The Shadow Lord lay still on his back, pressed to the ground where Kar had pinned him. A final, shallow, wheezing breath passed the man’s lips, and he died. He had been stabbed through the heart.

  Kar blinked, then straightened, letting go of the shadow forged blade in his grip. It quivered in place. A fitting parallel to Kar’s own mental state.

  He’d spent so much time fighting against cryst—he hadn’t been prepared for the ease with which the blade had pierced through human flesh. He was a killer now. Truly. He’d never wanted to be.

  Deafening silence followed. For a moment.

  Then, something erupted outwards from the slain man with concussive force. Kar was flung backwards violently, where he crashed against the steps. The surrounding ranks of Shadowcryst too were blown away in all directions. Only that massive root remained in place.

  A low, angry rumble shook the ground. Then the root surged towards Kar.

  He scrambled to his feet, or tried to—twisting aside as the leading tendril reached him. Too slow.

  Crushing force collided against Kar’s void-cryst arm. He spun through the air and crashed into a crowd of Shadowcryst, bowling them aside. A piercing, inhuman shriek tore at Kar’s mind. He staggered to his feet, his vision swimming.

  He couldn’t stay down here.

  A lone figure appeared to his right, on the closest balcony overlooking the Causeways. It raised a cylinder and blasted a bearing towards the root. The ball clipped its side, scattering chips of dark crystal. The black tendril reared up and twisted toward the shooter.

  Kar dashed toward the steps and the safety of the street above.

  His mind was reeling. What had just happened? Who had that man been?

  No time to think. The Shadowcryst stirred, as if their shadow lord’s dominion over them were finally fading. They lashed out. At Kar, at one another. Anything and everything.

  It was madness.

  Shadowcryst swiped and tore at Kar’s armor. He was buffeted by it, but didn’t dare stop moving. The figure on the balcony leaned over, firing another round. The bearing struck a shadowcryst directly in front of Kar, knocking it aside so that he could continue his ascent.

  As he drew nearer, Kar recognized who his helper was.

  Derek.

  His friend had the Focus Cylinder he had been gifted, and was making good use of it.

  Kar cleared the last landing of steps, dodging a pair of shadowcryst locked in a vicious struggle against one another.

  “It’s not safe on the street!” Derek called down to him.

  Kar still had Dark Energía leftover. He jumped towards the building where Derek was, and forged a rudimentary ladder in his hands. He didn’t bother climbing, just held on to one rung as he extended the length of the ladder’s legs beneath him. At the balcony’s railing, Derek grabbed and heaved him up and over.

  “What in the hells is going on, Kar.”

  Kar just shook his head wearily. He was trembling. Below them, the melee expanded. Every shadowcryst had gone mad, attacking its neighbors. Not even the root was safe; beset on all sides by smaller cryst.

  They were feeding on each other, Absorbing in a wild frenzy.

  Hulking forms grew from the midst of the chaos, individual shadowcryst who—having defeated their brethren—grew with every conquest.

  “I don’t know what’s happening.” Kar whispered. He’d killed the man who he suspected had been controlling these creatures. Without that control, the Shadowcryst were somehow more terrifying than before.

  “Where’s Lore?” Derek asked.

  Kar turned to look at his friend, and saw the fear in his eyes. “Hopefully safe. I sent her away with some Acolytes. Told them to make for the fortress.”

  Derek nodded, relieved. “I don’t know where anyone else is, I came when I heard trouble. What’s the plan? We can’t stay here.”

  Kar slapped the railing beneath him in frustration. “We can’t leave. I have to find a way to shut that Causeway.” He glanced at Derek, feeling haunted, “I’m the one who opened it.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Confusion danced across Derek’s face, mixed with pity, and horror.

  A peeling roar drew their attention back to the Causeways. One of the shadowcryst towered above the rest now. It trudged toward the root and latched onto it, pulsing greedily as it siphoned Dark Energía. Void-cryst expanded from the monster, its size increasing radically, until the root released a final unholy screech and fell still.

  The surrounding shadowcryst stopped struggling then. The one who’d fed on the root rose slowly—now a two legged colossus of void-cryst. It turned away from the Causeway toward Darby.

  The others cringed away from it, then shuddered collectively, before mirroring its orientation. A roar emanated from that shadow-colossus and the gathered shadowcryst surged up toward the town like a feral, dark, tide.

  Had a power void been filled?

  Looking at that hulking monstrosity, Kar despaired. How could something like that be defeated? And even if it were, would that just lead to another rising to take its place?

  The first of the Valorcryst, and their cryst-soldiers arrived then. They came from the opposite direction Lore and the acolytes had fled, from the fortress. They must have battled their way through half the town to reach this far.

  They weren’t alone. Acolytes and Focusers fought alongside them. Blasters with their cylinder’s and Enhancers with melee weapons—pikes with blunted focus-forged heads, war-hammers, and spiked picks.

