CHAPTER 1507: STORY 1507: HEART OF SHADOWS

The titan’s roar rolled through the forest like thunder, shattering branches and shaking loose clouds of ash. The abomination’s ribcage peeled further apart, exposing the glowing sigil within. It pulsed like a living wound, each beat echoing with the cries of the countless dead bound into its form.

Kael raised his sword, his voice low but steady. “That’s the key. We cut it out, we kill it.”

Elara’s white fire flared in her hands, lighting her pale face with a ghostly glow. “Easier said than done. It’s protecting it with everything it has.”

The titan’s colossal hand swept downward, its shadow blotting them from the moonlight. Kael shoved Elara aside as the ground exploded beneath the impact. Dirt and shattered bodies rained down. He staggered to his feet, coughing, and charged straight toward the monster’s leg. His blade slashed deep, severing tendons of bone and sinew. The titan faltered, bellowing in pain, but the wound began knitting itself closed almost immediately.

“Elara!” Kael roared. “Now!”

She loosed another arrow of flame, this time aiming directly for the glowing sigil. The shot streaked true, carving through the air with brilliant fire—but at the last instant, the titan’s chest sealed shut, the sigil vanishing behind a wall of corpses. The arrow struck useless flesh, igniting only a portion of its mass.

Elara cursed under her breath. “It’s hiding it!”

Kael’s movements slowed; the corruption spreading from his wound weighed him down like chains. His skin was pale, veins black as coal, yet he still swung his blade with ferocity, hacking through the grasping limbs of the titan’s lower body. Every strike cost him, blood spraying from reopened gashes.

“Don’t let it close again!” he barked.

Elara clenched her jaw, summoning the fire until it surged wild and untamed, searing the air around her. Pain lanced through her veins, but she held on. With a scream, she unleashed a blazing storm. The white fire struck the titan’s torso, burning through the wall of corpses, splitting open the chest once more.

The sigil was visible again, brighter, pulsing as though enraged. The master’s voice echoed from within the titan, mocking yet strained. “Do you think flame can undo eternity? I am built of the dead—you cannot burn death itself.”

Elara’s fire wavered, her body trembling violently. She fell to one knee, coughing blood. “Kael... I can’t hold it!”

Kael, barely standing, tightened his grip on his sword. His eyes flickered with a desperate plan. “Then you don’t have to. Just give me an opening.”

He charged. Dodging between the titan’s writhing limbs, he leapt onto its leg, climbing upward as the monster thrashed and howled. Elara, gathering the last of her strength, fired one final arrow, white-hot, carving a path through to the exposed sigil.

Kael reached the gaping chest cavity just as the arrow struck. With a cry torn from the depths of his soul, he drove his blade straight into the glowing heart.

The sigil cracked—light spilling outward like shattered glass—

And the titan screamed, not with one voice, but with thousands.