The underground chamber trembled with tension. On one side, the cult hissed like cornered predators, their eyes flickering with Sanavak's sickly glow. On the other, Cyne's enforcers advanced in cold, perfect formation — their armor humming with power, runes etched into polished metal.
Between them, Zindra and Liyaya stood, their fingers locked so tightly her knuckles turned white. Zindra's runes flared bright against the gloom, but he felt the weight pressing in — too many enemies, not enough time.
The lead enforcer stepped forward, voice metallic through the helmet. "Step aside, human. This does not concern you."
Liyaya's voice was steady, clear. "You're wrong. It concerns me more than any of you know."
She felt something in her chest — a warmth like a heartbeat, but older, deeper, like the forest's roots twisting under ancient stone. She'd felt flickers of it before, but now, surrounded by death and betrayal, it rose like fire through her veins.
Zindra felt it too — the air around her shifting. He turned to her, wide-eyed. "Liyaya — what are you doing?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she stepped forward, placing herself between Zindra and the oncoming enforcers.
A cultist lunged from the side — a blade arcing toward her throat. Instinct took over. Liyaya raised her hand — and the air around her shimmered. The blade stopped inches from her skin, held by an invisible force. The cultist's eyes widened — then the steel shattered in his grip, dust swirling away like ash.
The enforcers paused. Even the cult fell silent.
Liyaya looked at her hands — green light pulsed at her fingertips, seeping through her skin like veins of living emerald. She could feel it now: Earth's pulse, the same force Zindra drew from Cyne but older, wilder — and hers alone.
The lead enforcer barked an order. "Take her! She's been corrupted!"
They rushed forward. Zindra stepped up to fight — but Liyaya placed a glowing hand on his chest. "No — let me."
She dropped to her knees, palms pressed to the stone floor. The ancient cold concrete pulsed under her touch. Cracks split the ground as roots burst through — thick tendrils of living earth wrapping around the legs of the charging enforcers, dragging them back like iron vines.
The cultists screamed in fear — Sanavak's mark flickering wildly in their eyes as the roots ignored them, coiling instead around the dark altar in the chamber's heart. With a single push of her will, Liyaya shattered the runes etched into the altar's base — the link that fed Sanavak its poison.
The darkness recoiled with a shriek, a hiss only Zindra could truly hear. For a heartbeat, every shadow in the room seemed to flicker away.
When it was over, the cultists collapsed, the black in their eyes draining like ink into water. The enforcers struggled in the roots' grip, but the forest's strength held them fast.
Liyaya stood slowly, light fading from her palms but not entirely gone. She turned to Zindra, breathless but steady. "Looks like this world isn't as helpless as your Council thinks."
Zindra's heart thundered — with pride, with fear, with something like awe. He took her face in his hands, his forehead pressed to hers. "You are this world's hope now."
In the ruined chamber, surrounded by broken chains and shattered lies, the fugitive sentinel and the woman bound to Earth's pulse knew one thing for certain: this fight was no longer his alone — it was theirs.