The Last Safe Zone

Chapter 8: The Ruined Crown

Chapter 8: The Ruined Crown

​The golden light radiating from High Hero Justin’s armor didn't bring warmth; it brought the heavy, suffocating pressure of a collapsing sky.

​"Vane, fall back to the console!" Soren rasped, scrambling to his feet and pulling Lyra behind him. He raised his rusted iron pipe, his knuckles white, every muscle in his body rigid with fear. "Han, he’s corrupted! That thing on his neck is controlling him!"

​"It isn't controlling him," Han said softly, wiping a trickle of blood from his ribs. His single silver eye remained locked on his former superior. "He integrated with it voluntarily. Aren't you, Justin?"

​Justin smiled a wide, unnatural stretch of skin that pulled the black, pulsing veins on his neck taut. The crystalline core embedded in his collarbone thrummed with stolen, corrupted divine magic.

​"Survival of the fittest, Architect," Justin purred, his heavy gilded boots crunching over the ash of the slain Ether-Beast. "When the surface shield shattered, the weak died in their beds waiting for the High Council to save them. I chose adaptivity. I took the power for myself. And what did you do? You crawled down into the mud with the rest of the discarded trash."

​"These 'discarded' people built every wall you ever stood on," Han replied, stepping forward. His obsidian arm groaned, silver runes flaring along the black plates as he raised his palm. "And this mud belongs to us."

​"It belongs to whoever holds the sword!" Justin roared.

​In a flash of golden and crimson light, Justin crossed the staging area in a heartbeat. His longsword descended like a falling guillotine, aimed directly for Han’s neck.

​CLANG!

​Han caught the glowing blade with his bare obsidian palm. The impact sent a shockwave through the cavern floor, cracking the stone beneath Han’s boots and spraying golden sparks across the darkness.

​"You always were an arrogant fool, Han!" Justin sneered, leaning his massive weight into the blade, forcing Han down onto one knee. "You thought your blueprints and calculations made you superior! But you never had the core strength to lead! You were just my draftsman!"

​"I was the foundation!" Han growled through gritted teeth, his obsidian fingers digging into the steel of Justin's blade, leaving deep, melted grooves in the metal. "You were just the paint on the wall!"

​"Han!" Lyra screamed, stepping away from Soren's protective stance. She raised her hands, her remaining medical mana surging into a pale green tether that latched onto Han’s back. "Don't let him drain you! His core is parasitic!"

​The green light washed over Han, soothing the burning agony in his ribs, but the strain on Lyra was immediate. She dropped to one knee, coughing blood as the corrupted aura around Justin fought back against her healing magic.

​"Lyra, stop!" Soren yelled, grabbing her shoulder. "You'll burn out your own soul-circuit!"

​"I won't let him die down here!" Lyra cried, her eyes locked on Han with a fierce, desperate clarity. "He’s a cold, unfeeling bastard, but he’s our bastard! He's the only thing standing between those three hundred families and that monster!"

​Justin laughed at a mocking, metallic sound that echoed off the high ceiling. "Look at them, Han! The weak trying to prop up the broken! Is this your grand civilization? A crippled organizer, a disgraced medic, and a dwarf who couldn't keep his forge?"

​"They are the builders," Han said, his silver eyes flaring with sudden, terrifying intensity as he felt Lyra’s magic stabilize his core. "And you are just a demolition crew."

​Han's left hand closed completely around Justin's broadsword.

​DRAIN.

​The silver runes along Han’s arm flared blindingly bright. The golden, divine light surrounding Justin's blade was violently sucked backward, flowing through Han’s obsidian skin and feeding directly into the subterranean leviathan core beneath their feet.

​Justin’s eyes widened in genuine panic as his sword turned dark and brittle. "What... what are you doing to my mana?!"

​"I am returning it to the earth," Han spat.

​With a brutal twist of his arm, Han shattered Justin’s broadsword into a dozen harmless steel splinters. Before the High Hero could retreat, Han drove his obsidian elbow straight into Justin’s chest plate, shattering the gilded crest and throwing the corrupted commander thirty feet back across the staging floor.

​Justin crashed into the stone, coughing black blood, his pristine armor cracked and smoking. He stared at Han in disbelief, his hand clutching the pulsing parasite on his neck.

​"You... you ruined my core," Justin gasped, his voice trembling for the first time.

​"I reclaimed what you stole," Han said, taking a slow, heavy step toward him. "Vane! Lock down the upper shaft! Seal him out!"

​"On it, Architect!" Vane yelled, slamming his hand onto the primary hydraulic override.

​A massive, six-ton granite portcullis began to drop from the ceiling, its sharp teeth descending toward the upper stairwell to seal the sector once and for all.

​Justin spat a mouthful of black blood, his face twisting into a hideous, desperate grin. "You think sealing this door saves you, Han? You think you built a sanctuary?"

​He reached up with his gauntleted hand and tore the glowing crystal core straight out of his own neck, screaming in agony as black fluid sprayed across his chest.

​"Justin, no!" Soren shouted, realizing what was about to happen.

​"If I can't have this fortress," Justin wheezed, his eyes rolling back as he crushed the crystal core in his bleeding palm, "then nobody gets it!"

​The crushed crystal didn't explode with fire; it released a high-frequency, dark red signal wave that shot straight up through the rock ceiling, piercing through miles of earth and stone until it hit the open sky above.

​Above the mountain, the sky screamed in response.

​Deep beneath their feet, the entire subterranean valley shuddered as the leviathan's ancient defense system registered the incoming threat from above.

​Han looked up through the observation hatch, his silver vision expanding outward, piercing through two miles of solid rock to the surface world.

​His heart stopped.

​Descending from the clouds wasn't a squad of Ether-Beasts. It was the Alpha, a colossal, mountain-sized monstrosity that had devoured the Capital's primary core, its thousands of wings blocking out the sun as it locked onto the dark red signal flare.

​The granite portcullis slammed shut, locking Justin out, but the ground beneath them began to buckle as the shadow of the Alpha hit the mountain crest above.

​"Han..." Lyra whispered, stepping up beside him, her voice barely a breath. "What is that?"

​Han lowered his obsidian hand, his face pale in the dying light of the cavern.

​"It found us."