The Rebirth Of The Beast Tamer

The storm did not reduce, rather it intensified. Necrotic winds shredded the sky into veils of green and black, each bolt of lightning slammed into the ground with enough force to break a rock.

The air became thick and saturated with Veil-energy, until the Crest's breath came heavy as if they were inhaling smoke. And then… the memories they had endured twisted and solidified.

Three shapes emerged from the storm, each was dragging its chains of illusion behind them. Kelvin's breath was caught up when he saw it first, himself.

But not the man he had become, the leader, the fighter, the partner to Xerion. What stepped from the mist was the boy he once was.

With his eyes wide opened he trembled, while clutching onto a splintered wooden sword in his tiny hands. The child's face was pale with fear and his lips was trembling as he whispered, "Run… please… just run."

Then the boy's eyes was dark and the pupils was glowing with necrotic green color. The wooden sword became rotted in his hands while lengthening into jagged, corpse-metal blades.

The phantom-boy's body was warped, with limbs stretching and ribs cracking outward like bone-armor. A Veilspawned Wraith stood in Kelvin's place, wearing his childhood fear as its mask.

Lyra staggered, with her knuckles white on her bow. Elara appeared before her, not in the corpse they buried, not the memory of grief, but a whole and living Elara. Her braid was gleamering and she went pleading.

"Lyra, come with me, you don't belong with them. We can be sisters again." The image faltered and then became darkened. Elara's bow twisted into a long, hooked weapon of bone, and the gentle smile collapsed into the predator's sneer.

From her back unfurled wings of shadow. A Wraith-Elara hissed, pulling its bowstring taut with a shriek that rattled Lyra's bones.

And Darius…. His knees nearly buckled when the Wraith rose before him. He was clothed in broken banners of Ironholt, armored with shards of blackened steel, the phantom resembled a warlord and it was worse because it bore his father's face.

Fire crawled over its armor with an illusionary flames that licked at Rhoam's hide. "You lived while we burned, son," the wraith said, though its voice was fractured, echoing but unmistakably was his father's. "You survived when you should have fallen beside us."

The Crest had no time to speak. The storm rose and the battle began. The phantom-child leapt, twin necrotic blades shrieked through the air.

Kelvin raised his gauntlet just in time, sparks of green fire cascading as the blades screeched against metal. His muscles screamed like, how could something wearing as the body of a child carry such weight?

But he was not truly fighting a boy, he was fighting the terror that once shackled him and his own weakness. "That is pathetic," the phantom rasped.

"You could not save them, you can never save anyone. You are still that boy that is begging for help." The words cut deeper than any blade.

Kelvin's chest burned, his heart stuttering with shame. The phantom lunged again, faster while slamming Kelvin back into the cracked shrine wall. Its blade was bit across his side, pain pumped hot and sharp.

But before the phantom could finish its strike, the ground erupted. A titanic serpent, scales shimmering like obsidian runes, burst upward with Xerion, the End-Tyrant.

His roar split the storm itself with a green lightning recoiling from the sound. With a whip of his tail, Xerion lashed through the phantom's side, scattering fragments of necrotic mist.

Anchor yourself, Xerion's voice thundered in Kelvin's mind. You are not that boy, you are my tamer, my chosen one. Kelvin clinched his teeth, while blood was dripping down his chin.

He forced himself upright, the gauntlet on his arm glowed with runes as it channeled their bond. "Then let's end him together."

The phantom-boy screeched, charging again but this time Kelvin met it head-on, Xerion's shadow coiled around his blade-arm.

Immediately their synergy became sharpened and their strikes became synchronized. Each blow was Kelvin's fury, which was magnified by Xerion's timeless wrath. Slowly, inexorably, the boy's twisted figure began to falter.

Lyra's arms trembled as she nocked an arrow. Across from her, the shadow of Elara mirrored the movement, perfect in posture but wrong in soul. "You let me die," the Wraith-Elara whispered. "And now you chase shadows, hunting honor that will never cleanse your hands."

