fainter as he spun deeper into the purple rift. "You broke the world!"

Thorn pulled his body fully onto the trail, groaning as his broken ribs ground together inside his chest. He lay flat on his back, staring up at the warped sky, his lungs burning for air.

"A permanent mark," Thorn whispered, watching the purple light flicker down in the pit. "It does not go away. It just stays open."

He lifted his trembling right arm. His pale skin was crisscrossed with ugly red lines where his veins had burst under the strain. Every single muscle felt like it had been boiled in oil.

"I cannot use this casually," he muttered, his chest rising and falling in shallow, painful hitches. "If I keep breaking the rules, there will be no world left to stand on."

He pushed himself up to an elbow, looking back down at the edge. The guard was gone, swallowed by the purple void. The hole did not fill with dirt. It did not settle. It was a dead spot where weight and direction simply refused to work.

"I have to move," Thorn told himself, forcing his shaky legs to bend. "I have to get away from this ravine right now."

He took two painful steps forward on the muddy path before a terrifying noise stopped him cold in his tracks.

The air pressure dropped so fast his ears popped with a sharp, stabbing pain. The grey clouds above the forest split wide open, pulled apart by an invisible hand. High above the mountain peak, a giant golden horn cut through the clouds, its deep sound rolling across the land like thunder.

The horn blew once, a long, booming blast that made the frozen glass in the pit rattle and crack.

Thorn gripped his chest, his dark eyes wide as he stared up at the sky. "No. Not already."

The sound echoed off the distant mountains, repeating three times in a heavy, rhythmic tone. It was not a call for local soldiers. It was a cosmic alarm. A signal to the divine overseers that someone had torn a hole in the fabric of creation.

"They heard it," Thorn rasped, his throat dry despite the falling rain. "The divine overseers know."

He did not look back at the pit. He did not look back at the floating rocks or the frozen glass. Thorn turned toward the thick forest, dragging his ruined body into the dense trees as fast as his broken legs could carry him.

"I need to hide," he said through grit teeth, stumbling over a thick tree root. "I need to hide before they lock down the entire region."

Behind him, the distant horn blew a second time, its harsh note promising complete destruction to whatever had broken the world.