A claw the size of a thunderhead, each talon forged from living runes, plunged downward toward Jared. Space itself buckled around the blow, contracting inwards as though the entire floor meant to grind the intruders into dust.
“Together!” Jared shouted. He understood there could be no retreat; only by defeating the polluted spirit could they reach the tower heart and free everyone trapped within. Steel met storm in the blink of an eye, and the battle erupted into a white-hot frenzy.
Drawing on the full might of the tower, the corrupted spirit fought with terrifying breadth. Spatial prisons, suppressive runic cages, raw waves of energy—each technique arrived fresh and merciless, every one devastating.
Jared, Cyanna, Coall, and the shapeshifter known as Thousand Faces had no choice but to fight as one. Their combined strength barely held the spirit’s barrage at bay.
Jared pushed his sword intent, Five-Element Nascence Power, and the very Law of Time to their limits. Each arc of his Dragonslayer Sword carved luminous scars across the spirit’s body, yet the creature’s runic flesh closed almost as quickly as it opened.
Coall planted his massive frame in front. Scales flew, blood spattered the stones, but he did not yield a single stride.
Cyanna’s Azure Dragon energy flowed like cool water, cleansing and disrupting the Spirit’s currents, slowing its next attack before it could fully form.
Thousand Faces shifted form with unsettling grace, one moment a bulwark of iron scales, the next a blur of feints that drew the spirit’s aim away. Even so, the spirit’s power felt endless, and the quartet found themselves pushed back step after step.
Gashes opened across Jared’s shoulders and ribs, soaking his tunic a deep crimson.
“We can’t keep this up; at this pace, we’ll die here!” Coall spat, blood streaking his jaw. He staggered but refused to fall.
Jared’s eyes hardened; the only path forward lay in risk. He recalled Zevon’s lecture on the tower’s origin—how a Beast Overlord had forged it from his own monstrous core. Draconians, after all, stood among that same beastly royalty; perhaps their blood could answer beastly blood.
*My Golden Dragon Bloodline is the purest royal strain our race has ever known… If I pour that very nascence into the tower’s ancient core, perhaps, just perhaps… I can seize control of the corrupted Tower Spirit. It is reckless.*
*One misstep will shred my lineage forever, damning me to a fate worse than death. But the battlefield has left me no gentler path. The choice is ruin now or ruin later… There is only forward!*
“Hold it back for a while!” Jared bellowed, his voice cracking across the charged air like a whip.
“Understood!”
Cyanna, Coall, and Thousand Faces unleashed every shred of power they possessed, weaving around the writhing Tower Spirit like anchors of living iron so Jared could gamble with destiny unmolested.
Jared rammed the Dragonslayer Sword into the stone floor, the blade singing as it bit deep. His fingers flashed through desperate seals, forcing a single drop of nine-hued royal blood from his heart.
The bead glimmered, liquid aurora, igniting every Draconian echo hidden within the tower walls.
Wrapped in Jared’s spiritual sense, the blood blossomed into a bloodline rune, an emblem pulsing with imperial majesty and endless vitality. In the forgotten language of dragons, he intoned, “By my sovereign blood, awaken your ancient soul. Beast-Subduing Tower, guardian of the Draconians, cast out this corruption, return to the light!”
The rune streaked away like a falling star and slammed toward the Tower Spirit’s brow, the gateway to the tower heart.
Sensing annihilation rushing toward it, the defiled spirit howled in terror, thrashing to escape, yet Cyanna, Coall, and Thousand Faces shackled it tight.
A wet crack split the gloom as the rune pierced the spirit’s forehead and vanished inside.
Thunder roared. The entire tower erupted in a radiance unseen since the Primordial Era. Ancient, vast, and strangely gentle will, like some colossal dragon waking after eons, rose from the foundations, flooding every chamber.
The black energy flayed from the spirit’s body, its savagery burning away in silver fire. Its shape steadied, coalescing into a mild, white-glowing elder whose features hovered just out of focus.
“Countless ages… At last… The royal blood calls,” the old apparition whispered, weathered yet grateful. His veiled eyes turned to Jared, brimming with layered emotions. “Child, thank you… For rousing me once more…”
Thus the Beast-Subduing Tower’s true, primordial spirit returned to the world.
