Chapter 1543: Story 1543: Shards of Unity

The ash reeked of blood and molten stone. Screams tangled with the shrieks of the spawn, a chorus that rose to the Gate and made its chains hum with dreadful hunger. Every heartbeat carried the threat of the next shatter.

Kael staggered, his jagged blade dripping with black ichor, his chest heaving like a bellows. His gaze swept the battlefield—not to the spawn, not to the scarred woman’s furious eyes, but to the faces of the dying. Survivors cut each other down even as monsters tore into their ranks. All of it fed the Gate. All of it was folly.

“Elara!” he roared over the chaos. “Hold him—hold the child!”

Her answer was a scream as fire burst from her shoulders, a flare that cracked and split against the press of spawn. The boy in her arms writhed, ember-light flashing violently. His whisper pierced through the madness: “Father… closer…”

The scarred woman heard it. She struck a spawn through the skull, molten ichor spilling across her face, and turned with fury blazing in her eyes. “Do you hear it, warrior? He calls him! And you defend it still?”

Kael met her across the carnage, his voice a ragged thunder. “Every blade you turn on me—on her—gives him another chain to break! Look at the Gate!”

She did. For a heartbeat, she saw it: the chains flaring, the links pulsing with every scream, every cut of steel. Her spear wavered. Her followers faltered, torn between loyalty and the gnawing realization of truth.

Then the earth convulsed.

A fissure split the ground between their clashing factions, vomiting flame. From it clawed a massive spawn, larger than any before. Its body was half-formed, limbs fused with chains of molten rock, its head split by a maw that glowed like a furnace. It roared, and the sound was a hammer against the soul.

The survivors stumbled back in terror, the fight between them forgotten in the shadow of the monster.

Kael seized the moment. He raised his blade, his voice breaking against the roar: “Fight them, not each other! Or the next chain breaks!”

The scarred woman’s spear lifted slowly, her body trembling with rage, grief, and something like surrender. She spat into the ash and snarled, “This isn’t a truce. It’s survival.”

Then she hurled her spear into the beast’s chest. The strike burst molten stone, the monster bellowing as it lurched forward. Her followers cried out, rallying to her side.

Kael charged in turn, his own ragged band at his back. For one desperate moment, the two factions fought not as enemies, but as one. Steel and flame struck together against the towering spawn, their blades carving through limbs of ash and fire.

Elara clutched the child, shielding him as his glow dimmed and brightened in frantic rhythm, the Gate groaning with every pulse.

Above them, the chains blazed brighter still. But for the first time since the shatter, they did not sing with hunger.

They trembled with fury.