Breaking Point and Cost
"GACK—!"
Alan's blood bloomed like a grotesque flower on the slimy mycelium. The silvery tendrils connecting him to the Golem's core, strained beyond breaking by Viktor's violent injection of chaotic purple energy, snapped like overtightened wires! The psychic backlash was a sledgehammer to his soul. Darkness swallowed his vision; his body collapsed forward.
"Alan!" Lena's cry was lost in the Golem's roar and Viktor's triumphant cackle.
KABOOOOOM—!!!
The fusion-heart tumor surged with renewed, terrifying power! Its dark purple radiance intensified, momentarily eclipsing the Crucible's bloody glow. The fragile order Alan had imposed vanished. The internal energy storm raged more violently than ever! The decaying horse-tail, free of its weakened icy bonds, whistled down with Viktor's command to "Consume him!" ringing in the air—a siege engine of pure annihilation aimed at Alan's crumpled form!
At that precise moment of doom!
"THE CORE! IT'S CRACKING!" Hawk's bellow cut through the chaos like thunder! His sonic emitter pointed at the Golem's violently heaving chest. Beneath the intense purple glow, the surface of the tumor was spider-webbed with fractures—hairline fissures pulsing with unstable white light! The damage inflicted by Alan's Harmonizing intrusion, exacerbated by the violent backlash, had pushed the unstable core to its physical and energetic limits! Its fatal flaw was exposed!
Lena's eyes snapped into focus. Hunter instinct overrode everything—even the dread for Alan (or perhaps, trusting Hawk's call and the chance Alan had bought). Her runic pistol moved with instinctive precision, its barrel lifting a fraction, abandoning joints to lock onto the pulsing, fractured heart. The runes along the weapon blazed with incandescent fury, bathing the murky green air in stark white light! She pulled the trigger!
"For Alan! For us all! BREAK!" Her voice was a ragged snarl!
WHOOOOOOM—CRACK!!!
A beam of pure, condensed destruction, wreathed in annihilative arcane runes, lanced through the air—a spear of divine judgment—striking the largest fissure on the Golem's core with unerring accuracy!
Simultaneously! An enraged, earth-shaking howl erupted from the direction of the bronze hatch!
AWOOOOOOOO—!!!
Fenrir, bloodied and battered, his alloy claws slick with black-purple slime and his own wounds, burst through the heavy doors like a silver-grey thunderbolt! The brutal fight against the corrupted outside was etched on his fur. Seeing Alan near death and the Golem's tail descending, the wolf's amber eyes flooded with berserk crimson! Without hesitation, ignoring the core, he dropped to all fours, unleashing the full, terrifying speed and power of a Silver Moon werewolf. He became a living missile, his target—the Golem's composite support leg, already weakened by Hawk's sonic assault!
"CRUSH IT!" Fenrir roared mid-charge!
THUD! SNAP!
Lena's arcane spear struck first! Blinding light punched into the core's largest fissure! The violent arcane energy found its conduit, flooding into the heart of the unstable maelstrom!
KER-R-RUMPH—!!!
The Flesh Golem froze. Its tail hung suspended mere inches above Alan. Then, it unleashed a sound beyond description—a fusion of every tormented soul within it—a shriek of ultimate agony! The fusion-heart tumor swelled under the black-purple radiance reaching its zenith—and then—
BLAM!!!
A muffled detonation, like thunder underground! The massive core exploded like an overripe fruit! Viscous black-purple ichor, chunks of flesh, shredded vessels, and sparking shards of metal erupted outwards in a gory downpour! The shockwave from the core's detonation slammed into the Golem's bulk like a physical hammer!
Fenrir's charge arrived in the same instant! His silver-grey Anima-wreathed claws plunged like white-hot knives into the already damaged knee joint of the support leg! The sound of shattering bone and tearing tendon was sickeningly clear!
Core detonated! Leg shattered!
Catastrophic failure!
"Rooo… ugh…" The Golem's stitched-together body, robbed of its animating force and structural integrity, emitted a final, gurgling sigh. The tail meant for Alan thudded limply to the mycelium. The colossal abomination collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. The rotting bear torso, rhino plating, fishbone spines, primate limbs—all the blasphemously fused components—separated and disintegrated as it fell. It crashed onto the slimy floor in a cataclysmic heap of stinking black-purple sludge and ruined flesh! Only the metal brain sphere rolled a few times amidst the offal, its chaotic red light flickering and dying.
