The grip tightened.

  Erik’s vision blurred. energy rippled wildly in his veins, thrashing for an outlet, but the Devourer’s hand nullified it. His limbs spasmed. His breath hitched.

  He was losing.

  Again.

  A scream tore out from the side—Vesper, staggering to her feet, blood dripping down her temple. Her shattered armor clung to her frame, her hand glowing with a desperate spell.

  “Let. Him. Go!”

  She launched herself forward.

  Steel met Eldritch flesh with all the fury she could summon.

  And it did nothing.

  The blade bounced. Her spell fizzled on contact. A tendril caught her mid-swing and whipped her sideways, smashing her against a collapsed barricade.

  The Devourer didn’t spare her a glance.

  It was laughing now.

  Low at first. Then deeper. Louder.

  The laugh turned to a hum, and the hum became a vibration. It rolled through the air like thunder warped into sound—shaking loose rubble, rattling broken glass.

  Across the distant cityscape, a new sound rose in response—groans. Clicks. Wet gurgling.

  Infected.

  Dozens.

  No—hundreds.

  In buildings, behind shattered windows, crawling out from collapsed rubble from the clash, rising in the distance like a plague tide. They answered the Devourer’s call.

  Berndhardt stormed into the scene, axe spinning through the air with impossible force. The weapon crackled with gravitational fury—its enchantment tuned to grow heavier the longer it flew.

  The Devourer caught it midair.

  With two fingers.

  The impact didn’t even move him.

  Berndhardt froze.

  “…No. That’s not—”

  The Devourer grinned with too many mouths and crushed the axe like brittle wood.

  The ground trembled as the infected swarmed. They poured through alleyways, climbed building facades, dropped from rooftops in twisted flocks. The battlefield that once seemed vast now felt like a trap—walls closing in.

  Vesper stirred again. Bloodied. Barely conscious. She met Berndhardt’s eyes.

  Neither said a word.

  They didn’t have to.

  They stood, pulling in whatever strength they could find and started shouting for the survivors. Pulling the wounded. Grabbing anyone who could still move.

  The last of Erik’s allies turned their backs to the collapsing center and sprinted for the narrowing exits. But the streets were already folding inward. The infected poured in from every angle—corridors, broken windows, underground passages.

  They were surrounded.

  And it was too late.

  Above them, the air changed. A hum—not like the Devourer’s—this one mechanical. Pulsing. Foreign.

  It started as a whisper in the clouds. Then grew louder.

  A sound like nothing in this world.

  Whrrrrrrrrr—BOOM.

  The clouds split like torn paper as a radiant light pierced the gray sky.

  A massive Aetherian vessel floated through the break in the cloudline, slowly descending with grace and weight. It was ancient, yet impossibly sleek—carved of glass and light, rimmed in runes too complex to be human.

  Pulses of radiant energy rippled from its underside.

  The infected froze, shrieking.

  Erik’s body still hung limp in the Devourer’s grip. His hand twitched.

  The ring on his finger glowed blue.

  Bright.

  Brighter.

  Violently bright.

  It vibrated. The pulses from the ship synced with it—beat for beat, thrum for thrum.

  And then—

  FWOOOM.

  A pillar of radiant flame exploded downward from the ship, engulfing Erik and his broken team in pure Aetherian light. It didn’t burn—it disintegrated. Every Eldritch it touched screamed once, then vanished in a flash of blue fire.

  A wall of crackling light formed around them—expanding, pulsing outward like a second heartbeat. It swept across the city in a wave, incinerating every infected in its path. The Devourer recoiled for the first time, screeching, limbs thrashing against the sudden blaze.

  Erik’s body dropped to the ground.

  Smoke rising.

  Still unconscious.

  But breathing.

  Inside the shield, Berndhardt and Vesper stared at the sky, then at Erik’s glowing ring.

  They were alive.

  But they had no idea why.

  The Atherian ship hovered high above the battlefield, humming with restrained power.

  Then—it struck.

