Crimson Ascension

Draven willed the runic circuit inscribed on his astra alight. Fourfold Amplification, he snarled. Against a Sha'Vitri, he couldn't afford to hold back, not if he wanted a chance to escape. Not to win, escape. Just witnessing the creature's Presence told him winning a battle was a lost cause.

"Begone!" Draven snarled, commanding the hexion and will at his disposal to expel the intruder's will from his soul. Not a hint of worry passed over the Fallen's face. Untaak'Dor stood with an unfazed expression. Hatred alit in his eyes, his Presence black lightning crackling around his silver frame.

Draven ignited his Heart Flame, leveraging its innate resistance against foreign influences. His thoughts became clearer, his reasoning sharpened, and his will grew thorns. With a grunt, Draven wrapped hexion and will around the horned man, and let his authority push against his Presence.

Untaak'Dor took a step back, a look of surprise breaking his icy facade before it vanished amidst the lightning. "Not enough, Archon. Elissandor Wight was twice the man you are, yet even he could not defeat me alone. Begone, you say? To leave this realm has been my goal for eons, but your kind has made that difficult. It is you, your existence, an abomination of fate, who must vanish!"

The Fallen's word, the command woven from his authority, shattered the Hemomorph's Mantle. Draven fell to his knees, gasping for breath. Something pressed against his soul, his consciousness with the weight of a mountain. He couldn't win. How could anyone win against that? His projection cracked.

Fivefold Amplification! Draven's core flared with a dangerous brilliance of a sun on the verge of exploding, cracks spreading on its surface, crawling from one end to another, intending to turn his work into crumbling pieces. The will of the Archon of Blood, the authority of a Mender, shone through, mending the damage, fighting the cracks with a healing power that put destruction at a stalemate.

The weight lessened from his shoulders, though it was still hard to breathe. Draven rose from the ground. He refused to prostrate himself before that thing. He understood now that whispers he heard from the old Dreamer in the Amethyst Palace had been true—if the Fallen rose, the Haven would fall.

Untaak'Dor's soul was destroyed, with his will remaining in slivers that spread throughout the Old World, yet even a fraction of his might was enough to suppress Draven. He had to find a way to flee, to advance to Ascendance as quickly as possible, to seclude himself in the Sixfold Corridor for long enough to truly master the Art of Runes.

"A runic circuit? Your understanding is crude, Archon. I have given you a chance to relinquish the Fragment of Eternity more than once, but you refuse my kindness still." Black lightning formed around the Sha'Vitri like roots spreading out from a tree. "So be it."

As the lightning crackled and shot at him, dark energy obliterating everything in its path, its energy tearing rents in his soul, Draven willed all the hexion inside his astra to funnel into nine spheres that hovered in front of him. He compressed the berserk hexion, making the spheres diminish in size. The hexion roared, tried to break free, but Draven's will was iron.

It was the same attack he had used against the Ruler of Shadow, only simultaneously done nine times over with another fold of amplification to strengthen it. The lightning grew closer, and time almost seemed to grow still. With a defiant roar, carrying the survival of the Haven on his back, Draven let the nine spheres explode into nine beams of berserk hexion.

Black lightning crashed against blood, and where the dark roots of destruction touched, his hexion was obliterated. The attack cut through Draven's defenses effortlessly, blasting through his projection, his consciousness, his soul.

I failed, he thought. He could feel his body growing cold, the strength leaving his body. Behind him, a hole pierced clean through his astra, beating its Mending properties with a lasting destruction that consigned all he was to oblivion. I failed. There was peace in knowing that, in many ways, he knew his struggle was over.

Abyss take me. Rage burned his regret to ashes, leaving only determination. Not again. I swore… never again! He clawed through the destruction, urging his fading will to stitch his soul together. I won't die! I won't let this bastard destroy my home.

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His projection faded where the black lighting had passed through. His astra shuddered as it tried to mend the hole. His will caught on fire. Draven touched the Regulation rune with a fading hand. It was a valve that limited the amplification factor of his hexion. If it were gone, he might have the strength to resist a little longer. But it would be a path of no return.