  “They’re going to be crushed…” Derek said.

  Kar, however, saw an opportunity.

  “How many of those bearings do you have?” He asked.

  Derek frowned, glancing into a pouch at his side. “Like, three more.”

  “Let me see one?”

  Derek handed one over.

  Kar held up the metal ball between a thumb and forefinger, examining it. Then he shadow forged a replica in his other hand.

  “Here.” Kar said, gesturing towards Derek’s pouch. Within moments, it was full to overflowing with black, crystal bearings.

  “Cover me.” Kar told his friend. “I’m going back to that Causeway, and I’m going to figure out how to close it.”

  “What if you can’t?” Derek responded incredulously.

  “Then everyone here dies.”

  Derek jerked his head as if struck. “This is totally Rifted.”

  Kar smacked Derek’s shoulder with his good arm, then leapt over the railing of the balcony. He slid down a chain he’d shadow forged, and dropped the last few feet to the street below.

  This wasn’t about finding the best, or good way anymore. Sometimes, it came down to finding any way to accomplish what had to be done. That’s where Kar was at now. There was something freeing about that. In a way.

  He started running and didn’t look back. The sounds of the Valorcryst and Shadowcryst forces clashing up on the street above were deafening. Kar knew Melisdra would be there in the thick of things, along with Erio and Tharn, surely. He hoped Lore and the others had reached safety and weren’t here fighting. Hoped Aldwin was off exploring the hub realm instead of somewhere here in Darby. How had it all come to this?

  For the first time since the Causeway had opened, the shadowcryst at its threshold had thinned somewhat. There were still more stumbling through, but most had moved up to the battle above or fallen to one another in the insanity that had collectively possessed them earlier.

  Still, there were those that turned toward Kar as he rushed for the archway.

  Derek did his best to help. But either his aim still needed practice or the bearings Kar had forged for him were somewhat faulty. Most of his cylinder shots went wide. But just knowing he had his friend at his back made Kar feel better.

  He still forged an extra layer to the back of his helm and backplate just in case.

  A hammer fell into Kar’s hand as a shadowcryst reared up in front of him. This one was enlarged, a victor of its duels. Kar ducked under a savage swipe, and bludgeoned its knee as he ran past. The joint crunched and gave out. Then a bearing from Derek blasted against the creature's chest, breaking loose a large slab of crystal that fell and shattered on the ground.

  The shadowcryst roared and twisted in Derek’s direction.

  Kar grasped hold of the back of its leg—only for a moment—just long enough to ambush it and Absorb a chunk of Dark Energía without resistance. Then he kept running.

  He was halfway across the floor of the causeway amphi-theatre. The shadow lord still lay where Kar had left him. He appeared to have been stomped on and brutalized by the struggle that had taken place between the shadowcryst. That root lay shattered nearby, unmoving, no light pulsing along its length.

  A smaller cryst leapt for Kar from his left side. He struck it out of the air with his hammer, breaking the shadow forged implement in half with the impact. Kar discarded it, then knelt and slammed his left palm to the fallen cryst’s back.

  He absorbed its energy. All of it. He was getting faster at that. More efficient. The key was not hesitating. He had to be ruthless. Determined.

  Another cylinder shot rang out, and a cryst Kar hadn’t noticed collapsed behind him. Kar jerked his hand in a wave toward Derek, then dashed the remaining distance to the indentation in the archway where all of this had started.

  His right arm fought against him. Kar understood now what it was. He glanced at a broken shadowcryst lying to his right. His arm was one of these. He felt the same hunger and desire in it as he felt every time he linked up to one of the shadowcryst to Absorb its energy. Only, this shadowcryst was somehow a part of him.

  The power Kar had gathered suffused him near to bursting. Greater than all the Energía that had filled him when he drained the Scorpio in the third trial chamber.

  He concentrated it into a narrow, black shard, which he forged in his left hand. It was like Imbuement, or near enough to it. Only, instead of pouring water from a pitcher, Kar was channeling lightning from a storm.

  The shard hummed in his hand. It felt right, in a very wrong sort of way. Kar shoved that dark shard into the indentation, and willed the Causeway to shut.

  His shadowcryst arm tore at his consciousness, tried to writhe forward of its own accord to tear that shard out, but Kar battled against and gained the dominion over it.

  The Causeway flickered. Groaned. It was working. Kar was shutting it. He poured more of himself into the process, his breathing labored now, sweat pouring down his face.

  Something was still missing, though.

  The process stalled, then reversed. The Causeway stabilized as Kar expended the last of the Dark Energía he held. No, no, no…

  So absolute was his focus, that Kar didn’t notice the colossal arm of void-cryst whipping toward him until it was too late. It hammered into him, and everything turned to pain, then darkness.