The heavy, suffocating air within the ruins pulsed with a strange energy, like the heartbeat of something ancient and malevolent. Shadows danced along the cracked stone walls, their movements given life by the faint glow of the altar. Eris crouched behind it, his chest heaving, the icy aura of the black bead above him gnawing at his senses. Around him, the scavengers scrambled for some semblance of a plan, their whispered panic growing louder with every passing second.
Then came the sound that froze their blood: slow, deliberate footsteps echoing against the ancient stones.
Flumen entered the ruins, his staff resting lightly in his hand, his expression a mask of cold detachment. His Crest flickered, its shifting lines casting faint elemental glows across his sharp features. The air seemed to ripple around him as he stepped inside, and with every movement, the temperature of the room began to rise.
"Scatter!" one scavenger yelled, his voice breaking with fear.
Flumen raised his staff, and fire erupted from its tip in a spiraling inferno. The flames devoured the scavenger mid-step, his screams silenced in an instant as the searing heat reduced him to ash. The others broke into a mad scramble, running in every direction, but Flumen was already moving, his Crest shifting with deadly precision.
He swept his staff in a wide arc, the fire transforming into jagged shards of earth that erupted from the ground, impaling two scavengers against the crumbling walls. A third lunged at him, desperation driving him to attack. Flumen's Crest shimmered again, and the air itself seemed to grow heavy. With a flick of his hand, the air compressed around the scavenger, crushing him in a suffocating vice.
Eris clutched the cold stone of the altar, his eyes wide as he watched the massacre unfold. Every instinct screamed for him to run, to flee, but his legs felt like lead, frozen by fear and the oppressive heat of Flumen's flames.
The other scavengers didn't fare any better. One tried to climb the walls, his nails scraping uselessly against the stone before a torrent of water slammed into him, shattering his bones against the floor. Another managed to make it near the entrance, only to collapse in a gurgling heap as Flumen's fire snaked across the ground and consumed him.
It was a merciless execution.
Eris pressed his back against the altar, his breath shallow and ragged. The black bead seemed to hum above him, its dark aura pulsing in time with the chaos. He didn't know if it was real or his imagination, but the sound clawed at the edges of his sanity.
Then came the heat.
Flumen, now fully immersed in his fire Crest, turned toward the altar. The scavenger hiding behind one of the nearby pillars broke into a desperate sprint, hoping to reach the safety of the shadows. Flumen raised his staff, and a wave of fire roared forth, consuming everything in its path.
The flames washed over Eris.
He screamed as the searing heat tore through his body, his skin blistering and cracking under the onslaught. The pain was unbearable, a thousand daggers of fire sinking into his flesh. His vision blurred, and he fell forward, his bloodied hands splayed across the altar's surface.
His blood pooled on the cold stone, mingling with the dark aura of the black bead.
The altar pulsed.
A deep, guttural hum filled the ruins, shaking the walls and reverberating through Eris's broken body. The bead's aura expanded, pushing outward with a force that sent Flumen staggering back. He steadied himself, his fire flickering uncertainly as the oppressive energy grew.
Eris's vision darkened, but he could feel it. Something ancient. Something wrong.
The bead began to glow, faint etchings of the eye of providence lighting up on its surface. The hum grew louder, the vibrations so intense that cracks began to spiderweb across the altar.
Flumen's eyes narrowed, his staff raised as he tried to steady his Crest against the alien force. "What in the—"
The bead's glow exploded into a blinding flash, and the ruins were consumed by an unnatural darkness.
Eris's last conscious thought was not of pain, nor fear, but a chilling realization: whatever he had awakened, it was far beyond anything he could comprehend.
And then, there was silence.