Yrd, Fate’s Wellspring

  Forgotten Sanctuary

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  The Yrd’ll Mountains are an isolated, dangerous mountain range that have separated Tenmai from the rest of the continent since time immemorial. Many travellers and Adventurers failed to make their way past them, and it is only with the domestication of gryphons and development of seafaring that Tenmai has been opened to the world.

  Despite this, the mountains were not uninhabited. Rumours say a terrifying, legendary witch lived there shortly before the Seven Legions returned, watching over the former city o?????????f??????????? ??????A????r??????d??????e????????n??????

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  Precious memories and happy times. The wheel turns, and the stream of fate flows. Let it all turn to dust, child.

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  It became increasingly clear that something terrible was happening further up on Yrd’s peak as we climbed up.

  Terrified screeches descended into maddened, bloodlusted howls.

  Flocks of birds scattered, darkening the skies as their shadows flitted above us.

  The grass, which once seemed so bright and lively, almost looked still, cold and grey as we sprinted and leapt with increasing worry.

  Flashes of ghostly blue flames flickered just beyond the treeline ahead.

  Setsuna clicked her tongue upon that sight and pushed harder, gaining a tiny bit more distance as we raced through the forest.

  Those blue flames were a sight any elf proud of their heritage would recognise, and in this context, it was rather distressing to see.

  Panicked critters burst through the bushes, fleeing for safety as the forest was slowly incinerated.

  I saw a mighty leopard helplessly fall the ground as it was burned alive by ghostly flames, unable to keep up with its brethren.

  Shit.

  Setsuna leapt ahead of me, jumping straight into the burning treeline with her sword drawn as I stayed behind, banishing the flames off the unfortunate injured animals with a cleansing spell before propping them upright and sending them on their way.

  I couldn’t leave Setsuna behind for long; however strong she might have been, there was no telling what sort of effect whatever madness had been inflicted upon this mountain would have on the ferocity of the wildlife.

  I grit my teeth and held my breath, diving straight through the wall of blue flames, biting through the momentary pain.

  Maddened growls rumbled in front of me.

  Setsuna let out an aggrieved yell as she swung her blade.

  A bundle of ghostly tails, their tips flickering with dying embers, fell limply as the great fox fell to the ground.

  I almost flinched at the sight.

  It felt just incredibly wrong to see an elf swing their weapon at one of their patron spirit-creatures.

  Several more unnaturally enlarged foxes surrounded her, their material forms almost dissolving into blue flames as the seconds passed, fangs sharpening as their eyes filled with bloodlust.

  A flicker of pain danced through the elf’s eyes as she prepared herself.

  It didn’t take long for one of the spirits to lose the last of their reason, shedding their pure white fur for a cloak of flame, descending upon Setsuna as nothing more than an azure fireball.

  Setsuna pivoted, turning to the right to fend it off.

  Three of its maddened brethren jumped to the side, accompanying it for a flank.

  I moved as quickly as I could. Even if it was her, half-spirit creatures weren’t something she could just easily cut through, especially if they started to lose their corporeal forms.

  I dived forward into their path of attack, jabbing one of them away with the butt of my staff before swerving it down to the charred soil beneath, binding the other foxes momentarily with a grasp of roots.

  They growled in annoyance, tearing at their bindings as tendrils of nature slowly smothered them.

  Their eyes slowly became more and more red, their previously pristine red-and-white fur darkening into bloodier shades.

  A tiny spark flickered at the tips of their paws, igniting into a brilliant blue blaze, freeing them the roots.

  I quickly looked to the side.

  More of the maddened half-spirit foxes were closing in on us.

  A flicker of light drew my attention back to the foes in front of me, a flame-wreathed claw swiping at my chest.

  I was barely able to step away from it in time, and I still had to bring my arms up to block it even with that bit of distance, leaving a nasty burning gash down my arm as I stumbled back.

  I held back a groan as I hurriedly closed the wound, not letting my grip on my staff weaken.

  The flurry did not stop. Another fox pounced up above the previous one, its front limbs dissolving into flame as it struck down from the skies, tackling me into the dirt.

  Ghostly flames charred my skin.

  I bit down on my tongue as I fell down, wrestling the fox as it pinned me with its burning paws and aimed to chomp my head off.

  It was fine. This pain was nothing.

  Even the famed foxfire of one of Tenmai’s sacred patron creatures was nothing compared to that.

  I roared, mustering all the strength I had to push up and away, slowly climbing off of my back and back onto my feet as I swerved my body away from the fox’s maw.

  My strength did not diminish with the foxfire burning my arms, rather, the opposite seemed to happen. Bits of charred flesh and skin fell off my bones as they were replaced anew, only to be burned again, creating a vicious cycle of destruction and regeneration.

  But their energy would drain and they would be forced into a cooldown period – intensified by their current lack of control – while mine would not.

  With one final shove, just before the other foxes could descend upon me, I shoved the fox off of me before spinning away, shaking all the ash and soot off me.

  I felt the wind around me start to pick up, creating a whirring howl opposing the mad cries of the beasts surrounding us.

  I guess that meant we needed a bit of space.

  I slammed my staff down, creating a thick barrier of light around the two of us as a massive whirlwind roared as it came into existence, tossing away the enraged foxes with its cutting winds.

  I looked back towards Setsuna, waving my staff over her quickly as she frowned, assessing the situation.

  “Whatever plague that hath befallen this mountain… if ‘tis able to corrupt even Tenmai’s blessed kitsune and thy half-spirit forms, it must be a poison most potent, most vile.”

  Her frown slowly twisted into a snarl.

  “This sacrilege will not pass unpaid.”

  I tightened my grip and got into a defensive stance as the tornado died down, leaving behind a mass of mindless beasts slamming into my barrier on repeat.

  “So then, any ideas? Seems like you were struggling back there to cut down spirit bodies.”

  Setsuna gave a quick look to her blade’s rusty edge.

  “There doth exist an art to cleave through ghostly bodies within my Minamiken, but here, there is no water I can summon. The sacred Kitsunebi hath drunk it all, nothing is left of the vapour.”

  I sighed.

  In the end, North was opposed by South.

  If there was one flaw to Setsuna’s art, it was that it heavily depended on the environment around her. The Four Blades were not about imposing your will upon the world, but following its path and becoming a drifter.

  A traditional mage would just be able to summon and manipulate water without care for their circumstances, but Setsuna needed that ambient mana to exist in the world in the first place.

