Chapter 29 Mira, Please

Chapter 29 Mira, Please
The ground trembled again, but this time Jax felt it differently. It was coming from beneath them. The vibration carried through the mud and into his boots in a steady rhythm, like something deep below the shell was pushing back against a weight it could no longer bear.

Behind the towering demon, the black Void Anchors that riddled the turtle's shell began to flare brighter. Not in scattered bursts, but together. A synchronized surge rippled outward from them like a forced heartbeat traveling through metal and bone.

Ana saw it at the same time he did. "The anchors," she shouted. "They're feeding it."

Clouse did not turn. "Are you sure?"

Against the pain in his chest, Jax rose and began to follow the lines of corruption more carefully. The anchors were not just radiating dark mana into the air. They were connected. Thin pulsing veins threaded between them, tightening every time the massive demon moved. Each strike it threw drew power through the lattice, and the anchors brightened in response as if rewarding it.

"It isn't generating that power," Jax said, the realization settling cold in his chest. "It's pulling it."

"From the turtle," Mira finished.

Another pulse rolled across the shell, stronger than the last. The emerald glow beneath the plates flickered unevenly. The clear half of the turtle's massive eye dimmed as shadow pressed closer to its center. The demon roared, and the anchors flared in answer.

"That thing isn't the source," Jax said. "It's acting as the receiver."

Ana's focus snapped to the nearest anchor point. "Then we break the lattice."

Clouse hesitated only long enough to weigh it before nodding. "Change of priority. Anchors first."

The formation shifted without argument. Alex drove forward and slammed his gauntlet into the closest anchor with a force that would have shattered stone. The impact rang sharply, but the anchor did not crack. It absorbed the blow. Dark mana surged up his arm in retaliation and forced him back a step, recoiling from the impact.

"Don't use brute force," Ana called.

Jax watched the flow more closely. The anchors were not just embedded.

They were rooted.

The corruption was sunk deep and woven through the shell beneath them. "These aren't decorations," he muttered. "They're anchored all the way down. We have to disrupt the flow, not just hit it."

"Can you?" Mira asked as she cut down another demon without taking her eyes off him.

Another pulse hit. The massive demon swelled, corruption thickening along its shoulders as if it were being fed through invisible veins. Jax flexed his hand. His ribs protested. The torn seam in his glove pulled tight.

Seismic Strike surfaced in his mind again.

Not for the demon.

For the anchors.

"They're conduits," he said quickly. "If I compress the mana at the base and force it to misalign-"

"Do it," Clouse said, all edge now.

A lesser demon lunged for Jax's blind side, but Mira intercepted it cleanly. Her blade carved a precise line through its center.

"Focus," she said.

He planted his feet and inhaled slowly. Mana gathered thicker than before, heavy from the hit he had taken, but steadier now. He did not aim to project it outward. He aimed to compress it inward.

He drove his fist into the base of the nearest anchor and held the pressure there.

Stone answered, not explosively but resonantly. The impact sank deep, sending a tremor through the anchor and into the shell beneath it.

The anchor flickered, and a thin fracture crept along its surface.

The pulse across the lattice stuttered.

The massive demon faltered mid-swing as if something feeding it had skipped a beat.

Ana saw it instantly. "Again."

The turtle's eye shifted, watching. The anchors flared violently in response, black veins brightening as they tried to compensate. The ground shook harder as the dungeon adjusted around them.

"It's trying to escalate," Jax warned.

Clouse's grin sharpened. "Good."

The air tightened. The anchors stopped pulsing outward and began to pull inward. Every vein of black mana snapped tight and drained toward the massive demon like water drawn down a throat.

"It's concentrating its mana," Jax said.

The demon went still, scanning the environment.

Then it disappeared.

There was no blur of motion. One moment it stood at the edge of the fractured lattice. The next it was simply gone.

"Inside!" Ana shouted.

Shadow tore open in the center of their formation, and the demon stepped through it as if distance meant nothing. Clouse pivoted, blade rising. Alex shifted to close the gap.

They were fast.

Half a breath behind.

The claw came down in a clean, brutal arc. Not wild. Precise.

It was aimed through Jax.

Mira saw it and moved before anyone else did. She stepped forward and drove her blade upward to intercept the strike.

Steel met corruption.

For a heartbeat it held.

Then it broke.

The impact was heavy and deep. The sound carried through bone and stone as her guard shattered.

The claw tore across her torso and lifted her clean off her feet. Jax heard the air leave her lungs. He heard something crack. Her body struck the shell hard enough to split emerald veins beneath her and slid across fractured stone before slamming into a ridge.

She did not scream.

She did not move.

The anchors flared brighter. The turtle's eye dimmed another shade.

Jax moved without thinking. He dropped beside her and turned her onto her back. Her armor was split. Blood darkened the seam where the claw had struck.

"Mira."

No response.

Her chest did not rise.

He pressed his palm against the wound and pushed mana into her without shaping it, without thinking. Just force. Just will. It slid off her like water against stone. The air rejected it.

Behind him, Clouse intercepted again, blade ringing against shadow, buying seconds they did not have.

"Get her up!" Clouse barked.

Jax tried to lift her. She felt heavier than she should have, or maybe his arms were shaking. The fracture he had made in the nearest anchor began to thin as the dungeon corrected itself.

The crack narrowed.

The lattice pulsed stronger.

"No," Jax breathed.

The demon stepped forward slowly, corruption thick around its shoulders. It had wanted this. A break in formation. A weakness to exploit.

Jax pulled Mira into his arms. Her head fell against his shoulder, her weight loose and wrong.

"Mira," he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers. "Stay with me."

The anchors flared again.

The demon raised its claw.

And Mira did not move.