Draven steadied his dying heart for what he was about to do. His soul stood on the precipice of death, close enough to oblivion. He felt the Call of the Abyss as if it sang next to his ear. One more second, and his strength to stall death would vanish.

There's no other choice, Draven thought.

"I'm glad you aren't dead yet," Elevalein's voice thundered inside his soul. "I'm not letting you die, brother. Not when I can help."

Green mist, hexion attuned to the Soul Path, flooded Draven's spirit, mending the damages to his soul with terrifying ease. Soul and Blood were two sides of the same coin. Whereas one governed the healing of the body with a prowess unmatched, the other could heal wounds to the soul beyond the reach of Mender's touch.

In a single instant, every wound on his soul vanished, leaving not even a hint of scar. The hole in his astra closed, sealing the aperture from which refined hexion leaked. Draven stared at the Fallen's surprised face.

Black lightning flowed from Untaak'Dor's enraged shout, striking Draven with power to erase him from existence. It tore his soul apart, ripping it to shreds, leaving it on the brink of destruction, before Elevalein healed it. Draven was numb to the pain—it was meaningless before the responsibility he carried. He would power through it. He refused to be enslaved by it.

Every time his soul was damaged, he could hear something crack. It was faint at first, like a sound too quiet to catch unless one paid attention, but soon its noise became clear. With every return from near death, Draven felt his ability to maintain his soul together become stronger. Something was breaking, giving way before his unperishable will. Even the black lightning could no longer utterly destroy him with one strike.

With an audible crack, like chains breaking under a tremendous strain, Draven's soul became free. He knew not what it meant, nor whether the sound was a figment of his imagination or reality manifested, but he understood what it meant. Helvan had spoken long ago that the Az'Tenri circlet responded to great strain to its user.

Dyad Vessel had awakened when his body could hold no longer. Now, his soul had been exposed to the very gates of the abyss, thrown into the doors of oblivion, rescued from certain death, and the Az'Tenri Circlet had witnessed it.

CATALYST ACHIEVED

It answered in a cold, emotionless voice. A smile parted Draven's lip. The Fallen stopped his attacks with a frown.

"I may not be strong enough, Fallen, but you're alone." Information flowed into Draven's mind, a kin understanding of the changes happening to his soul before they even concluded. "I am not. You may have been fated to rise, but fate's shackles no longer bind me."

The Malediction sitting chained inside his soul required a heavy price—one which Draven would have balked at paying. Not anymore. He vowed to herald a change for the Haven, to right the wrongs of Sovran ruling, to uproot the Maker from his eternal throne. If he could create a world where his family's sacrifice and Myra's death meant something, he would take it.

If there were obstructions on his path, he would tear them asunder. If a being from an age long past wanted to destroy the home he had grown to love and care for, Draven would show no mercy.

Draven extended his hand forward, and the chains holding his Malediction prisoner shattered. Golden light coalesced in his hand, forming a thin blade. Refined hexion, crimson like blood, flowed unbidden from his astra, congealing into an intricate hilt with no guard. The blade was the size of his forearm, single-edged, straight like a ruler, forged from the destruction and rebirth—a weapon meant for a single purpose.

Draven's Presence became denser, vaster, its strength beyond mere Amplification. It grew, expanding with each second he held the sword. He had to end the battle at once. If he held the blade longer than necessary, its price would be too heavy to bear.

When Draven spoke, his presence rumbled like thunder. "Begone."

The blade in his hand shone in synchrony with his astra, becoming stronger with each passing second. Untaak'Dor paled, sheathing himself in black lightning. "I thought you were the bearer of one Fragment of Eternity… how? Where did you find—"

"Begone!" Draven pointed the blade at Untaak'Dor, and his Presence enveloped the Sha'Vitri's will like a tidal wave, banishing him from his soul.

Without a second look, Draven let the blade vanish from his hand. He wished to never see it again. He wished he had never awakened it in the first place. If Providence was a blessing that used a curse as fuel, then a Malediction was the opposite.

I will see it done, Mom, Dan, Myra, he vowed to himself. No matter the cost.