  In a really weird and roundabout way, she was almost more like a ritual mage than a swordswoman, like Mother and Luna.

  Mother…

  I blinked.

  “I have an idea. I think I can get you the water necessary.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah, do you remember that thing I did the last time we came here, back in spring?”

  “I see. Very well, I shall follow thy signal.”

  I bit my lip and slowly inhaled and exhaled, steadying myself.

  I didn't get the chance to practice this since the incident at the energy district, and this was certainly one hell of a situation to be trying it in, but options weren’t plentiful at the moment.

  I grimaced lightly. Sure as hell would be a lot easier if Kagura and Hayate were here. One dance from Kagura would summon all the water we needed and Hayate could jump in and stand in front of us to buy us time.

  Looks like that burden would all fall to me now, though.

  The barrier started to crack.

  No more time to talk, I guess.

  Enraged foxes smashed through the wall of light, their gaping maws unhinging, trained on our necks.

  Immediately, I felt waves of vicious heat roll towards us, leading to beads of sweat dripping down my forehead.

  Still, it was nothing.

  I was still capable of sweating.

  “On me!” I called out as I jumped forward, signalling that I was pulling their aggression, telling Setsuna to follow behind and slowly shave away at their numbers while they were distracted, even if she couldn’t permanently inflict any damage with her blade.

  She just needed to keep their attacks at a manageable level.

  I leapt through the air, smashing directly into the centre of the massive leash of foxes with a bright pulse of light emanating from the head of my staff, pushing away the beasts closest to me.

  It was a simple repelling spell, really nothing more than a fancy cosmetic light trick that was only good for blinding people, drawing a bit of attention and creating the tiniest bit of space for healers to retreat back to safety.

  I was still rather terrible when it came to any offensive spells. Luckily, I still didn’t need that here.

  There was no more time for idle thoughts, as I quickly entered a frantic dance of blocking and dodging between the strikes and flames of the foxes surrounding me.

  I raised my arm to block and bat away a nearby kitsune to my left.

  I felt a bone creak and snap as I lost grip of my staff, my lower arm searing in ghostly flames.

  I pried the creature off of me with a jab from my elbow, letting my broken arm dangle limply as I healed it back to a usable state.

  Another one to my right tried to bite my other arm off.

  I rolled underneath it, regaining enough control of my arm in that moment to smash it away with my staff.

  I could feel the resistance of flesh and fur slowly start to fade as the bodies of the kitsune slowly untangled further, replaced by pure spiritual flames.

  The air grew thicker and heavier, the heat of the fire translating into waves of ambient mana.

  That was my starting point. I took grip of that ambient mana with my own and started to swirl it around myself.

  Four more fiery foxes greeted me as I got up from my roll.

  I twisted to the right, letting their claws of flame pass through empty air, and gently pulled that residual mana along with me.

  I felt some of the ravenous eyes on me pull away, annoyed by the lack of the progress they were making on their prey, with whatever wounds they did manage to inflict magically reversing within seconds as if they never occurred in the first place.

  I saw a few fiery shadows leap away from me, towards my companion.

  I glanced to the side, where Setsuna was trying to trim away at the stragglers.

  I ducked and twirled underneath another lunge, transitioning into a smooth stab into the soil with my staff, sending a pulse of energy towards her direction.

  Lengths of roots and vines stretched out of the ground around her and shot straight towards the dashing foxes, latching onto them and tossing them away from her, redirecting their aggression back on to me.

  Heat pulsed behind me.

  I flipped over bolts of fire, only to be met mid-air with more kitsune shooting down towards me.

  I swung my hips around, pointing my staff towards the ground before dragging it up, pulling rocky spikes up from the ground and intercepting their paths.

  Where flesh was torn out from where they impaled themselves upon the spikes, seeping spiritual energy took its place.

  I landed roughly, quickly shooting out a wave of healing energy towards Setsuna before exerting myself to create a pillar of blinding light, slightly pushing them away from me once again and resetting their attention back onto me.

  I dragged the thick mana in the air around my staff and pulled it under my control.

  Wisps of blue flame were pulled along by the tide of energy.

  I could feel the fury slowly leeching off of the kitsune around us, the intensity of those feelings almost crushing me underneath its weight.

  I just grit my teeth and forced myself through it.

  It was time for the next step.

  The dance between the foxes and I continued for another minute. Flames burnt my skin and claws rended my flesh, my clothes became smudged in dirt and ash.

  But slowly, I started to trace out a circle in my path as I led the leash of foxes around and around.

  I dragged my staff behind me, rotating it as blue flames slowly lost their abnormal colour, painting the forest in a dazzling orange.

  I had wrested enough control of the ghostly foxfire to return it into its natural state.

  It was time to turn the wheel.

  “Setsuna!”

  “Paint a river upon the land!”

  “Got it!”

  I roared as I twirled my staff above my head, spinning the wall of fire I had accumulated around and around endlessly until it slowly unravelled into threads of pure heat.

  “Samsara!”

  I pulled at the wheel, and the fiery vortex spun into a howling gale, knocking away all the kitsune surrounding me.

  I continued spinning my staff.

  The sharp screech and howl of thick winds slowly transformed into the furious rushing and gushing of a vicious stream.

  Finally, I swung out the tide of water towards the kitsune, flooding them all in a makeshift river.

  “Kitaken, Kyukata: Juuchi-Fuyu!”

  Setsuna dragged her blade through the stream, and in an instant, everything caught within, regardless of form or origin, was severed in half remorselessly.

  Rocks, soil, leaves, branches, trees, flesh and spirit; by the time Setsuna’s blade exited the stream, not even the very water the edge cut through was left uncleaved.

  ‘Ten Thousand Winters’, one half of Setsuna’s Ninth Form – it was a remorseless technique named after an ancient legend of a cursed, bloodthirsty sword, famed for once being dipped into a stream and cutting through everything it passed by with no separation of good or evil, innocent or guilty.

  Beneath its blade, all was equal. Butterflies and human heads, leaves and fish, flesh and spirit. None of it mattered, Juuchi Fuyu was a merciless blade that cut through all.

  There was only an uncomfortable silence left in the clearing.

  I watched mournfully as the leftover bodies dissolved into spiritual energy.

  Was it their fault? Was this really necessary? Just a day ago, they were innocent animals just frollicking about the mountain. They wouldn’t have wanted to cause any destruction, they didn’t deserve to suffer this fate.

  “Do not linger on their deaths too long, Estelle. Thou hast dealt unto them the greatest mercy thou couldst. They would not have wished to rampage upon this beloved mountain of theirs either, and would be grateful that the destruction hath been stayed.”

