Chapter 32 Hymn of Restraint

Chapter 32 Hymn of Restraint
Jax dragged air into his lungs like it had weight. The scream had not faded. It had settled behind his eyes, pressing every time the Void Anchors pulsed. Beneath the Wardback's shell, the emerald glow thinned to a weak heartbeat, each dimming answered by hunger.

The demon turned with the patience of something that had already decided the ending, its eyes tracking the team's every move like it was formulating a plan. Clouse shifted first. Blade up, body between claws and shell. Not dramatic. Just correct. Alex knelt at Mira's side, one hand braced to the carapace while the other anchored earth through her shaking frame.

Mira's fingers twitched, her chest rising out of rhythm. A signal of life. The demon's gaze brushed over her before returning to Jax. It smiled wide, maw opening to reveal teeth like shards of glass as the anchors deepened their hum, resonating louder and heavier through the basin.

Jax pushed upright. His ribs felt misaligned, like the casting had cracked something inside him, but he raised a hand anyway. Stone answered. He built angles rather than walls, thin slabs layered to redirect force instead of trying to meet it head-on again.

"You're a quick one, aren't you?" the demon asked, its voice carrying the weight of a thousand suns. The sound traveled through bone.

Clouse stepped laterally, blade dipping before rising again. When the demon swiped in protest, launching its massive claws toward the knight, Clouse was already moving. He slipped inside the arc before the strike finished forming, his blade flashing toward the creature's forearm.

Steel found purchase.

For a fraction of a second the hand jerked.

Then the anchors flared.

Corruption flowed over the wound like poured metal, sealing and thickening the flesh almost instantly. The demon didn't even glance at the cut.

"It's being fed by the anchors," Jax said, forcing the words through tight lungs. "The lattice. It's a siphon."

"You can see it," the demon murmured, tilting its head as though studying a rare curiosity. "So few ever do." Its gaze slid toward the anchors, watching the black light crawl along the lattice. "They think the anchors hold the corruption in place. They think they are stabilizing something broken."

A quiet chuckle rolled from its throat.

"They never notice the direction the blood flows."

Jax reached for one of the anchors with mana, not to break it but to twist its flow. He shaped pressure into direction, trying to turn the conduit against itself. The resistance answered immediately, like something alive. The hum deepened, and pressure spiked behind his eyes hard enough to blur the edges of his vision.

"That does not belong to you," the demon said quietly. "You cannot take what was placed."

Jax forced the connection anyway. The anchor flared violently, black light snapping across the lattice as the hum shifted into something sharper and deliberate. Pain cracked through his forearm like teeth closing around the mana line.

Jax broke contact instantly and staggered, dropping to one knee as the backlash tore through his nerves.

"Don't touch it again unless you know," Clouse said without looking back.

"I know enough to try," Jax replied, swallowing iron and forcing the tremor from his voice. "If we stop trying, we lose anyway, right?"

The demon stepped forward.

Every anchor pulsed in answer.

The emerald heartbeat beneath the shell stuttered. Mira gagged as Alex forced earth deeper through her lines, the anchors around her flaring brighter.

"You're draining it," Alex snarled.

"You are holding a cup beneath a broken well," the demon replied. "Brave but pointless."

The demon barked, then a deep, guttural laugh rolled out after.

"Ahhahaha… weak, pathetic human scum," the demon sneered. "Zerith will be pleased."

Clouse moved, but this time not toward the demon.

He sprinted for the nearest anchor and cut low, driving steel directly into the corruption surrounding it. The impact shuddered through the lattice. The anchor vibrated violently, and a thin crack of emerald light answered from beneath the shell.

The demon's posture sharpened.

Clouse struck again, this time driving the blade deep into the base before ripping it free as corruption crawled toward his gauntlet.

The hum shifted.

Jax felt the opening immediately.

Both hands slammed down as he forced stone upward around three anchor bases, shaping clamps of fractured earth that locked their vibration in place. For half a second the hum warped, tension in the basin slackening like a tightened wire just before it snapped again.

Clouse lunged once more. The demon lifted an arm to block, but the knight changed angle mid-strike, carving through the seam of the wrist.

Ichor sprayed across the stone.

The demon's smile vanished.

Something in the cavern tightened as the creature stopped playing.

Its counterattack came instantly.

The claw dropped fast enough to crack the air itself.

Clouse rolled aside, but the follow-through tore across his shoulder, splitting armor and sending blood across the basin floor. He rose on one knee without looking at the wound.

His eyes stayed on the anchors.

The demon stepped in to finish him.

Jax hurled a wedge of stone beneath the creature's foot, angling the earth just enough to break its balance. The shift was small.

Clouse made it enough.

He moved back into position between the demon and the shell as Jax's casting lagged behind him, heavy and wrong in his hands.

"You will break," the demon roared.

Ignoring Clouse entirely, it drove forward toward the shell, drawing more power through the anchors. Clouse slashed across its torso as it passed, opening another line of black ichor, but the creature didn't slow.

Its claws lifted toward the carapace.

The hum turned harsh and uneven as the anchors vibrated against the stone like restrained song.

The claws struck.

And stopped.

The shell flared with emerald and silver hues in response.

The demon's arms jerked backward as the impact forced it off balance. Black light surged violently down the anchors, corruption pouring toward the flare as the lattice strained against the stone clamps.

Mira gasped as the surge hit her again.

Alex dug deeper into the earth, arms shaking. "I can't hold it!"

"Keep them pinned," Clouse said.

"I'm trying."

The demon straightened slowly, its gaze moving from the shell to Mira, then finally settling back on Jax.

"You don't understand what you're protecting."

"What are you doing?" Jax demanded.

"Finishing what was started," the demon replied. "Turning a sanctuary into a mouth."

Clouse sprinted again, driving his blade into one of the corruption veins feeding into the shell and twisting hard. The demon roared. The anchors flared violently as corruption snapped down the vein toward the steel. Clouse tore free and leapt backward as black threads lashed across the stone.

Jax felt the clamps cracking.

Stone split.

The anchors were meant to sing.

"You cannot hold a hymn in your hands," the demon whispered.

Jax tightened anyway.

Stone fractured.

One anchor tore free.

The hum stabilized instantly as pressure slammed back into his skull.

The emerald heartbeat beneath the shell flickered thinner.

Clouse planted himself between the demon and the shell again, blade raised, blood running freely down his arm.

"You can die here," the demon said. "Or step aside."

"No."

The claw rose.

Every anchor pulsed in perfect synchronization. Black pressure crashed into the shell hard enough to shatter the emerald light into fragments.

Jax felt the shift like a door cracking open.