Chapter 25 — BLOOM OF THE VOID
Arc II: Veins of Mourndusk
> Even the void trembles when a Domain is tested beyond its intent.
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The Hollow Shrine shook.
Stone cracked. Dead air ignited. Light bent.
And from the heart of the shattered altar, the Mutated Pulse-Eater rose fully.
Its skin was a shifting mass of ridged scale and torn soul-threads, veins glowing black-orange like molten lava frozen mid-motion. Around it, the crimson aura spiraled in jagged loops—shattered bands whipping outward in pulses of heat and entropy.
The Core in its chest twisted like a sun bound in chains.
The Null Maw expanded.
For a heartbeat, silence fell. Real silence—a compression of existence itself.
Nemea staggered. Yarri fell to one knee, clutching her head as ghostly screams echoed from nowhere. Vrakon felt his own Core falter, unable to draw Pulse from the air. Like the world itself had turned its face away.
"That's its fifth skill," Asha growled, standing alone between her allies and the beast. "Null Maw. A suppression field. It's active now."
The monster stepped forward.
And Asha moved.
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[The First Clash]
Her aura ignited—pure bronze layered with white heat.
Sovereign Mark.
Asha slammed her foot into the ground. Her Domain cracked reality in a radius, erasing all lesser domains and reasserting her truth. The crimson bands faltered around the creature as her influence pressed in.
Then came Memory Braid. Threads of past Pulse echoed around her limbs, forming a lattice of spectral shields. Whispers curled through the air—faint ghost-sounds from battles long passed.
She didn't waste breath. She dove.
Pulse against corruption. Memory against hunger.
The Mutated Pulse-Eater roared, its jaws splitting wider than any bone should allow. Core Spikes launched from its spine, shrieking through the shrine like meteors.
Asha sliced the air. Judgement Bloom.
A curved wave of honed Pulse carved a line through three projectiles, detonating them mid-air. The fourth punched into her Memory Braid shield—splintering it but failing to pierce.
She landed on a broken pillar, momentum carrying her like lightning. Her Domain pressure expanded again.
---
[Inside the Chaos]
Nemea pulled Yarri back behind a collapsed statue.
"That thing… it's using Echo Leak."
Pulse ghosts—flickers of faces, screaming silently—poured from the monster's chest. Disoriented, Yarri gritted her teeth and tried to focus.
"Why do they look like Fracta-Wielders?"
"Because they are," Nemea hissed. "Absorbed. Their last moments... weaponized."
Vrakon stood alone, further back, watching. His Core burned—not in fear, but recognition.
That scream. One of those echoes.
He'd heard it before.
A boy in a memory. Reaching. Failing.
His hands trembled.
Not yet. Not yet.
---
[Asha's True Push]
Asha leapt again, spinning into the air.
Truthbrand.
Lines of silver light erupted across the shrine. The creature's Fracta Cloak flickered and failed—its form fully exposed. For the first time, it hesitated. A guttural, layered snarl tore from its throat.
Pulse Absorption.
It lunged.
Asha struck. Judgement Bloom again—this time concentrated at its throat. The impact drove it backward, cracking the shrine floor. But it adapted.
Its Null Maw flared again.
Asha gasped. Her shield faltered.
It pounced.
---
[Interruption — Spiral Memory]
Before impact, a spiral ripple burst from behind Asha.
Vrakon.
He stood fully awake now, eyes not just open—but ancient.
A low hum filled the air. His Core thrummed—black-silver light flooding the space behind him like the eye of a storm.
He didn't move.
The Pulse-Eater did.
Mid-air, its limbs contorted. Its trajectory altered mid-attack.
Not by Asha.
By something in the Pulse.
"Spiral Instinct," Asha whispered. "He's triggering it... but it's not just reaction anymore."
The Pulse-Eater landed, hissed, then shrieked.
It had felt something.
Something older than itself.
Something that did not break.
---
[Final Phase of Battle]
Asha moved beside Vrakon.
"We end this round together."
She raised her arms—Memory Braid reforged, Sovereign Mark pulsing.
Vrakon extended his palm.
The Pulse shimmered around him. Not trained. Not shaped. But undeniable.
The monster reared, charging for both of them.
Then—an eruption.
Asha: Judgement Bloom.
Vrakon: Spiral Instinct - Echo Dive.
They hit it from both sides. A straight beam of severing light met a mirrored echo that bent the creature's Pulse backward into itself.
It screamed.
The shrine shattered upward in dust.
The creature didn't die.
But it fell. Hard.
Buried in fractured memory. For now.
---
[Aftermath]
Ash and stone fell. The Pulse-Tether Crystal pulsed in Vrakon's chest.
Asha wiped blood from her mouth, breathing hard. "Next time, we bring a squad."
Vrakon said nothing.
But the spiral on his back shimmered faintly, like something had awoken again.
Yarri and Nemea stared in silence.