  Setsuna placed a hand on my shoulder, trying to comfort me.

  I frowned, watching as the last kitsune whimpered pitifully, its fur untangling into wisps of spiritual energy.

  It looked sane in its last moment, looking towards us with an unreadable emotion in its intelligent eyes.

  I hoped for everyone’s sake that the emotion it was trying to convey was ‘gratitude’.

  Setsuna gently walked up to it and stroked what was left of its material body, comforting it as it faded.

  “Pass peacefully, little one. Reunite with thy brethren upon the Heavenly River. Leave this cursed world to us. Thou needst not worry. Yrd shall be restored, peace will find this place again.”

  Before long, there was nothing left.

  Setsuna held back her fury at the mountain’s desecration, and looked further up towards its peak.

  “Let us continue at once, this plague must be cleansed, lest it spreads further.”

  The earth rumbled.

  Sharp spikes slammed down onto dark rock beneath us as we weaved between the gaps.

  The light at the end of the cave ahead of us was barely visible.

  That, along with the steady trickle of water from Yrd’s muddied rivers, was the only thing that guided us in the correct direction.

  Behind us, an indecipherable mess of monstrous roars and screeches echoed as endless limbs stampeded through the caverns.

  “Setsuna! We’re sealing this place off!”

  The swordswoman dug her feet into the ground at my words, skidding to a halt as she turned around, holding the hilt of her blade high above her head with both hands before slamming it down, sundering the earth and collapsing the cave’s walls.

  We sprinted for the exit, desperately outrunning the structural damage that had just been inflicted before we too were trapped.

  We managed to dive out just in time as the last boulder fell, greeted once more by mystical forests and flowing waters, sealing off the darkness behind us.

  The last of the monstrous howls were muffled, dying away as we were left panting.

  I tapped my staff into the ground as we regained our breath, healing up our aching legs and fixing our blood and air flow.

  I turned to the side, looking at the stretch of forest ahead of us.

  It had taken a bit, but we had finally reached the final layer of Yrd.

  It was a rather tumultuous journey to get here, but we had gotten lucky with several aspects.

  For example, aside from the kitsune, there weren’t many other spiritual creatures, meaning we did not have to resort to drastic measures to subdue them again, letting us pacify the animals without needing to fatally wound them.

  With any luck, if we managed to purify Yrd’s wellspring in a timely fashion, they could be restored to their normal conditions. We just had to hope whatever corruption had seeped into their system was not permanent.

  Setsuna grimaced as she inspected the sealed cave behind us.

  “I pray this madness is but a temporary ailment. I wish not to return with hope that proves false, finding that they have succumbed to hunger, and feasted upon one another in our absence.”

  I winced, watching as a dam of ichor built up at the former entrance.

  The darkness poisoning the waters became apparent as the impromptu dam swelled from a puddle into a pool, tainted with an almost viscous consistency and mud-like darkness.

  “We’ve done our best. We’ve quarantined every layer of Yrd and cut off the flow of its rivers. There’s nothing else we can do for them but pray.”

  At the very least, we had contained the damage.

  The poisoned waters would not flow down into the lower tiers of the mountain, spreading to the more mundane wildlife, where it would be able to wreak untold havoc upon the wider ecosystem, possibly even managing to affect the other mountains, Arden and the edges of elven civilization.

  We just had to focus on what was in front of us now.

  I bit my lip in worry.

  The last layer was frighteningly quiet so far.

  “Do…” I swallowed, “do you think… Fenrir has fallen?”

  That chained wolf was the most legendary of all the creatures upon Yrd, with a history theorised to be longer than that of the mountain itself, and was often titled as its King, commanding an overpowering presence that forced all of the other beasts to kneel beneath it.

  To this very day, Setsuna had never managed to scrape a legitimate win off of it in any of her spars, only managing to stumble her way into victory through fortune and the wolf’s pity.

  If it were any of the other legendary creatures on this mountain, even Eikthyrnir, we might have had a chance, but if even Fenrir had fallen… we were out of luck, there was nothing we would be able to do but wait for backup to arrive.

  “It matters not,” Setsuna stood upright again and began trudging forward, warily drawing her blade as we crept through the silent forest, “we must push on regardless. We have not the luxury of worry and anxiety. Such emotions will not repay our debt to those who call this mountain home.”

  An unfamiliar shadowy mist started to roll out in front of us.

  I hesitated.

  That didn’t look like anything I had seen on the mountain before.

  Were we already growing closer to the source of the corruption?

  Something echoed in the distance, clambering and shaking the earth.

  I paused.

  Those were… hooves?

  I bristled.

  The stampede drew closer. Eerie red lights flared through the gaps in the fog.

  The first of the shadows broke through the mist, wicked antlers twisting up from their heads.

  “T-those… Eikthyrnir’s herd!?”

  Setsuna clicked her tongue.

  “Today is not a blessed day, it seems. If even Great Eikthyrnir hath fallen, then the worst of the omens has still yet to befall us.”

  Shit, that was really bad.

  While Fenrir could be considered the strongest of the beasts on Yrd, it wouldn’t be fair to say that he was symbolic of the mountain itself. According to legend, Fenrir was the pet of the three sisters long before they had ever come to these mountains, and still stood as the sole, solemn guardian of their legacy. He was an outsider, just like Mother and I.

  No, the creature that most embodied the mountain and its sacred springs, born from the mountain and its sacred dew and rivers, was the stag known as Eikthyrnir, blessed by the domains of light and life, whose very presence was said to be tied to the mountain’s leyline itself.

  If Eikthyrnir had been corrupted by this mysterious darkness, then that meant Yrd’s peak had already been breached, and we might have already been too late to stop the worst of whatever was happening.

  I scowled in frustration.

  We had wasted enough time trying to contain the damage from each layer of the mountain already, we couldn’t afford to be slowed down anymore, especially not since it was evident that Yrd’s heart was at stake now.

  “Setsuna!”

  “Thou needst not to waste thy words!” she yelled out, jumping forward, already brandishing her blade.

  “We cut a path straight through! To Yrd’s heart we march!”

  Setsuna’s bellow cut through the encroaching mist, creating a small puff of air resisting the black miasma.

  I hacked lightly as we dived straight into it, feeling it corrode my lungs and start to decay our skin.

  I reinforced us with a continuous healing spell as we lost vision.

  Setsuna kept her eyes trained on that small wisp of clean air as it pushed outwards.

