The axe left Roric's hand.
It never reached Jamie.
At the last possible instant his arm twisted sideways, the weapon cleaving through stone instead of flesh. The rooftop shattered under the force, debris cascading into the street below. The shockwave rippled through already fractured buildings, sending cracks spiderwebbing across walls that Elara's Zone had barely held together.
Roric dropped to one knee.
"No… no… no…"
His hands clutched his head as black veins pulsed violently beneath his skin under his eyes. The abyss in his eyes flickered.
Jamie stumbled back, staring upward.
"Papa…?"
He heard her.
That was the problem.
Inside his mind, something else answered.
Kill her.
Erase the weakness.
He roared and leapt from the rooftop, landing hard in the street. The cobblestones cratered beneath his boots. Hunters nearby froze, staring at their chief as waves of distorted pressure radiated from him.
Jax arrived in a blur of motion.
"Thorne!" he shouted, planting himself infront of him. "Fight it!"
Roric's head snapped up.
For a heartbeat, recognition flashed.
"Run!" he rasped — and then his axe cleaved forward.
Jax barely twisted aside as the weapon carved a trench through stone. The recoil sent another shockwave down the street, toppling scaffolds and splintering wooden beams.
Jamie screamed, starled by the sudden explosion some distance away.
She didn't understand.
Moments ago she had been searching for her father. Now the air itself felt wrong. Violent. The world shook with invisible blows. She couldn't see the clash clearly through dust and debris — only silhouettes colliding, the ground exploding with each impact.
Her chest tightened.
She felt it.
The thread.
The warm, steady bond she had always sensed connecting her to her father.
It was frayed.
Trembling.
She reached for it instinctively.
And it snapped.
The sensation was so sudden she gasped aloud, clutching her chest.
"Papa!" she ran towards the clash.
Across the street Elias saw her run and tried to follow, only to be intercepted by a group of hunters that burst through a nearby building, grappling with a grotesque monster still thrashing against their attacks.
"Move!" Elias snapped.
"We can't!" one of them yelled as the monster flung a man into a wall. "Help us!"
Elias' jaw clenched. He could feel Jamie's panic like static in the air.
Some blocks away, another building collapsed as Roric and Jax collided again.
Jax caught the spear shaft mid-thrust, his boots gouging deep grooves into the cobblestone as he was driven backward.
"Thorne!" he shouted, eyes blazing. "This isn't you!"
Roric's voice answered from behind blackened eyes.
"You don't know me!"
Then softer, layered beneath:
"Help me."
Jax lunged forward and tried to use his authority over Dreams but due to the Complimentary nature of their two Trait Classes, the shimmering threads trailing from Roric's soul fused with it.
The world bent and for a moment they were no longer in the street.
They stood in a sunlit courtyard.
Raizelle laughed as Jamie toddled across warm stone, sugar apple juice staining her cheeks.
Jax remembered the secret Raizelle had told him that night under lantern light — the quiet fear she had carried, the truth she had entrusted only to him.
He felt Roric feel it too.
A defeated voice echoed inside the shared memory.
"…Is that so? I see."
Jax gripped the thread tighter.
"Then fight!" he pleaded. "For her!"
But the memory cracked.
The sunlight drained.
The courtyard rotted into black mire.
Roric staggered back in the physical world, clutching his chest.
"It's no use," he whispered.
And Jax understood.
This was not a man fighting corruption.
The corruption had already won, it had already been grafted onto his soul through Transfiguration.
What remained — the resistance — was a fragment.
A dying spark of who Roric had been.
The fragment looked at Jax through fading clarity.
"Kill me."
Jax recoiled.
"No."
"Kill me," Roric insisted, voice trembling as black veins surged thicker beneath his skin. "Before I—"
The fragment flickered out.
Roric's axe lunged forward, aiming at the figure watching some distance behind Jax.
Jax didn't dodge and instead deflected the blade causing it to fly behind him. He then spun his spear and drove it straight through his chest.
Pain erupted white-hot.
Roric's muscles convulsed and his body sagged as he leaned , lips near Jax's ear. He whispered — and the whisper carried something deeper, something only Jax understood.
Then Jax wrenched the spear free and caught Roric's body, lowering him gently to the shattered stones.
The black in Roric's eyes receded.
For one fleeting second, they were indigo again.
Then the light left them.