Lyra's chest heaved. The storm dimmed around her, narrowing her world to that face, the one she had sworn to protect, the one she had failed. Her bow felt heavier than stone. The rune-lines along its grip flickered, refusing to ignite. Guilt pressed on her lungs as if it is suffocating her.

Salaris, sensed her falter, dove from above. The great falcon struck her shoulder with a screech that split through the illusion's haze. Pain shot through her body, which was real and grounding. Salaris's talons dug in, not to harm but to remind. I am here, so breathe and fight.

Lyra's eyes refocused. The phantom of Elara loosed its arrow, the shaft shrieked with shadows. Lyra raised her bow, rune-light finally bursting alive across it. She fired and the two arrows clashed midair, exploding into showers of spectral ash.

Lyra's tears blurred her vision, but she snarled through them, pulling arrow after arrow from her quiver. Each one she loosed was a grief that she sharpened into resolve.

Each one whispered a truth: she could not bring Elara back but she could fight so no one else suffered the same loss.

The phantom hissed as her arrows pierced its wings of shadow, forcing it back step by step. Finally, with Salaris circling above, Lyra unleashed a final, rune-charged shot. The arrow screamed through the storm, cleaving the Wraith-Elara apart in a shatter of fire and black mist.

Immediately the warlord Wraith advanced slowly, each step was shaking the broken stones beneath their feet. Flames trailed from its armor, each ember was a memory of burning homes, collapsing walls, screams swallowed in smoke.

Darius's throat tightened. His father's face looked down at him like he was not proud, not kind, but cold. "You lived for what? To carry ashes?"

The weight of survivor's guilt crushed him. Rhoam roared, charging, but the phantom's blade slammed into the beast's plated head, sending the massive creature to stagger. Illusion-fire crawled up Rhoam's armor, while searing into Darius's heart.

"No.....no, not him too," Darius screamed, while collapsing to his knees. The memory was too real. He had already lost Ironholt. He couldn't lose Rhoam as well.

His breath came ragged, his sword slipped from his hand. Maybe it would be easier to just lie down. To let the flames take him this time…

But Rhoam did not yield. The colossal beast pressed its armored head into Darius's chest, growling deep, a rumble that was not illusion but truth. It vibrated through Darius's bones like a heartbeat, it was steady and grounding. It was not a condemnation nor a disappointment but strength and love.

Tears burned down Darius's cheeks. He clutched Rhoam's horn, hauling himself upright. His sword flared, with steel glowing as his runes surged. "You are right," he whispered. "I did not survive to die here but I survived to fight."

The phantom raised its blade, but Darius charged with a roar, cleaving through the flames, through the illusion of his father's condemnation. His strike split the Wraith's chest and scattered the Ironholt's burning memory into the storm.

The three Wraiths shrieked in unison, their forms were unraveling but refusing to die. They surged together, tendrils of necrotic mist binding them into one final monstrosity, a writhing amalgam of boy, sister, father.

Its body towered with limbs snapping like chains and their eyes burning with three voices, "You will never escape us." But the Crest stood together.

Kelvin's gauntlet burned with Xerion's runes. Lyra's bow glowed and Salaris circled her like a comet of light. Darius's sword blazed with Rhoam's armored might. They had been tested by illusions, but now they were unshackled.

"On me," Kelvin growled. The phantasm lunged, but Xerion coiled upward, his serpent body blotted out the storm, jaws opened wide.

A roar shook the earth, his breath laced with runes of annihilation. Lyra loosed a storm of arrows into the beast's eyes, while Darius and Rhoam charged from the flank, horn and blade tore into its legs.

The amalgam screamed. Cracks splintered its form with light bursting through. Kelvin leapt with his gauntlet blazing, and he drove his fist into the monster's heart. Xerion's tail coiled with the strike while amplifying it with god-serpent might.

The Wraith shattered and fragments of green crystal rained down with the cracked cores of their traumas. The storm rose once more, then fell silent.

The Crest stood panting amid the ruins. At their feet lay shards of crystallized essence like Soulshards, pulsing faintly with Veil resistance.

Each beast lowered its head, absorbing fragments that shimmered into their hides. Xerion's scales brightened, Salaris's feathers hardened like steel, Rhoam's armor grew denser.