  The silvery flash of her blade struck it.

  “Azumaken, Hachikata: Kumowari-Ao!”

  A roaring wind blew apart the deathly miasma, banishing the darkness away as fresh, crisp air entered our lungs again.

  A tide of rustling leaves and swaying branches echoed above us, as even the trees parted to the sides to make way for the clear blue sky above, with not a single cloud in sight.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The form of the stampede below us became clear; elks whose bodies seemed to dissolve into that very same shadowy mist, an ominous red glow emanating from deep within their core.

  Their numbers seemed to far surpass anything we had seen up to this point. It seemed almost pointless to try and fight them head on.

  That just reinforced our initial course of action then. We would just have to try to make it across the herd and not bother about taking them all out. Get through, isolate and trap them, seal them off and go on our way, to where our final enemies would reside.

  “Estelle! Upwards!” Setsuna called out after assessing the situation, the two of us still flying through the air mid-leap.

  “Got it!”

  I pointed my staff towards the treeline above, sending out a small beam of mana that breathed life into the branches, letting them blossom and grow, expanding into a massive makeshift rope that shot towards us.

  We grabbed onto its ends, letting it carry us as it swung like a pendulum and tossed us high above the treeline.

  The tip of Setsuna’s blade scraped the heavens, swirling them across its tip.

  She inhaled, steadying herself.

  I looked down, finding countless hollow red eyes staring up at us.

  It looks like they weren’t about to ignore us anytime soon.

  Well, fuck, it looks like I was up again. I was really starting to miss Hayate around now.

  A thin golden aura traced the both of us as I braced us for whatever was about to happen with a lingering healing spell.

  Whatever happened, I needed to make sure nothing broke Setsuna’s concentration within the next few seconds.

  It started off relatively easy.

  Black needle-like thorns burst upwards as we came down.

  I swung myself in front of Setsuna, holding my staff out in front of me as a haphazardly formed barrier shielded us from below.

  I felt the shadowy mist slowly chip away at its integrity, the darkness rotting away at the light.

  Stray thorns passed us by, barely scraping the edges of our skin, drawing blood and almost immediately infecting them with a mysterious ailment, only to be immediately purged by my ongoing magic.

  A massive black spot formed in the corner of my vision.

  A blackened tree root twisted upwards, spiralling into a gigantic spike, death rolling off of it and forming a terrifying drill trained on our exact position.

  In a smooth motion that didn’t disrupt her focus, I grabbed Setsuna and spun the two of us out of the way, letting it pass by us harmlessly.

  I held back a gag at the smell of rotting wood, before quickly cleansing the emanating poisonous rot with a quick purification spell.

  A shadow was cast over us.

  Huh?

  I blinked, turning around only to find the bark drill bending backwards as it came back towards us.

  Really!?

  Fight fire with fire it was.

  I pointed my staff back towards the forest that was quickly drawing closer, straining my mana to send a signal to the largest tree within my range, encouraging it to spurt and grow upwards, matching the drill in thickness and size before letting the two wooden forces smash together in an explosion of splinters.

  Steel shifted right above me. That was the signal.

  I swerved out of the way, letting Setsuna pass by me as she brought the tip of her blade towards the ground, breaking through the heavens and reshaping the earth.

  “Ame-no-Nuboko!”

  The ‘Heavenly-Jewelled Spear’ shattered the world beneath it, cleaving apart the earth and forming a deep chasm.

  We sunk deep down as great walls of rock rose, surrounding us and creating a clear path through the remaining stretch of forest.

  I saw the shadowy bodies of corrupted elks fly off to the side, the stampede completely parted by Setsuna’s maneuver.

  We slammed into the ground and rolled forwards, catching our balance without issue and running forward the moment our feet hit solid dirt.

  As we made a mad dash through the forest, shadows from above slowly darkened our view of the newly formed ravine.

  I craned my head upwards again, only to find dozens of elks jumping down into the chasm to chase us.

  Not a single moment’s rest, eh?

  A stag angled its twisted, sharpened antlers downwards at us as it dived down, intent on piercing us.

  Setsuna deftly jumped to the side, rebounding off of the walls of the chasm to draw a diagonal line straight towards it, flying through the air with a slash that easily cleaved through its shadowy armour, exposing the flesh beneath it and incapacitating it without need for excess injury.

  Three more followed behind it, catching Setsuna in a rare moment of vulnerability as she had no way to change her trajectory mid-air.

  I clicked my tongue and pushed my muscles as hard as I could, kicking off the rocky dirt to get within range.

  I jumped upwards, dragging my staff and scraping it along the ravine’s walls, sending cracks of golden energy along it that burst out into a makeshift roof of tendrils of nature, letting Setsuna return to the ground unimpeded.

  Before long, after fending off a rain of jumping and diving deer, we managed to make it across the stampede.

  We spun around the moment we reached safe and exited that stretch of the forest.

  “One last time!” I called out, swiping my staff along the ground to draw an invisible wall in the dirt, summoning another huge well of my mana.

  I held back the wince as warmth drained from my system, replaced by a painful chill and distracting migraine.

  It’s not enough.

  You can’t stop it.

  The trees swelled as bark mutated and the line of trees merged into a towering wall of wood and leaves.

  Setsuna once again slammed her blade down into the earth, sundering the earth as a massive line of rock jutted out of the ground and almost collapsed the forest behind it, sealing off that portion of the mountain for good and further blocking off the flow of the rivers.

  We didn’t need to worry too much about how we were completely reshaping the mountain. Yrd was a mystical, almost sentient and divine place. As long as the waters regained their purity, the mountain would naturally be able to heal itself.

  We turned around, looking upwards again as we started sprinting again.

  The clouds came ever closer as we neared the peak.

  There was only one more stretch between us and the wellspring at Yrd’s heart.

  One more ill omen, forecast by the stampede we just pushed through, awaited us.

  I looked down at the sluggish stream beneath us, observing that its waters seemed to be growing thicker and thicker as we made our way forwards, almost transforming into a slime-like substance.

  I couldn’t even see the rocks that made up the riverbed. The clarity that Yrd’s waters were known for had completely disappeared.

  The only solace we had was that we had still yet to hear the rattling of chains. That sound would have almost certainly sealed our fate.

  The dirt started grow loose, slipping off into the sinister river.

  Slowly, the dirt became mud, and then there was no more ground to stand on.

  Darkened waters started to lick at our feet.

  I scowled, circling my mana again to protect the both of us with a persistent restoration spell.

