Commander Vauhl floated forward on ethereal wings of fire.

  The air in the Cathedral shrieked as the heat spiked to impossible levels. The Star-Steel of Elias’s armour began to hiss, the Aether-Balm coating ablating off in grey rivulets as it tried to keep him from being cooked alive inside the suit.

  Vauhl hovered twenty feet above the Altar, suspended by wings of pure, white plasma. His armour had turned translucent, revealing a skeleton of glowing gold beneath. He was no longer a man; he was a conduit for the overloaded grid.

  [BOSS PHASE 2: MARTYR OF THE ETERNAL FLAME] [STATUS: ASCENDED / DIVINE ARMOUR]

  "You are small," Vauhl’s voice boomed. It no longer needed lungs; it radiated from the fire itself. "You crawl on the ground while I touch the face of God."

  He raised his spear—now a beam of solid light.

  "Burn."

  He thrust the spear downwards.

  A rain of fire-bolts slammed into the platform.

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  "Move!" Elias roared.

  He rolled, the stone exploding where he had stood a second before. Shrapnel pinged off his pauldrons.

  "Oaken! Shield!"

  The massive Leshei slammed his stone arms into the ground, hunching over Briar and Thorne as a wave of fire washed over them. The stone of his back scorched black, but held.

  "We can't hit him!" Veyra shouted, firing a thorn-volley that incinerated before it even reached Vauhl’s aura. "He is too high! The heat burns the wood!"

  "He’s refusing to land," Elias realised, shielding his eyes from the searing glare. "He’s just going to hover there and cook us alive!"

  Vauhl swept his hand. A wall of fire roared across the platform, dividing the squad. Elias was cut off from the others, trapped near the edge of the Maw.

  "I will purify this place," Vauhl intoned. "Starting with the rot."

  He slowly aimed his spear at Solari, allowing the tension to build......

  The ghost flinched. Her light was dimming, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of Vauhl’s radiance.

  "Solari!" Elias yelled. "Focus! Luminant Bloom! Blind him!"

  "I... I cannot!" Solari cried. "He is too bright! He IS the light!"

  "Then make a shadow!" Elias shouted. "Invert the spectrum!"

  Vauhl fired a beam of concentrated aura at Solari.

  Elias triggered his suits [Iron Zenith Field]. He didn't use it on himself. He threw his shield-arm out, projecting the disruption bubble in an attempt to encompass Solari's reduced form.

  The beam hit the field with a...

  CRACK!

  The I[Iron Zenith] shattered instantly, overloaded by the raw power. that Vauhl cold project. Elias was thrown backwards, sliding dangerously close to the edge.

  [SHIELD BROKEN] [ARMOUR INTEGRITY: 75%]

  But Solari was safe.

  "You protect the memory of a failure," Vauhl sneered. "How noble. How useless."

  He turned his gaze to Elias.

  "Now, Ser Knight. Let us finish what we started all those years ago."

  He dived.

  Vauhl came down like a meteor of fire.

  Elias didn't try to block. You don't block a meteor.

  He waited, watching the angle of descent and the spear tip.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Cindersnarl!" Elias screamed. "The chain! Now!"

  The Warg had been waiting in the shadow of the altar stone. As Vauhl swooped low to skewer Elias, Cindersnarl leaped.

  Not at Vauhl, but at the support chains.

  The massive Star-Steel chains holding the altar suspended over the Maw appeared as thick as tree trunks. Cindersnarl clasped a link in jaws reinforced by Harth’s forging. He heated it rapidly, pouring every ounce of his internal magma into the metal.

  The chain glowed cherry-red, softening.

  Vauhl slammed into the platform, missing Elias by inches. The impact shook the entire cathedral.

  The weakened chain link snapped.

  SNAP!

  And the platform tilted violently.

  Vauhl stumbled, his wings flickering our of focus as his concentration broke. Gravity reclaimed him for a split second.

  "Veyra! Anchor him!"

  Veyra slammed her staff into the cracks of the tilting stone. "Roots of the deep! Bind!"

  Thick, ancient roots shot out of the stone surrounding the Maw itself, growing from the side of the chasm. They lashed around Vauhl’s ankles.

  They burned immediately, charring under his divine heat, but they held for a second.

  "Bring him down!"

  Elias scrambled up the tilted platform. He switched Dawnfall to its Justice Stance.

  He swung for the wings, rather than a killing blow, and jumped...

  Dawnfall slashed through the white plasma wing on Vauhl’s left side.

  [CRITICAL HIT] [FLIGHT DISABLED]

  Vauhl roared in pain with a sound like tearing metal. The wing dissipated into sparks.

  He crashed onto the metallic platform.

  Elias landed on top of him.

  "You want the ground?" Elias snarled, pinning Vauhl’s spear-arm with his knee. "Here it is."

  He drove his gauntleted fist into Vauhl’s face.

  CRACK.

  Gold blood sprayed.

  Vauhl bucked, throwing Elias off with a burst of telekinetic force.

  They both scrambled up. The platform was rocking like a ship in a storm, held by the three remaining chains.

