Page 68

ATLAS

The daema swarmed the moment we breached the church doors—fangs bared, eyes glowing, a tidal wave of teeth and wings.

Ragnar surged ahead through the nave, a living fault line of fury, fists cracking bone as static swelled in the air.

I hung back near the entrance, tracking the harpies in the rafters. Xander darted left, cutting a path toward the altar.

The plan hadn’t changed—even if Orion had already thrown himself off-course. We couldn’t risk a power drain to wipe out all of them—not yet—but we needed a clear path to the altar.

Xander was our best shot at reaching that crypt, and though he could adapt on the fly, he couldn’t get there if he was buried in daema.

Despite Ragnar’s brutal advance, the fight wasn’t breaking the way I’d expected.

Orion had misjudged the number of daema cloaked in the shadows.

The longer we were on the ground, the more of them emerged.

Ragnar was cutting through them like a battering ram, but Xander was pinned down with no path forward.

I felt the thunder in my bones before I heard it roll overhead. The electric current coiled beneath my skin, begging to be set free.

“Cover the ground,” I snapped to Ragnar, turning my focus upward. Harpies circled the rafters, talons gleaming, wings slicing through the thickening air. I could feel each one moving through the static, making my aim effortless.

My hair lifted on end as the charge peaked. Lightning exploded from my palms, spearing the nearest harpy through the chest. It plummeted, but I was already lining up the next.

Each flash lit the cavernous room like strobe fire. Between strikes, I kept tabs on Xander. If he didn’t reach the crypt, then all of this was for nothing.

Orion had proven unreliable—but that changed nothing.

“Brother,” I called, tracking the next harpy as it dove too close. “Clear the dais!”

I could almost hear Ragnar grinding his teeth.

“Fucking busy,” he snarled, just as his iron-coated fist collided with a Minotaur’s chest.

I hadn’t seen one of those beasts on Earth in centuries. The strike barely staggered it before it barreled forward, horns down, ramming Ragnar back into the stone wall. I smelled the searing flesh from his fists as he shoved back. The creature howled, more enraged than wounded.

Ragnar could hold his own, but we were out of time.

Xander had moved closer to the dais, locked in combat with a humanoid daema, twin blades carving with surgical precision. But there were still too many in his path.

That left me.

The storm surged in my chest, pressing against bone and breath. Every part of me thrummed with restrained power, the storm wrapping itself around me like armor.

One breath in—too slow. One breath out—too late.

The world had already decided.

Lightning cracked through the air—a fork of wrath that split stone, silence, and sense alike.

The blast didn’t strike.

It annihilated.

The altar shattered, blown open in a thunderclap of power. Stone erupted, obliterating those who stood too close.

Xander didn’t hesitate. He dropped through the opening like a blade through silk.

I turned as a daema lunged. Lightning coiled into a whip across my palm—I cracked it once, hurling him across the room. Another creature slashed at my back—claws tearing fabric but missing flesh. The whip lashed again, severing the harpy mid-dive.

We couldn’t hold this forever.

“What the fuck are you waiting for?!” Ragnar shouted, rage spitting from every syllable.

But something else stirred.

Above us, the shadows moved.

That was unexpected—but not entirely unwelcome.

The storm had swallowed the remaining light, feeding on every flicker. But the darkness no longer felt distant—it was me. It had always been me. I just hadn’t let it out.

The battlefield froze.

Every creature. Every wing. Every breath.

Held.

“Nothing,” I said.

Power climbed up my arms—cold, pure, and absolute. The air grew razor-thin. The daema could feel it. So could the storm.

And it obeyed.

The clouds churned above us, black devouring black. Thunder coiled low and deep, vibrating through the stones beneath our feet.

The harpies shrieked—panic replacing fury. They flinched in the air, sensing too late what was coming.

The shadows fell.

Lightning flared—then vanished.

The descent wasn’t light—it was obliteration.

The storm poured through me like floodwater over raw wire, soaking every nerve in pressure and silence. I didn’t hear the harpies die. I felt them vanish—snuffed from existence.

No bodies. No remains.

Only darkness.

Ragnar moved beside me, uncharacteristically quiet. I didn’t look at him.

Didn’t need to.

“…You—”

The shadows thickened, dragging lower, curling into the stone and bone of the church itself. The silence grew heavier, absolute.

I breathed in slowly, letting the storm settle into my bones, the last edge of resistance fading.

There was no need for restraint.

The storm had chosen.