Tread Lightly

The mere heartbeat within my closed chest shatters the grasping ice around me, sending fractured shards scattering like shards of glass in every direction, some with enough speed to break the air. Ether roars within me so chaotically that I cannot help but open my mouth as the bones wrap around it. The tendrils twist and groan, clasping the ends of my lips and making the scream turn into a howl of wind.

With that howl of exhilaration, agony, and pride that is cut off abruptly by my sealed mouth, I explode forward, propelled by an unstoppable force. My voice sends Winter backward in a tumble as I reach out with an elongated arm of alabaster.

In the movement, I feel my body change from the Ether rampaging with the lethal nature of the bone. Still, I embrace the Sirza, feeling my heart, made of solid bone, expanding outward from my chest with twisting tendrils that cover me completely. From there, the bones tighten around my flesh, condensing my entire being until I become absurdly gaunt, a skeletal figure cloaked in bone.

I watch my arm expand further and further, becoming capable of touching the ground from a straightened back. And it is with that monstrous body that an open grip of claws takes Flint by the throat as I slam her into the unforgiving earth below.

The God has not one instant to react with her widened eyes and frozen body that spreads full of splintering cracks the instant she hits the ground. But that is not all. I bring her back up and grind her further into the ground, feeling all the power in my body erupt at once.

The first and second impacts are cataclysmic as they combine, sending shockwaves rippling through the land for miles around. Spiderweb cracks form in the ground, shooting out faster than the eye can see as the earth opens up around us, lifting us up like a forming mountain before setting us back down. The sheer force of the collision is deafening, a thunderous roar that echoes across the frozen landscape.

I lose sight of Bonfire and all our surroundings as it becomes just Flint and I atop this sinking pit with the mountains around growing higher. There is just me. And her.

Flint struggles beneath me, her icy grip weakening as I pin her down with merciless force. The bones that encase me creak and groan with the strain, breaking the actual ones underneath while traumatizing my organs, but I ignore the warning signs as the might of my Sirza continues to grow.

With overflowing power, I hold Winter's gaze, wanting to say something in spite of her. But I cannot. My lips are sealed by bone, and so the only thing that escapes is an otherworldly roar that rings throughout the newly formed valley and hills.

There are no other creatures to reciprocate or hear my agony other than this Goddess here and the approaching fire.

For a split second, I lose myself in the rampaging power within my body, the Ether not losing control but already being far beyond what I can harness. It is beyond my hands, and I am being strangled by this bone second by second.

One Heart Beats For Two.

The name sinks deeply alongside the soul-deep pain as Blodwyn speaks to me, our lives at the mercy of this skill.

"Together, way down we go. If you break. I break. Show them what they taught us. Strength is not individual. We are a legion, bound by blood."

I recollect myself as Blodwyn's words ring true, the many names of my mentors and teachers running through my mind. My strength is owed to each and every one of them.

Edmund, Marshall, Edward, Johnny, and even Remington—they've all guided me to this point. My fist tightens further as the aspects of Painsforge within this Sirza siphon away that emotional pain.

The split second of distraction from the pain allows Flint to retaliate. Winter's body regenerates the cracked portions with alarming speed while she explodes with ice, launching attacks from every angle. She screams in pain and panic, finally showcasing the fear of a God.

"Why won't you just die! You—ack!"

Her curses are cut short as my fist closes around her throat with such a grip that not even a Goddess can speak. Nonetheless, she's relentless, attacking with a ferocity born of desperation, not holding back in the slightest. It's clear how much extra power she's mustering in her frantic attempts to kill me. Before, she wasn't playing around, but now, I can tell she is fighting with her life on the line.

Too bad for her, I always am.

I rear back, my bony fingers freezing and breaking off with each inch of movement, only to be replaced by more bone as my body adapts and strengthens. The pain pulses through me, joining with my energy and snowballing into even more strength. With each impact, I feel myself growing more powerful, my resolve hardening like steel.

With a stream of ceaseless howls that warp the sky and twist the clouds into a swirling cataclysm, I slam Flint into the ground again and again, the earth trembling beneath us with each bone-shattering impact. The continent itself seems to secede from my unending force, the very landscape reshaping itself to acclimate to our battle. Higher mountains rise as a whole mountain range forms around me, the sheer force of our collision carving out new valleys and ravines.

But even as the earth shifts and grinds beneath us, I sink deeper and deeper into the ground, the height turning into a vast depression as I drive Flint into the very heart of the earth itself. Within just a minute, I am already below sea level and cannot see anything around but the sky directly above.

Nevertheless, I can feel the strength overdrafting my body. But that is not all. My mind and my soul are wobbling, teetering on collapse while propped up only by the energetic nature of the Ether in my body running my whole being.