  "You cannot kill me!" Vauhl screamed, his face bloodied, his eyes wild. "I am the vessel! I hold the sacred fire!"

  "You're just a man," Elias said, levelling his sword. "And you're bleeding."

  They clashed. This was no longer a duel of skill, it had become a barroom brawl.

  Vauhl swung his light-spear like a club. Elias blocked, the impact shuddering through his bones.

  CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

  Sparks showered them.

  Vauhl was strong: divinely strong. He drove Elias back, step by step, ever nearer, towards the edge.

  "I will burn the child!" Vauhl raved, saliva frothing and hissing on his lips. "I will end the cycle! I will make us gods!"

  "You'll make us dust!" Elias shouted back.

  He saw an opening. Vauhl overextended on a thrust.

  Elias stepped inside the guard. He trapped the spear shaft under his arm.

  He headbutted the Commander.

  THUD.

  The Star-Steel helm hit the exposed face. Vauhl staggered, stunned.

  Elias let go of the spear. He grabbed Vauhl by the throat plate and the belt.

  He lifted him.

  [STRENGTH CHECK: PASSED]

  Elias roared, muscles screaming, joints creaking. He slammed Vauhl down onto the altar stone, right on top of the Ritual Glyph Circle he had been using to channel power.

  "Thorne!" Elias yelled. "The grenade! The last one!"

  Thorne was clinging to the railing of the tilted platform. She looked at Elias, then at her bandolier.

  She pulled the last grenade, staring at it in a daze. slowly, her vision cleared...It was a [Void-Bomb].

  "Do it!"

  She pulled the pin with her teeth and rolled it across the stone.

  It stopped right next to Vauhl’s head.

  Elias jumped back.

  VWOOM.

  The grenade imploded, creating not fire, but a vacuum, a momentary tear in the magical fabric.

  It sucked the divine fire right out of Vauhl’s armour.

  The white glow died. The stuttering wings of plasma vanished completely. The golden armour turned to dull, heavy lead.

  Vauhl lay there, gasping, stripped of his false divinity, just a broken old man encased in heavy metal.

  Elias walked over to him.

  Vauhl looked up, his eyes full of fear,real, human fear.

  "The fire..." he whispered. "It’s gone."

  "You never owned it," Elias said.

  He raised Dawnfall and switched to Mercy Stance.

  "For the Knight," Elias said softly, "and for the girl."

  He drove the sword through Vauhl’s heart.

  [TARGET NEUTRALISED: COMMANDER ECCLESIARCH VAUHL] [QUEST COMPLETE: THE CRUSADE]

  Vauhl died where he lay. Elias expected a seismic event, after all, that's what happens when the bad guy's defeated right?

  But his body didn't disappear; it didnt explode into light, it lay there, heavy and real.

  Suddenly, a scream echoed through the chamber.

  But it wasn't Vauhl.

  It was Thorne.

  Elias spun around, his eyes wide, scanning to find her, and there she was....

  Thorne was on her knees, clutching her branded hand. Light, orange, violent fire-was pouring out of her palm.

  The black brand cracked and hissed. Smoke poured from it.

  "Thorne!"

  Elias ran to her.

  She looked up, tears streaming down her face.

  "It hurts!" she screamed. "It burns!"

  "Let it burn!" Elias shouted, grabbing her shoulders. "It’s the seal breaking! The source is dead!"

  SNAP.

  The brand shattered.

  A pulse of fire, real, hot, messy fire, exploded from her hand, shooting up into the ceiling.

  Thorne gasped, falling forward into Elias’s arms.

  "I can feel it," she sobbed. "I can hear it again. The hum. The heat."

  "You're back," Elias whispered, holding her. "You're back."

  Veyra limped over, leaning on her staff. She looked at the dead Commander.

  "It is done," she said. "The head is cut."

  "Not yet," Solari said.

  The ghost drifted to the edge of the pit. She pointed down into the Godfire Maw.

  "The ritual was started," she said. "His death stopped the flow, but the connection remains. The Bastion is still anchored to the ritual."

  Elias looked at Vauhl’s body.

  "The ritual," he muttered. "Throw the body into the Maw."

  "What?" Thorne asked, wiping her eyes.

  "To break the final glyph," Elias said, standing up. "We have to give the fire what it wants-a sacrifice, but not the Child."

  He walked to Vauhl’s corpse, grabbed the heavy armour by the collar and belt, and dragged it to the edge.

  "You wanted to be part of the fire," Elias said to the dead man. "Go ahead."

  He heaved.

  Vauhl’s body tumbled over the edge and fell slowly into the white abyss.

  And then it hit the magma.

  CRACK.

  The sound was like the spine of the world snapping.

  The white fire turned red, then black.

  The Altar lurched. The chains groaned.

  [REALM EVENT TRIGGERED: COLLAPSE] [WARNING: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY FAILING] [TIME TO EXIT: 5 MINUTES]

  The Cathedral began to shake. Huge chunks of masonry fell from above, crashing down indiscriminately.

  "The Bastion is falling!" Veyra shouted.

  "Run!" Elias yelled. "To the gate!"