  Hopefully we could be out of this area before any long-term side effects started to damage us.

  I saw a twisted shadow creep and crawl towards us.

  Jagged, sharp thorns, gleaming with a malevolent light.

  I held my breath as we beheld the towering figure awaiting us, standing tall in the middle of a pool of ichor.

  Twisted, spiky antlers sat atop the great elk’s head, his bejewelled antlers – spoken of in legend as once scraping the heavens, collecting the dew of the clouds and letting it drip onto the mountain to form Yrd’s sacred rivers – distorted into a cruel mockery of their former glory.

  Hollowed out, lifeless red orbs glared us down, appraising us in complete silence and stillness as we drew closer.

  Shadows curled, rolling off of it as it draped the deer like a cloak.

  The sludge beneath it slowly pushed away as it showed a tiny hint of movement.

  Setsuna frowned softly at the sight.

  “Old friend, it appears the worst has come true. I pray that thee finds it within thy heart to forgive this lowly wanderer for their following transgressions upon thy blessed body.”

  It regarded her with an ominous silence, not responding to her words.

  “Don’t lose hope, Setsuna,” I tightened my grip around my staff and readied myself, “he hasn’t attacked us on sight… that means some part of him is still in there, holding out.”

  “...”

  Setsuna closed her eyes remorsefully.

  “Indeed.”

  She stabbed her blade into the ichor rooting us for a moment, bringing her hands together in a familiar salute before bowing deeply.

  “Harken, O Heavenly Watcher, to thee… I pay my respects. I thank thee for thy blessings, for thy strength and courage. Grant this lowly wanderer one last blessing, shall ye? Let this rusted, dull blade be tested by thy storied wisdom one last time.”

  She rose from her bow and gripped her blade, smiling wryly.

  “What was our record again? Five to seven, ‘twas? Let us see if one more can be added to that count.”

  She scoffed ironically, before calming her expression.

  “Rest now, old friend. Fight no longer. Let go of the pain. Leave the rest of this troubled journey to us children.”

  Something warped and twisted behind its glowing red eyes.

  It almost seemed to nod in acknowledgement to her words.

  An ungodly whine almost ruptured our eardrums and blew us off our feet as it lifted its head and unhinged its monstrous jaw, creating sickly bubbles in the black pool we stood in.

  Setsuna withdrew her blade from where it was lodged.

  I sighed.

  “So, any plans on how we’re tackling this?”

  She just narrowed her eyes, not straying her gaze from the great deer.

  “This deathly pool, canst thou cleanse it?”

  I frowned.

  “You’re not thinking about using Juuchi Fuyu again, are you? On Eikthyrnir?”

  “Nay,” she bent down, preparing to dash forward, “Great Eikthyrnir deserves more.”

  I grimaced as I looked down at the shallow pool we stood in.

  I wasn’t a priest. I didn’t study those arts of banishment and purification. Most of my study was solely medical. I didn’t have it in me to purify the filth that was gathering in this stream.

  But… maybe there was a way I could do it.

  I hadn’t tested my limits, but… I was feeling a bit more comfortable now. Maybe I could manage a full cycle around the Great Wheel?

  Hell of a time to find out, I guess.

  “I’ll see what I can-”

  Thick globs of black mud kicked up as Setsuna left me behind, rushing to face Eikthyrnir head on.

  I held back the urge to roll my eyes.

  She was bullheaded and impatient as always.

  Well, I had spent enough time with her by now to trust that she knew what she was doing.

  Fine.

  One go around Samsara it is.

  I tried my best not to fall behind, hovering as close to Setsuna as I could, swirling my mana around the head of my staff as I shuffled through a mental list of spells, preparing us for any sort of attack.

  The corrupted deer lifted its head up to the sky, throwing its neck back as wisps of black smoke gathered on the sharp tips of its antlers.

  The both of us recognised that motion.

  Alright, first order of business.

  Close in without getting hurt.

  “Careful, Setsuna!” I called out, wrapping the two of us with a persistent healing spell and summoning a light, moving barrier in front of us, “Don’t assume his attacks have the same properties you remember!”

  I recalled the encounter we just managed to pass; Eikthyrnir’s herd, and the stench of death, rot and decay that rolled off of them.

  Where once, they were blinding to even look at, with flowers blooming with every step they took, all the grass around them now rotted and dissolved, with the trees withering into grey husks as they stomped towards us.

  Whatever corruption they had undergone had clearly inverted their domain of life and light, and if I had to hazard a guess, I would even say their base element was corrupted from Water into Earth.

  “His attacks are probably poisonous in nature now! I can’t guarantee my healing will be at full effectiveness!”

  The giant stag flicked its head forward and down, releasing the dreary fog on its antlers as flying black spears.

  For a brief moment, Eikthyrnir’s figure was overlaid in my eyes by a vision of one of his past spars with Setsuna.

  Every time, it always opened with the same attack, summoning a rain of heavenly light to slow our approach.

  It seems like even in its current degraded state, it still followed the same combat patterns.

  Black bolts rained down towards us, slowing our approach as we were forced to dodge to the sides as Setsuna parried away any directly aimed spears.

  One such spear slammed into my barrier, almost shattering it immediately, sending great reverberations through my field of mana that almost made me pause.

  I scowled.

  From here on out, the foes would be on an entirely different level.

  Something streaked across my vision.

  A stray spear shot straight towards one of Setsuna’s blind spots.

  I panicked, and without thinking, tossed my staff to intercept it.

  That was probably really stupid and I could already hear all of the combat-based teachers at Nindo screaming in my ear already, but what was done was done, and at the very least, it did its job.

  The oaken staff smashed into the misty spear, veering it away and sending the staff spinning back through the air.

  But in the meantime, I was left defenseless, having been forced to let go of the barrier I was manifesting to do that.

  I desperately rolled to the side and towards my flying staff, feeling something thick puncture straight through my left arm.

  I held back the scream, channelling as much light-based Fire mana into my other hand as I could, grabbing onto the spear and snapping it in half, letting it dissolve into nothing.

  I felt something in the wound churn, rotting by the second.

  I jumped up, catching my staff as fast as possible and pointing it towards my wound as we ran forward, with the initial barrage finally coming to an end.

  The unnatural, yet familiar by now, sensation of flesh magically regrowing and pulsing with life tickled my arm.

  The world around us started to shake.

  Immediately, I looked up, preparing for the next attack.

