Chapter 46 Triple Collapse
Serac raised the crystalline artifact higher, its cold divine light pulsing ominously.
"Let’s see how long you last," he said with clinical calm.
The weapon activated.
A silent, devastating pulse exploded outward from the artifact, washing over Darius like a tidal wave of pure disruption.
All three bonds inside him erupted simultaneously.
Plague surged uncontrollably through his veins like liquid rot, seeking to break down everything it touched. War demanded violence and release, flooding his muscles with burning aggression and the need to destroy. Famine hollowed everything, creating vast aching voids where strength, purpose, and will should have been. The three powers tore at each other and at him with vicious, unrelenting intensity, using his body as their battlefield.
Darius gasped sharply and dropped to one knee. Black veins spread rapidly across his neck, arms, and chest like cracks racing through ice. His vision blurred. Blood trickled from his nose and the corners of his mouth. He remained conscious through all of it, feeling every second of the internal war tearing him apart.
The environment broke apart in layered horror around them.
Metal corroded instantly. Serac’s gauntlet and parts of his armor rusted and flaked away into red dust. Nearby trees blackened and crumbled, branches falling to the ground in rotten heaps. The ground itself decayed in irregular patches, releasing a foul stench of death and emptiness. At the same time, violence spiked uncontrollably. Veth roared and attacked Serac with wild, uncontrolled fury, her axe swinging in dangerous arcs that threatened to hit anything nearby. Even Mara’s movements became sharper and more aggressive than usual, her plague energy lashing out with less precision.
Overwhelming, soul-crushing hunger crashed through everyone present. Veth’s strikes grew frantic and desperate. Mara clutched her stomach for a brief moment, her golden eyes flashing with strain. Solis staggered, her own emptiness amplified painfully by the resonance, forcing her to lean against a tree for support.
Even the Calamities themselves were affected by the dangerous overlap of powers.
Mara tried containment. She reached for Darius immediately, flooding him with her own plague energy in an attempt to stabilize the chaos. "Focus on me! Hold it back! Do not let them win!"
It barely helped. The powers only fought harder against her influence.
Veth tried force. She abandoned her attack on Serac and charged toward Darius instead, grabbing his shoulder with a powerful grip. "Fight it, husband! Push them down! Use me if you have to!"
Her war energy only fed the storm inside him, making the violence surge even higher and more chaotic.
Solis tried emotional stabilization. She placed both hands on his back, pouring her own nature into him in a desperate attempt to ease the overwhelming emptiness. "Breathe through it. Do not let it consume you completely. Stay with us, Darius. Please."
None of it worked fully. The three powers had been destabilized too deeply by Serac’s weapon. They raged against each other through Darius as their unwilling battleground, growing more violent with every passing second.
Darius stayed conscious through every agonizing moment. He felt Plague trying to rot the other two powers into submission. He felt War trying to burn them into oblivion. He felt Famine trying to hollow out everything until nothing remained. The pain was immense and unrelenting, but he refused to scream. He refused to fall completely. His hands shook violently as he gripped the ground, blood dripping steadily from his lips.
Serac watched the scene with clinical fascination, completely unfazed. "Remarkable. Most hosts would already be dead or driven completely insane by now. You continue to surprise me, Valeborn. How much longer can you endure this?"
Veth roared in fury and charged Serac again, swinging her axe with devastating force. "I will kill you for this!"
Mara’s voice cracked with raw urgency. "Darius, stay with us! Fight it!"
Solis whispered, real tears in her eyes. "I am sorry. This is my fault too. All of it."
Darius forced himself back to his feet, breathing hard through clenched teeth. The artifact’s effect continued to tear through the three bonds without mercy, pushing them toward total collapse. The pain was beyond anything he had felt before, but he refused to yield. Black veins pulsed visibly beneath his skin as the bonds destabilized completely.
Serac stood a short distance away, calm and composed as ever. "The Pantheon was right to fear you. But they were also right to send me. This ends here, Valeborn."
Darius forced himself upright, blood dripping from his chin, eyes burning with determination despite the agony. The artifact’s pulse continued its devastating work, threatening to shatter him from the inside out.
Serac smiled thinly. "Impressive. Most would already be dead. You continue to surprise me."
The Hunter raised the artifact higher, preparing another, stronger pulse.