Zephyr’s fingers remained pressed against the console, his aura resonating with the pylon’s detection waves as they pulsed through the Keep’s structure. The holographic display flickered, tiny crimson tendrils of corruption shifting like living veins across the schematic.
There, Zephyr’s eyes widened as he finally felt like he had picked it up.
A concentrated knot of corrupt aura, throbbing near the line between the town and the lower keep.
"I’ve found it," Zephyr announced, his voice cutting through the chamber’s hum.
Lumin’s eyes snapped open at the words, a strange glint flashing through them so briefly that Zephyr almost missed it. Almost.
"Is something the matter?" Zephyr asked, his tone neutral but his gaze sharp.
Lumin shook his head slowly, a faint, almost amused smile touching his lips. He simply gestured for Zephyr to continue, his gaze unusually focused.
Zephyr nodded, a prickle of unease brushing against his senses. There was something different about Lumin, a strange undercurrent in his aura, but there was no time for questions now. He could only trust him.
They quickly approached the door, and Zephyr manifested a shimmering portal once more.
"I will go first." Zephyr muttered before stepping through, his body passing into the swirling maelstrom outside. But just as the blizzard’s chill enveloped him, a sudden, piercing sense of danger screamed in his mind.
"DODGE!" Baron’s voice, raw with warning, cut through the din of battle.
Zephyr instinctively executed a Void Step, teleporting a few steps to his right. His eyes immediately snapped back to the flickering portal. A lean, six-foot-tall Mistborn, its form a blur of white mist and icy edges, landed, stabbing the spot he had been standing a moment ago.
It wasn’t one of the three Alphas the Baron was fighting. It growled, turning its hollow eyes towards the shimmering portal as if sensing something crucial within it, and from its rapidly forming hand, ice shards, sharp as daggers, fired, piercing the fabric of the portal and causing it to ripple violently.
Zephyr felt his connection to the portal rapidly fraying, the unstable aura currents threatening to collapse it prematurely. Before the situation worsened, before he lost control, he quickly closed it.
Lumin was left inside.
A pang of concern, quickly followed by a grim resolve, shot through Zephyr. Lumin would be safe from the immediate, overwhelming fight out here.
And, a deep, unsettling feeling told Zephyr that leaving Lumin in the anchor chamber was, somehow, exactly what Lumin wanted. He had a premonition that Lumin was about to do something reckless again, something Lumin believed was better done alone.
Although he didn’t want to leave him alone, Lumin specifically told him he had his own agenda in this. And when the time comes, he asked him to trust him.
Alright, I will trust you this time.
With that thought in mind, Zephyr quickly rebalanced himself, dodging the furious Mistborn’s attacks now directed solely at him. It was incredibly fast, its icy, long nails slashing through the air.
He began to approach the Baron, attempting to ’play’ a dangerous game of catch and dodge with the new monster. The Mistborn was relentless; in just a few seconds, he had already felt the stinging cold of its icy nails slice across his reinforced winter coat a few times.
"I found it!" he shouted, gritting his teeth as he blocked another rapid assault with his saber, the clash echoing sharply even amidst the blizzard.
"OK!" Baron Nusayel roared back.
His flaming spear, Duskpiercer, coiled around him like a living serpent, then lashed out in a powerful, decisive motion.
It tore through the swirling white chaos, targeting the eight-foot, shapeshifting Alpha Mistborn. This one was the fastest of the trio, but also the weakest.
A searing line of fire cleaved through its elongated, mist-shrouded form.
The Mistborn shrieked, a sound of agony mixed with dissipating corruption, as its upper torso slid from its lower, both halves dissolving into wisps of frozen vapor before they even hit the snow.
Baron didn’t pause, immediately bringing Duskpiercer back up to parry a crushing blow from the behemoth.
The message was clear: Let’s finish this and head to the target’s location.
His grim expression solidified into frost-cold resolve. His pale, calm eyes deepened, now burning with a hard, predatory gleam.
The six-foot Mistborn darting around him, its icy claws flashing, seemed to quicken its assault, sensing his shift.
But Zephyr met its fury head-on.
He slammed his foot down, channeling aura into his feet, using the treacherous surface as a launchpad. He exploded forward, a blur of motion against the swirling white, accelerating directly into the monster’s attack.
The Mistborn’s icy nails raked across his chest.
His reinforced coat tore, but the blow, taken with deliberate momentum, lacked its full piercing force. In the same instant, Zephyr’s saber, a silver streak, came up in a brutal, arcing counter.
It bit deep into the Mistborn’s shoulder, eliciting a guttural growl.
This particular Mistborn, despite its Alpha rank, lacked the true, ancient power of the Lament Shroud’s main manifestations.
It was a fast, dangerous puppet, but its movements, while swift, lacked the unpredictable, intelligent malice of a genuine threat with combat experience.
In this extreme blizzard, its icy attacks were potent, yet Zephyr, pushing past the pain and discomfort, found its patterns readable, its attacks lacking depth.
It was a strong current, but one without a conscious will guiding its every flow.
He spun, deflecting a follow-up strike with a harsh clang of steel on ice, the force shaking his arm.
He pressed his advantage, his movements becoming a lethal dance of precision and controlled aggression.
He pivoted on his heel, letting the icy nails whistle past his face by a hair’s breadth. In the same motion, his saber lashed out, piercing its vortex-head, the blade humming with spatial energy.
The creature imploded, its body collapsing inward before dispersing into the blizzard’s embrace.
Zephyr exhaled sharply, his breath misting in the air.
He glanced at the Baron, who stood amidst the dissipating remains of the second Alpha, his spear still blazing.
Now, only the ten-foot titan remained.