  After the rain, next up in Eikthyrnir’s artillery gauntlet would be orbital strikes of crepuscular light, using the gaps between layers of clouds to focus and funnel devastating beams of energy.

  But the clouds didn’t shift.

  Instead, the pool we stood in began to bubble at certain spots.

  “Setsuna, below!”

  I dived out of the way out of the rapidly boiling circles as dark geysers burst up from beneath, creating large irradiated areas of that same deathly miasma from earlier.

  I looked towards my companion, seeing her lift a pinched hand to her mouth again, preparing to unleash Kumowari-Ao to disperse the hazard again.

  “Just ignore it!” I called out to her, “the radius isn’t that large! Just get past the geysers and engage Eikthyrnir directly! I’ll sustain us through it, I need to use the mist as a starting point!”

  She gave me a small nod, pausing for a moment to find gaps in the circles of mist to jump through before taking off again.

  I followed behind, dragging my staff directly through the miasma and collecting it behind me in a slipstream whilst covering the two of us in a small aura to fight off any adverse effects brought about by the miasma.

  The water was too thick and concentrated for me to get a proper hold of for the purpose of elemental conversion, but the miasma was loose enough for me to easily run my own mana through to sway.

  Still, that wasn’t to say it was easy.

  I was still kind of wrestling against the energy of a primordial beast who gained its life directly from a leyline.

  I felt my fingertips shiver slightly as they grew cold from the mana being depleted from my system as I slowly guided the miasma under my control.

  Eikthyrnir reared its head again, signalling that it was collecting more ‘dew’ on its antlers.

  As long as we cleared this, we could get it in melee range.

  “Five paces to the East!” Setsuna shouted as she jumped up, already preparing her technique despite lacking the prerequisite conditions.

  “Got it!”

  I quickly flipped my grip on my staff, pulling ahead of Setsuna as I spun it clockwise, guiding the wheel from North to East.

  The mist gathered behind me rolled forward, shimmering as it pushed against the cold air and thinned into a summer haze, blurring us from view.

  Setsuna’s sword flickered, shimmering and seeming to multiply behind the mirage, shooting out a dozen blades of air that matched each black spear, batting them away and clearing the final stretch.

  There was a small annoyance, however; I lost a small bit of progress in collecting the miasma because of that.

  I needed to find a way to get back my momentum.

  “Can you work with Tatsumaki!?”

  “Aye!”

  “Alright, here you go!”

  I gave the wheel another push, layering a wave of cold air into the summer haze, creating a rapid turbulence through which Setsuna dragged the tip of her blade to throw a massive empowered tornado forwards.

  The natural rotation of the tornado gave me enough footing to start scraping and siphoning the miasma again, regaining all the energy I had lost.

  Eikthyrnir let out a twisted roar as Setsuna finally closed in on him, attempting to stomp her flat with one of its hooves, only to find her rusted blade cutting across its front leg in return.

  I let out a small cough and wheezed uncomfortably as the miasma I was collecting grew thicker and denser.

  Even if I was guiding it under my control, that didn’t make me immune to its effects.

  Still, I needed to keep on going. I still needed more of it before I had enough influence of my own to try and pull the stream and pool around us underneath my control.

  Eikthyrnir’s twisted antlers started to glow a deep, ominous crimson as he was pushed back.

  If I remembered correctly, in his normal state, the jewels on his antler were symbolic of the radiant life of the mountain, and their glow signalled him commanding the nature of the mountain itself to attack us.

  Something groaned and cracked in the distance.

  I could see the trees far off the edge of the pool slowly bulge and spasm, their bark groaning and straining as they mutated into walking abominations of hollow oak.

  Well that didn’t look good. Usually, this part looked more like what I would do, with summoning tangles of nature and what not. The most annoying part of this phase was usually the blooming flowers filled the air with pollens and what not.

  Setsuna spun back from the deer, collecting the remnants of the tornado’s wind to unleash a devastating upwards slash, invoking the image of a dragon ascending through the sky.

  She looked side to side, before sinking her blade into the black ichor at our feet.

  She scowled.

  There was no way for her to strike sparks in this environment.

  “Estelle!”

  “You don’t have to tell me!”

  I groaned, heaving my staff, which slowly grew heavier and heavier with miasma, and twirling it again.

  “Let me guess, Shichikata!?”

  “Aye!”

  Alright, seemed like I had to go counter-clockwise this time.

  I needed to create ash, and to do that, I had to pass through Earth to the West.

  I corrected my grip and once again tugged at the wheel, slowly untangling the miasma until it pulled into a vortex of smog.

  I let out a loud roar as I let the cloud of fiery ash free, smothering the world in a thick blanket of blackish-grey.

  It also had the side-effect of overpowering the last spots of miasma, leaving it loose enough for me to start the process of collection again.

  I saw a small spark of red inside the smog.

  “Minamiken, Shichikata,”

  A small red orb glimmered in the veil of darkness, peaking out across the flat edge of the ground.

  “Akatsuki, Yoru no Kogeru!”

  The world exploded in a brilliant red as a blazing ball of flame expanded outwards, smothering the darkness and eating the ash, dispelling night and bringing the light of day back to the world.

  ‘Daybreak, Scorching of the Night’.

  Eikthyrnir whined as it stumbled back, visible burn marks scarring his body as trails of smoke wisped off of the wounds.

  I heard wood groan and collapse off to the side, followed by heavy splashes as the twisted treants fell uselessly into the burning pool.

  I felt waves of heat push into me, intensified by the almost-steaming puddle of ichor at my feet – the aftereffects and radius of damage of Setsuna’s technique being so strong it almost instantly boiled the liquid beneath us.

  There was one bit of good news from that, though. Enough of the corrupted water had instantly been evaporated for Eikthyrnir’s influence over it to loosen, finally giving me the foothold I was looking for to convert everything at once.

  Alright, here it goes then.

  All or nothing.

  I inhaled deeply, digging my staff deep into the ground before pulling it back up again, shovelling up thick drops of blackened ooze along with it.

  I felt my fingertips grow cold again as a migraine came on, followed by a small glob of bile rising up my throat.

  I staggered, fighting the exhaustion back.

  I had probably depleted close to half my mana reserve up to this point, more than enough to be considered to be in very dangerous territory by modern safety standards, but I had to keep on going.

  “Setsuna, get ready!”

  I didn’t receive a verbal response, given that Setsuna was too busy weaving between Eikthyrnir’s attacks and fighting back with fiery techniques – drawn from the remaining ash that lingered in the air – woven in with her Eastern Blade, which was catalysed by the constant shifting of the air’s temperature around us.