Viktor's triumphant grin froze, then shattered. His gaunt frame shook with incandescent rage and disbelief. His magnum opus, his stairway to godhood, reduced to rancid offal! And the "perfect catalyst"… the boy… still twitching, clinging to life! A fury unlike any other, the rage of a god defiled by insects, consumed him!
"You… destroyed… my Ascension!" Viktor's voice was a distorted scrape of metal on stone, warped by ultimate fury.
"Unforgivable! Then pay… WITH YOUR LIVES!"
His emaciated form launched from the platform with unnatural speed! The heavy metal gauntlets on his hands blazed with a sickly, hungry violet light! He descended like a vulture, talons aimed at Alan's prone, unconscious form! The gauntlet pointed at Alan's chest, and a terrifying suction—specifically targeting the very source of Anima—erupted!
"Conflux of Elements… Degraded! STRIP HIM!" Viktor shrieked!
HUM—!
Alan's body convulsed violently! The remnants of his Harmonizing energy, already shattered and chaotic from the backlash, were ripped from him like a tidal wave! His already paper-white face turned ashen grey, his body visibly desiccating before their eyes! His life force plummeted! He couldn't even scream; it felt like his soul was being torn out!
"ALAN!" Lena screamed, pistol wavering—Viktor was too fast, too close to Alan!
"Get off him, SCUM!" Hawk charged, sonic emitter swinging for Viktor's back!
Viktor didn't turn. His free left hand flicked backward. A stream of thick, corrosive emerald acid shot from his filthy lab coat sleeve, aimed at Hawk's face! Hawk was forced to dive aside!
In that split second of distraction!
SNARL—!!! A silver-grey blur, trailing a sonic boom and radiating pure, feral murder, slammed into Viktor from the flank like a derailed freight train! Fenrir! After shattering the Golem's leg, he hadn't paused, channeling all his rage and savagery into this desperate, full-body tackle!
CRUNCH!!!
Viktor, utterly focused on draining Alan, was blindsided by Fenrir's terrifying speed and ferocity! A faint energy shield flared weakly over his coat but shattered like glass under the werewolf's berserk strength and alloy claws!
SNAP!
The sickening sound of breaking bone echoed! Viktor flew through the air like a ragdoll! His draining of Alan ceased instantly! He spewed a fountain of blood laced with viscera before he even hit the ground! The powerful gauntlet flew from his hand, landing in the sludge.
Viktor crashed into a pile of shattered vat debris a dozen meters away, bones shattered, barely clinging to life. He fixed Fenrir and the barely-breathing Alan with a look of pure, venomous hatred. A mad, final grin twisted his broken face.
"Heh… hehe… You… win?" He rasped, a mangled hand fumbling at a small, Ouroboros-marked metal disc on his belt. "Join me… in HELL!"
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
A shrill, urgent alarm blared through Mimir's Forge! The disc pulsed with violent crimson light!
BOOM! CRASH! RUMBLE!
The entire cavern convulsed! The immense Crucible overhead groaned like a dying leviathan! Pipes ruptured; rivets sheared; streams of molten, dark red slag spewed from cracks! Massive connecting pipes snapped, gushing scalding steam and emerald acid like geysers! Giant glass vats shattered on the walls, disgorging their putrid contents! The floor split open; the crimson mycelium heaved like a living thing in agony!
"Self-destruct! He's bringing it down! MOVE!" Selena shrieked, pointing a trembling finger towards a small, half-obscured metal door behind the platform, partially hidden by steam and falling debris—an emergency exit!
"Grab Alan and Simon! NOW!" Lena didn't hesitate, sprinting towards Alan. Hawk lunged for the injured Simon.
Fenrir snarled at Viktor, whose broken body was now enveloped in the dark purple energy emanating from the disc—a crude teleportation effect. With a final, frustrated growl, Fenrir turned and bolted for the emergency exit.
The collapse accelerated! Massive metal beams plummeted from the ceiling! Scorching slag and acid rained down! Mimir's Forge, this profane crucible of stolen life, was consuming itself in a final, apocalyptic inferno!