  CRACK-THOOM.

  In an instant, harpoons of pure energy erupted downward from the ship, so fast they seemed to simply appear. Each one buried itself into the ground and into the Devourer’s limbs, pinning it in place. Chains made of radiant Aetherian energy snapped taut, radiating pulses of raw, power straight into the Eldritch flesh.

  The Devourer screamed.

  It thrashed, its limbs flailing with a manic, animal frenzy. Mouths across its body opened and closed with wild discord, shrieking in pain and rage as the chains continued pumping Aetherian power into it—too pure, too absolute. It clawed at the bindings, its form twitching violently, destabilizing.

  Above, a beam of soft blue light—slightly translucent and thrumming with a quiet rhythm—enveloped Erik and the others.

  Vesper shielded her eyes. “What the hell is it doing?”

  Berndhardt, holding a bloodied arm and dragging a wounded soldier to the light, grunted. “Saving its master, hopefully. And us, maybe.”

  The beam began to pull.

  Erik’s limp body was first—his ring glowing like a miniature sun. Blood trickled from his ears, nose, and mouth. His body was slack, unresponsive, and yet the beam cradled him as if protecting something sacred.

  Vesper and Berndhardt lifted off the ground next, struggling to hold on to whatever wreckage or people they could grab as they ascended. The Devourer thrashed harder, its shrieking growing more guttural as it sensed what was happening.

  And then—it broke free.

  The chains shattered in a burst of black energy and fragments of ruined light. With a leap fueled by fury and madness, the Devourer launched itself at the ship, claws out, ripping into the hull and pulling itself upward.

  Berndhardt looked down, saw it coming, and shouted: “Really?! You couldn’t just let us have this one?!”

  The ship responded before the monster could advance further.

  A sudden hole opened in its deck—directly below the Devourer. A beam of concentrated Aetherian force, wide as a siege tower, erupted upward in a blinding column. The ship shuddered as its systems poured everything into the strike.

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  The Devourer held on for several seconds, its form blistering under the energy. Its claws sank into the hull with sheer defiance.

  But then—the energy surged again.

  A final burst, louder than thunder.

  The Devourer screamed—and was blasted free.

  It was flung downward, a howling mass of limbs and teeth and broken shrieks, crashing into the city below with such force that the ground itself ruptured. A building folded inward as if crushed by an invisible god.

  The light faded.

  Inside the ship, silence.

  Then… a shudder.

  The floor vibrated. A warning hum echoed through the corridors. Vesper braced herself. “What now?”

  Behind them, a hatch opened on the deck—and something emerged.

  A power stone the size of a throne.

  It rose from its cradle, spinning slowly, humming with impossible potential. Blue light flared around it, making the very air crackle.

  Berndhardt stepped back. “A massive power stone. What in the—?”

  Vesper stared, eyes wide. “That’s… that’s enough power to start a war. Or end one.”

  The power stone rotated faster, and Erik’s ring responded again—vibrating violently on his hand, now glowing a radiant white-blue.

  The ship began to shift.

  Panels moved. Walls twisted. The entire vessel started forming a shell of translucent blue alloy—layer by layer, like metal petals closing inward.

  A sphere.

  The outer shell began to spin.

  Faster. Then faster still.

  The deck beneath them turned transparent as a new display bloomed upward—eight floating planets, each suspended in light.

  Two were highlighted.

  One blinked where they stood.

  The other… somewhere else.

  Berndhardt stepped toward the display, squinting. “No way…”

  Vesper whispered, “It’s choosing.”

  They watched, breathless.

  And then—

  FLASH.

  The sphere turned entirely clear.

  The stars vanished.

  And they were moving.

  Through a tunnel of black, white, and orange—no sound, no sensation. Reality bent around them, weightless, silent. Energy warped into motion.

  Then—

  BOOM.

  Clouds ripped past them. Ice-tipped mountains rolled beneath their feet. The ship tilted hard—plummeting.

  “Brace!” Vesper shouted.