  I pulled at the Great Wheel, groaning from the inherent resistance of mana as I attempted to forcibly transform it.

  I felt my nerves bite back at me as I completed a half-rotation, surrounding myself in a vortex of ash again.

  I continued towards East.

  I felt my fingertips grow numb, almost losing grip of my staff as I continued to spin it above my head.

  The vortex of ash howled as it became a whirlwind.

  I groaned as I felt the natural laws of the world try to stem the unnatural cycle.

  I pushed on through the migraine with another guttural yell, finally completing a full rotation and transforming the energy back into Water.

  The pool around us was visibly clearer, transmuted back from unholy ichor back into a drinkable liquid.

  But it still wasn’t enough. Murky streaks still lingered inside of it. I needed to purify it further.

  If two cycles wasn’t enough, then I guess we would be in really deep trouble.

  I grit my teeth and closed my eyes. It was too distracting trying to keep my eyes on the battle in front of me. I had to focus on pushing myself through another spin of the wheel.

  Again.

  North to West.

  West to South.

  My hands grew numb.

  Something trembled beneath me, but I was too focused and desperate to pay attention to it.

  My fingers slipped.

  I froze.

  For a moment, my mind went blank.

  Your own power is never enough, is it?

  You can stop nothing, you can help no one.

  Ah, sorry, Setsuna.

  It always ends up the same, doesn’t it?

  I felt something strike my stomach, blowing me back and breaking my spell.

  A ghastly tentacle erupted from the riverbed, oozing with deathly liquid as it thrashed around and tossed me aside, almost immediately undoing all the progress in purification I had managed up to that point.

  “Estelle!”

  Setsuna looked to the side, calling out to me in panic, only to be forced to look back towards Eikthyrnir as his attacks resumed once again, pinning her to the spot as more and more of the horrific tendrils burst upwards.

  I got my shivering body back under control, wincing as I brought my hand to my bleeding stomach, going through the motions of healing myself back up as fast as possible as I limped forwards to where I dropped my staff.

  No, I couldn’t give up. Yrd was counting on it.

  I welled up one more burst of mana as I glared the tentacles down with as much hatred as possible, preparing to dance one more t-

  A terrible howl froze us.

  All of us stopped.

  Not just us, Eikthyrnir as well.

  “T-that…” I whispered, my eyes widening.

  Rattling chains echoed from the side.

  “No, that can’t be!”

  I tossed my head to the side, just in time to witness a great beast burst through the collapsing treeline, its terrifying silhouette illuminated by the afternoon sun.

  Setsuna was barely given the time to react, only just managing to get out of the way as a gargantuan figure smashed straight into the heart of the pool, tackling Eikthyrnir and sending it flying away.

  The tentacles flailed around, striking mindlessly at the intruder, only to be met with ferocious swipes of a furred claw, effortlessly cutting them all apart.

  A gargantuan grey wolf stared into the distance, beyond Eikthyrnir, beyond the pool and stream, up towards the heart of Yrd itself.

  An indescribable anger burned in its glowing golden eyes.

  I froze at the emotions running inside those gleaming orbs.

  That was anger, yes, but it wasn’t madness.

  It was fury, it was righteous indignation. A mixture of sorrow and grief with blinding rage and a thousand years of boiling tension all released at once.

  There was a heart and mind behind those eyes still.

  The countless chains wrapped and dangling around its imposing form gave its identity away.

  “Fenrir…?” I spoke breathlessly, almost not believing what I was seeing.

  The wolf quickly glanced towards our puny forms as we staggered towards him.

  Fenrir, the legendary king of beasts, the Chained Wolf said to be older than history itself, tucked away from prying eyes inside the depths of Yrd’s peak…

  Somehow, miraculously, the corruption had not infected him. Maybe it was because he wasn’t really a native of the mountain, or it was because he wasn’t a spirit of nature like the kitsune were, or maybe he was just older than the mountain itself, but whatever the reason might have been, I didn’t care.

  I was just glad he was still with us.

  Having to fight him after Eikthyrnir would have almost certainly sealed our fate, and that was before we had to face the true culprit behind this madness.

  Eikthyrnir groaned as he got back up, drawing Fenrir’s gaze away from us.

  The deer lifted his head as he glared the wolf down, collecting a ball of wicked energy between its antlers to prepare a devastating attack.

  Something shattered.

  I blinked, and the wolf disappeared from view, revealing an empty riverbed, rocks and ichor exploding upwards where it once was.

  A pained cry originated from where the deer once stood.

  Fenrir rocketed towards the almost-divine deer, biting into its back and effortlessly picking it up with its mouth and brutally slamming it down into the base of the pool over and over.

  And over. And over.

  Stunned into silence by the unexpected ally, Setsuna and I just stood to the side and watched as Fenrir’s fury slowly died down.

  The limp, unconscious body of a giant stag plopped down into the shallow pool.

  I regained my senses from the sound of the splashing liquid, and ran up to inspect the aftermath.

  My hands ran over Eikthyrnir’s body, the shadowy veil surrounding it slowly seeping away.

  He-... he was still alive, thank God.

  I instinctively reached out, caressing its wound as I started to heal it without thinking, before flinching, realising that I couldn’t be so hasty.

  My head snapped up, and my wide, panicked eyes met Fenrir’s, still blazing with a cold fury.

  He made no aggressive movements towards me, just coldly watching me.

  …Was that his approval?

  I gulped.

  Under his watchful gaze, I slowly stabilised Eikthyrnir’s condition, being careful not to bring him back to consciousness.

  Once I was done, Fenrir slowly nodded towards me, lazily pushing the giant stag off the dark waters and onto the decaying grass, where it would not be touched again by the ichor’s corrupting influence.

  Setsuna frowned as she came up besides us, glancing over Fenrir’s body.

  “Old friend, O Chained Wolf… who was it that inflicted those wounds upon thee?”

  Huh?

  I blinked, looking back towards the wolf’s body.

  I flinched at the gnarly sight.

  Across its underside, nasty gashes – a mixture of punctures, slashes, bruises and strangling marks – littered its body, still constantly oozing bright red blood like the wounds were inflicted not even a second ago.

  Slowly, I extended my hand towards the open wounds.

  Seconds passed in silence.

  I trembled.

  I bit my lip.

  “Estelle?” Setsuna looked towards me in concern, “Is something wrong?”

  “H-his wounds…”

  I felt my heart thump uncomfortably.

