The shattered fragments of the frozen shadow-tendrils had barely struck the stone before High Archon Vhol struck the base of his iron staff against the rim of the frozen pool.
"Fools!" the discordant chorus shrieked through the wyrm-mask. "You think ice can bind the void?"
The sixty hooded acolytes lining the concentric stone tiers did not run. With horrifying synchronization, they drew curved bone-daggers and slit their own throats in a single, fluid stroke.
A fountain of black, ether-soaked blood sprayed from their necks, defying gravity as it surged through the air toward the suspended Third Shard. The obsidian crystal drank the life-essence greedily, pulsing violently. A screech of tortured reality echoed through the cavern as a shockwave of necrotic violet force detonated from the shard, obliterating the frost encasing the pool and superheating the air into a choking, poisoned gale.
From the swirling blood and shadow emerged four towering Abyssal Horrors—monstrosities woven from dead bone, shifting black smoke, and jagged obsidian claws, their eyeless heads thrashing with mindless hunger as they charged down the stone tiers toward the sovereigns.
"Take the horrors!" Malakor barked, his voice cutting through the demonic roar. "The priest is mine!"
"Don't let him link with the shard!" Aurelia replied, her voice ringing clear and deadly.
She vaulted over the edge of the lower dais, meeting the charge of the first two monstrosities head-on. She was a tempest of pure celestial grace, her twin daggers leaving ribbons of shimmering azure ether in the air.
As the lead horror lunged with a scythe-like limb, Aurelia slid beneath the strike, her daggers driving upward into its smoke-woven sternum. She channeled raw glacial energy through the hilts, crystallizing the beast's etheric core. The creature froze mid-motion, and with a swift roundhouse kick from her armored boot, she shattered it into a cascade of glittering black dust.
Spinning with lethal momentum, she drew three throwing needles forged of compressed frost and hurled them into the eye-slits of the second horror. The cold exploded outward, freezing its shoulders and anchoring its massive frame to the basalt floor, where she severed its neck with a clean, sweeping strike of her dagger.
Meanwhile, Malakor advanced upon High Archon Vhol like an unstoppable engine of war.
The two remaining horrors threw themselves into his path, their obsidian claws slashing across his dragon-hide harness. The strikes drew sparks against his hardened steel plates, but Malakor did not even stagger.
With a roar of pure abyssal rage, he brought his great sword down in a brutal, vertical cleave. The blade ripped through the first horror’s shoulder, cleaving its torso in two while black fire incinerated its essence into ash. As the second beast snapped its fanged jaws toward his throat, Malakor caught its upper jaw bare-handed, his crimson-tinted ether flaring to white heat as he forced the creature onto its knees and drove his knee into its chest, caving in its ribcage with a sickening crunch.
Vhol raised his iron staff, unleashing a blinding beam of concentrated violet disintegration directly at Malakor’s chest.
"Die, usurper!" the priest shrieked.
Malakor crossed his arms, catching the beam against the flat of his runed great sword. The kinetic force pushed him back three paces, the stone groaning beneath his boots, but his eyes burned with unyielding, feral fury.
Step by agonizing step, Malakor pushed forward against the apocalyptic beam, his boots carving deep furrows into the obsidian floor.
"You speak of the void, priest," Malakor growled, his voice vibrating with terrifying power as the black flames along his blade devoured the violet beam. "I am the fire that burns within it!"
With a savage sweep of his arm, Malakor deflected the beam into the cavern ceiling, shattering a massive stalactite of black bone. In the next instant, he closed the distance.
Before Vhol could raise his staff again, Malakor’s gauntleted hand shot out like an iron vise, wrapping around the priest’s throat and lifting the thrashing figure clean off his feet.
"Wait—mercy—" Vhol’s chorus fractured into a single, terrified whimper beneath the mask.
"You offered sacrifice," Malakor said coldly, his crimson eyes narrowing to lethal slits. "I accept."
With a flick of his wrist, Malakor smashed the priest down onto the stone dais, planting his armored boot onto the iron staff, snapping it in two like dry kindling. In the same motion, his great sword plunged downward, impaling the High Archon through the chest and pinning him to the floor.
A wail of escaping spirits tore from the dying priest's lips as the black flames of the great sword consumed his flesh, leaving only the hollow, smoking wyrm-mask behind.
Above them, the severed link caused the Third Shard to go wild.
The twelve soul-steel chains groaned under immense strain as the colossal obsidian crystal thrashed violently in the air, pulsing with uncontrolled, catastrophic energy that threatened to bring the entire cavern down upon their heads.
Aurelia sprinted to the dais, coming to a halt beside Malakor. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps, her dark hair plastered to her temple with sweat.
Malakor yanked his sword free from the stone and turned to her, his chest heaving, his eyes still wild with the bloodlust of the kill. He grabbed her by the arm, pulling her against his flank, his protective instinct instantly flaring as jagged rocks began to rain from the trembling vaulted ceiling.
"The shard is destabilizing!" Aurelia shouted over the deafening hum of the crystal. "If it ruptures, it will wipe the plateau from the map!"
Malakor locked eyes with her, his grip on her hip tightening with desperate, unshakeable faith.
"Then bind it, Aurelia," he rasped, his hand sliding to the nape of her neck, pulling her forehead against his. "Bind it with your frost... and take what belongs to us."