  The descent was too fast. The ship spiraled downward toward a glowing lake nestled atop a mountaintop. They plummeted, helpless passengers.

  And then—

  CRASH—SPLASH.

  The ship struck the lake, sending up a wave that swallowed half the surrounding cliffs.

  Silence.

  Dripping silence.

  Erik’s body lay still.

  Vesper gasped, dragging herself upright, coughing water and disbelief.

  She looked up.

  Birds with three wings glided overhead in lazy spirals. Two suns glowed in opposite skies. A third moon cast a radiant blue light across the lake.

  “…Where are we?” she whispered.

  Berndhardt stood. Soaked. Bleeding. Laughing.

  Vesper scowled. “Now? Really? What’s so damn funny?”

  He pointed.

  At the floor of the Aetherian ship, where a projection shimmered—an exact image of the landscape around them. The birds. The suns. The lake. The mountains.

  They were home.

  Erik’s home.

  The Aetherian home world.

  Berndhardt chuckled again and leaned against the wall, sliding down.

  “Welp,” he said, grinning. “Guess the ship remembered where its home was.”

  Vesper sat near the edge of the ship’s open deck, soaking wet, her armor bent and bruised. She stared out at the alien sky—at the twin suns casting long shadows over a shimmering blue lake surrounded by jagged, icy peaks.

  Silence stretched.

  Then came Berndhardt’s laugh again—deep, wheezing, real.

  She turned sharply. “What the hell is so funny?”

  Berndhardt was flat on his back, arms sprawled, a busted pauldron hanging by a single strap. He pointed lazily at the glowing projection on the floor.

  “I’m just sayin’,” he wheezed. “All that... the city, the screaming monster, me almost dying, you definitely almost dying—and this damn ship just decides, ‘You know what? Let’s go home.’” He chuckled again. “Like it forgot it left meat in the smoker.”

  Vesper rolled her eyes but didn’t hide the small smile tugging at her lips.

  “You think this is funny? Erik’s bleeding out. We don’t even know if he’s—if he’s gonna make it.”

  Berndhardt’s expression sobered a bit. He looked over at Erik’s still body, resting in a cocoon of dim blue light.

  “He’ll make it,” Berndhardt said, quieter now. “Guy's too stubborn to die.”

  Vesper exhaled slowly, brushing wet hair back from her face.

  “This place…” she said, eyes drifting toward the landscape. “This is where he’s from. Aetheria. The original one.”

  “Yeah,” Berndhardt muttered. “Can’t believe it’s real. Thought this place was all smoke and legend. Y’know—‘golden land beyond the gates of stars,’ blah blah.”

  Vesper didn’t respond. She was watching Erik, her voice barely a whisper.

  “Do you think he knew the ship would bring us here?”

  Berndhardt shrugged. “I think he knew it’d do something.” He chuckled softly. “But if you asked him where we were headed mid-pummel from the Devourer? I think his answer would’ve been something like: ‘wherever we’re not dying.’”

  Vesper snorted. “That does sound like him.”

  Berndhardt stood, joints popping. “Look, Vesp… whatever this place is, we didn’t crash here by accident. That thing—” he pointed toward the enormous core still spinning in the ship’s heart—“it chose this. And Erik’s ring? Synced to it like a key.”

  Vesper looked back down at Erik.

  “I just hope we didn’t bring the war with us.”

  Berndhardt’s face darkened. “We definitely didn’t leave it behind.”

  Another moment of silence passed.

  Berndhardt reached down, offering Vesper a hand.

  “Come on. Let’s see if this ship still has beds that aren’t soaked in blood and regret.”

  She hesitated, then took it.

  As they stood together, watching twin suns pass overhead, Vesper murmured, “We need to get Erik back on his feet. If this world really is his…”

  Berndhardt nodded.

  “…Then we just landed in the middle of a very old story.”

  He looked at her and gave a tired, crooked smile.

  “Let’s just hope it’s not a tragedy.”