  “I-I don’t know why… t-they aren’t healing…”

  I quickly healed the two of us back up, confirming that my magic still worked.

  I looked back towards the wolf’s wounds, the panic quickly growing and stirring my heart.

  “N-no,” I started to shake more, “t-this isn’t right… t-this can’t be. I-I must be doing something wro-”

  “Estelle,” Setsuna’s stern voice snapped me awake, “Thou needst not to doubt thyself. Thy magic was effective throughout all these tumultuous hours, there exists not a reason why that truth would suddenly reverse now. It is no error of your own that leads to this predicament… the answer must lie in the nature of our enemy.”

  I calmed my breathing.

  Right.

  N-no… i-it… it wasn’t my fault.

  Fenrir just growled upon the reminder of the person who dealt him his wounds, and turned towards the final cave in the distance, leading up towards Yrd’s peak.

  “There is no more time to waste,” Setsuna quickly followed behind it, flicking her blade to clean it of blood, “one more enemy remains.”

  We spent the next few minutes of the trek in complete quiet, choked into silence by the tension in the air.

  One final climb. Through the caves, up the river, and there, at the radiant pool, we would find him.

  I calmed my anxious heart, pushing the nightmares away.

  I couldn’t afford to falter now, not when we were so close.

  We followed Fenrir into darkness as it leapt forward, barely able to keep up with its inhuman speed, guided only by the sound of its rattling shackles and the constant, unnerving dripping of blood from its unhealable wounds.

  And before long, we arrived.

  Stale air greeted us as we exited the final cave.

  The massive, radiant wellspring that blinded and dazzled all who looked upon it, was almost unrecognisable, dulled into a flat and viscous puddle.

  A singular figure stood at the opposite edge of the pool, kneeling at a wicked altar of bony wings as a malevolent liquid boiled and bubbled at its core, slowly draining the pool while leeching poison into it.

  They stopped in the middle of their ritual as they heard us approach.

  The faceless man scoffed as he turned around.

  “So the mutt returns. It seems old dogs can’t be taught new tricks after al-”

  He trailed off, seeing the two unexpected intruders.

  Anger and frustration twisted into his colourless eyes.

  He scoffed, glaring into me.

  I held back the flinch.

  “Of course, it’s you. I should have expected it… the rumours did say your family lived on this mountain range… and you do have a tendency to annoy me.”

  Setsuna narrowed her eyes, standing in front of me and drawing her blade defensively.

  Fenrir growled and lowered its body, uncontrollable rage flicking through its eyes once more.

  I bit my lip.

  “That’s him, Setsuna… that’s the man who attacked Arden, the leader of the cultists, the one who… who…”

  I trailed off.

  Setsuna frowned, intensifying her stare.

  He was the reason she found it necessary to bring me out to Yrd as an intervention.

  “Estelle Symphonia.”

  The faceless man trudged through the ichor, his words dripping with venom.

  “I was almost certain no one would find me until it was too late, but of course, you of all people found a way to disrupt my plans. Yet. Again. How very. Truly. Reprehensible.”

  He drawled and snarled.

  I brought my staff up defensively.

  “Unfortunately for you, little girl, this time… I was not complacent in my preparations. If one wishes to swat a bug, then one must bring a bug swatter. You were beyond fortunate in our last encounter… the only enemy I had not prepared to face was an idiot, a healer directly in the frontlines. No such miracle shall bless you this time.”

  A hand showed itself from underneath his robe.

  A pitch-black length of chain extended from his sleeve, an ominous spike attached to its end.

  Almost immediately upon seeing it, Fenrir bent down even lower, his claws digging into the earth as his fangs sharpened in unfathomable rage.

  “Oh, look at that,” the faceless man drawled, swinging the chain around as he crept ever closer, “the mutt still recognises the chains of its old master.”

  I blinked.

  What?

  What was he trying to impl-

  Something black flickered towards us.

  Fenrir leapt back.

  Setsuna parried it.

  I was not so lucky.

  I tried to dodge to the side, but the chain’s sharp spearhead still barely managed to scrape my forearm.

  That’s fine. It was just a scratch, barely more than a paper cut.

  I paid the minor wound no mind, instinctively circling my mana to heal the wound back up.

  I had more important things to be focused on, like the battle that was about to break out.

  I lowered myself into a defensive stance.

  I gripped my staff tightl-

  Ow.

  I winced, feeling something annoying burn my forearm.

  That was strange, what the hell was-

  I froze.

  The cut.

  It wasn’t healing.

  Why wasn’t it-

  The realisation set in.

  It’s not enough.

  It will never be enough.

  Fuck, now wasn’t the time for those thoughts and insecurities.

  The black mass in front of us blurred.

  This time, I was careful enough to avoid being struck by the chains.

  Setsuna and Fenrir ran forward as the faceless man withdrew his armament.

  The battle for Yrd’s waters began.

  FINAL BATTLE

  [???]

  ????

  ????????? ?? ??? ????? ??????

  100% HP

  Enemy Info

  ????

  Difficulty: ????

  Attacks ^

  [Hatred That Outlives the Hateful]

  Wrathful flames imbued with a malevolent essence that seem to burn without end. Being touched by the flames inflicts [Hate Unyielding], which continuously Ignites Seekers. Spending mana while [Hate Unyielding] is active increases the intensity and duration of the debuff.

  [Silence to Drown the Madness]

  Sheets of ice that reduce everything it touches to a state of absolute ‘zero’. Spreads fields of [Last Whispers] on the arena with indefinite duration. Lingering in [Last Whispers] zones inflicts Cold Damage Over Time on Seekers within, and accumulates stacks of [Quiet Unbreaking]. Each stack of [Quiet Unbreaking] inflicts increasing magnitudes of Chill, along with successively reducing Cooldown Recovery Speed. After a critical mass of [Quiet Unbreaking] stacks is reached, Silence is inflicted.

  [Chains That Shackled Heaven]

  All-binding chains from which nothing can escape. Seekers damaged by the chains are inflicted with stacks of [Oblivion Unmoving], which temporarily Roots Seekers upon infliction and applies Open Wounds at 60% Reduced Healing Effectiveness. Each successive stack of [Oblivion Unmoving] reduces Resistances.

  ...

  Still not sure how I want to handle stuff like boss info etc, whether I want it before the battle, during the chapter, or after it like in a ‘boss guide’ page.

  I’ll play around with the format a bit the next few times. This one comes before since its relatively restrained compared to some later stuff and he’s already kind of been seen in action once.