I bear the force to lift her once more, the damage to Winter's body more significant than any other time during our fight, with a whole arm broken off and lost in the ravines. Yet, I lose my balance mid-attempt, stumbling backward as I let go of her.

A laugh rings out in the silence of our war, Winter's cackle piercing the bone that her spears and blades of frost couldn't. She stumbles while laughing, her weakness and confidence barely hanging on.

"Hahahahaha! You are so human, aren't you?! Grasping toward things you can't handle! Hahahaha! What were you thinking? Bearing a Sirza as a heart!? In your own body!? Hahahaha! Die to your own foolishness. Almost got me, but... in the end, Winter prevails."

Unable to reply to her, I fall to my knees, gasping for air that won't come as my lungs are sealed with bony lips. I scratch and claw at the twisting alabaster on my chest, trying to tear it out. There is no success.

A voice in my mind, however, is what calms me enough to stop the frantic delusions.

"Relax. Relax. Relax, Wyatt! We aren't dead yet! We have too much power even to use, and it's destroying us! But we aren't dead! Just... relax. Try to help me slow the growth as much as possible. We need to buy time. Bonfire. He's out there. He's coming. Just relax."

The franticness recedes as I fall onto my heels, staring up at Winter. Blodwyn is right. We still have some time. I need to... focus.

Without closing my eyes, my locus of control falls onto the heart that wraps around my whole body. Every morsel of pain, including those built by the skill itself, only manages to add to my power.

I now see why those with Sirzas use them so scarcely. They are... absurdly dangerous. With what little bits of concentration I have left, I pull on the Ether, doing all I can to slow the rampant oceans within my veins. Once upon a time, I struggled to create even a tiny trickle; now, I can't stop the rising waters.

Winter strides closer to me, but she doesn't reach out. She doesn't finish me off, instead choosing to step around me while regrowing her lost arm. A wise choice. She must have realized the nature of the Ether within me while I was making craters with her icy spine.

"This is the closest I have ever come to meeting that Elder. I'll remember you, Graves. I will not look on you fondly, but I will remember the young man who harbored a Sirza in his organs. I shall stay until your ashes lose their luster."

Her words echo across the depression of the earth, bouncing around the devastation and running along the mounds of mud and rock that have been tossed all over. Eventually, the sounds return to us, but they are not alone.

A whistling noise cuts through her echoing voice as I smile at the Goddess. I can't speak, but she knows what I have to say.

"Fire's coming."

Flint turns around, the entirety of her domain returning in a second as cold spreads out in every way, only neglecting me. In the distance, over the top of a new peak, I see a speck of quickly growing light. No, not of light, of fire.

A creature of fire dives toward Flint with azure colors along its figure that warble in the air. It's a magnificent sight, the flames swirling and dancing around it, forming the shape of wings that seem to shimmer and flicker in the air.

The creature spreads its fiery wings wide, eight in total, before pulling them in close and hurtling toward the Goddess with ferocious stubbornness. I can see a hint of my friend's face within the azure. Good shit, Bonfire!

Flint counters the heat with all her might, managing to halt Bonfire's advance completely, but it costs her time and effort. While she's momentarily distracted by the fiery onslaught, I seize the opportunity.

Greased like lightning despite my shaking, I draw the Colt from my holster, aiming it squarely at Winter while she's preoccupied. I focus on helping Lily pull herself together after the recent shot that took my vitality. My Dominion props up her soul, and she pounces with all her might. As I pull the trigger, a vast river of darkness erupts from the barrel, connecting me to the Goddess in a powerful tether.

The river of darkness siphons away Flint's strength, draining her power in an instant. I feel a surge of life fills me, momentarily batting away the weakness of my flesh. But my victory is short-lived as the creature of fire lands beside me, covering my vision in nothing but blue flames.

I straighten my back amidst the roaring flames, the elongated knuckles of my fingers on my hands gliding against the superheated rock below. The sky-blue inferno spreads out broadly like a raging wildfire, engulfing hundreds of feet of the depression in the earth.

With decisiveness set alight by the boiling veins beneath the cocoon of my Sirza, I push forward through the searing heat, knowing that Flint must be weakened by the duality of Lily and Bonfire. Furthermore, Lily appears beside me, a wide smile on her lips as she mouths 'Bono!' to me.

Unable to give her much attention, I resign my eyes to only lie upon Winter. As I draw nearer to her, I see the telltale signs of her weakened state—nine 'playing cards' of fire embedded in her icy flesh, remnants of the Bonfire's arrival.

I take note of the fiery cards and search for Bonfire, but before I can find them, they glow dangerously bright. The cards detonate into more flame, and my instincts scream at me to retreat. In fact, Shiver has my whole body leaning backward as the blast sears bone off my Sirza.

But time is running short, and I know that I must act quickly if we are to kill Winter. After all, Flint is a Goddess, and we do not possess her stamina. My time is ticking, and Lily only bought me a bit longer.

With a burst of swiftness that leaves the girl in the dust of the azure, I dash through the flames, feeling them lash at my cocoon of bone with every step. The heat is unbearable, threatening to consume me, but I push through, fueled by the pain the heat creates.

As the flames roar around me, I reach out and rip off a long piece of bone from my forearm, sharpening it to a deadly point to mimic Soulbone. It should possess all the same properties as Soulful and Solid Ether are in this.

The Goddess attempts to fight back, her icy grip tightening around me, but between the azure flames and my speed, she is simply not fast enough to hold me back. As such, the spear of bone sinks right into her chest, but that's not sufficient to put her down.

I witness her face melt as she howls in pain, stabbing into my bones with her ice. She punctures into my organs, tearing up my insides, but still, it only manages to strengthen me. Energized in the very same way Marshall was in his final moments, I bring my claw up to Flint and slash the nails across her face.

Five lines of raking bone cut deeply into her transparent flesh. Her eyes pop out from the heat, and I can not even understand her words anymore as I maul her with everything I have.

The earth shakes beneath as my force, each strike deepening the well and growing to possess more and more force. All the while, Lily stands beside me, her worried face a forgotten edifice as all my attention lies downward.

I claw again and again, taking away the ice from the Goddess. But she just won't die! The agony continues to tear up my internals, so I keep striking her. Again and again and again and again, that is until a hand lays itself on my shoulder. Glancing back, I find Bonfire reforming from the atmosphere of azure he made that was more like an ocean of fire than anything else.

The man's hand is on my shoulder. Why? I shrug and turn back away from him. I need to—

"STOP! She's dead! Stop! Please!"

Huh? What does he... oh... She's dead. A crimson that I hadn't noticed overtakes my vision and recedes, leaving me to find a butchered body beneath me, the only intact bits of the Goddess being her snowflake tiara.

I fall backward, landing directly on my spine. It feels odd, like spikes are protruding from my back. Shrugging, I allow myself to relax, not realizing what's happening.

But Bonfire does. He gets low and slams his fists on my chest, screaming with frantic eyes as Lily knees beside me along with him.

"Stop your Sirza! It's killing you! Stop it! Now! Please! Lily can't help you beyond giving you more life to burn! And... there isn't anyone else here other than you and me!"

My brain is foggy, and my thoughts run slow, but I manage to get the gist of what he's saying. I need to stop my Ether. Well, how do I do that?

"Blodwyn?"

No response comes. And that... that is when I feel a shiver run through my whole body. Coldness wells inside my core as this must be the closest thing possible to fear that I can feel after Ma's experiments on me. Sitting up despite my condition, my thoughts are a whirlwind.

Blodwyn is...

No, I sense him. Of course, he's still there—just out cold. My partner won't wake up; the Arca is far too gone. He pushed himself beyond his limits—or did he?

My hand presses against my chest as I feel something changing within it. The heart continues to beat with all the power as before, but it feels different, it feels...

It stops.

Not for long. Only a second. But when my heart has been beating thousands of times a minute, that single second feels like forever. I feel suffocated, and I fall forward, my freakish arms holding me aloft as cracks wring my body.

I twist and contort, and those awful howls return as agony strips me bare. Something changes within Blodwyn as all the Ether in the vicinity freezes. It is almost as if time freezes. Blood, dripping from Flint's final strikes, halts in the air before reversing, flying back up and into my body.

The pause in the Ether saves me from the pain of my Sirza, and the bones that surround me break off like the molts of an animal, falling to the earth heavily.

One Heart Beats For Two ceases its rhythm as the heart itself takes control, somehow adapting to the overflow of power and corralling it into place.

Finally, as my mouth is freed from the mask of alabaster, I inhale a delicious breath of air, only to hear Blodwyn. His words inundate my ears as the flowing of blood quickly drowns out his words and excitement.

"I did it. I did it. There is a 10th Sigil, but it's... it's us. It's our soul. It's difficult to describe, as our soul more so just fits in perfectly like the final piece in a puzzle, capable because of the Concept that uplifts it. I'll tell you more later, but I did it! Hey... are you alright? I thought I—Wyatt!?"

The flood of noise deafens me as pressure attempts to subdue me, pulverizing my chest, my ears, my skull, my arms, my legs, and my... everything. A kind of suppression overtakes my vision, too, as the colors dampen, and I feel weighted down.

Things don't feel like I'm about to die or anything, but... it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good at all. It's...

It's almost identical to when I first took on the Bloody Palm, only the pressure isn't directed malevolence. It is simply...The Divinity that suppresses me.