Jamie stood several paces away, her fathers axe planted beside her.
Tears streamed down her face, silent at first.
"Papa…?"
The word broke halfway.
Her knees trembled.
Jax looked over at her, grief hollowing his expression.
From beyond the boundary of the Zone, Minerva observed through Jax's eyes.
The link shimmered — thin, precise.
A voice spoke into her mind.
''Deal with the aftermath and leave no traces.''
Eighteen monsters remained within the city, each still having the Brand Of Dishonor on their bodies.
Minerva extended her will through the brands inside them.
They responded instantly.
Their bodies began to swell grotesquely, limbs stretching and splitting, flesh multiplying as they absorbed timber, brick, and stone from the surrounding ruins. Buildings crumbled as mass flowed into the creatures, fusing bone with mortar, muscle with iron.
They towered higher. Grotesque flesh spires bulging and distending, ready to rupture. They were bombs ready to erase all traces.
The voice continued, almost idly.
''I never imagined I would see my wretched sister's daughter with my own eyes. Minerva, kill her.''
Minerva hesitated.
"She is only a child," she said evenly.
''Are you questioning your Queen?''
The pressure in her mind sharpened.
Minerva's gaze drifted to Jamie's trembling form.
"The detonation will consume the city. She will be caught in it regardless."
''Just do it.''
A pause.
"Yes, Mother."
The Mark of Dishonor on Jax's hand ignited in searing pain.
He gasped, doubling over and grabbing his wrist.
A compulsion seized him — absolute and inescapable.
His fingers tightened around his spear.
He rose slowly.
Reluctantly.
Each step toward Jamie felt like walking through drowning water.
He wanted to scream.
Run.
But his jaw locked and his movements set.
Jamie looked up at him through tears.
Recognition flickered.
"You…" she whispered. The kind man she gave the sugar apple to.
Her voice shook.
"I...thought you were good...."
The words pierced deeper than the spear had.
Jax fought.
Every muscle trembled.
But the command overrode thought.
He raised the spear.
Across the street Elias finally tore free of the hunters and sprinted forward, heart pounding.
He saw Jamie.
Helpless.
Saw Jax above her, spear poised.
Without hesitation he drew the Jade Dagger.
The world narrowed.
Parameters bent.
He calculated distance, force, rotation in a single heartbeat and hurled the blade displacing the air around him.
It flashed red in the dawn light.
A wet slice.
Jax screamed as his right hand separated cleanly from his wrist. The severed hand struck the ground still clutching the spear.
He staggered back, clutching the stump, eyes wide.
The compulsion vanished.
The brand had been cut away — the fragment of soul it bound severed by Jade.
Jax stared at Elias in shock.
Then at Jamie.
Then he ran.
Minerva observed the unexpected development with faint interest. The connection to Jax had been abruptly cut so she focused on them from a neary flesh tower.
"How… unforeseen."
The first rays of sun crested the horizon.
She raised her hand to snap her fingers.
To detonate the eighteen swelling abominations.
And then—there was a flash of black and for a split second the world turned monochrome.
Color drained from sky, stone, flesh as a new presence layered itself over the city — not destroying Elara's Zone, not replacing it, but settling atop it like a second skin.
Natural.
Unresisted.
Minerva felt a shiver.
She knew that presence.
The voice hissed.
''Retreat.''
"Yes, Mother."
And with that, she vanished.
The grotesque flesh towers still swelled, approaching distention.
Elias stood over Jamie, Obsidian Dagger drawn, chest heaving.
He scanned for the source of the shift.
His gaze fell to Roric's body.
He reached out with his senses.
Nothing.
No Flow.
No residue.
Just a cold emptiness.
His blood ran cold.
Slowly he turned.
Jamie stood there, tears flowing freely, eyes hollow.
The light inside them dimmed.
Old Man Garett arrived first, breath ragged. Lysle and Fenn close behind, followed by several other hunters.
They froze at the sight.
Their Chief....was dead.
The silence was heavier than any roar.
Wordlessly Elias stepped forward and pulled Jamie into his arms.
She didn't resist. She didn't cling either. She just stood there shaking.
He looked up toward the rising sun.
At the silhouette suspended above Blackhaven. He didn't need to see the face, he had felt that presence once before.
Ortis Mellou floated high above the city, hands in his jacket pockets, regarding the devastation below with an unreadable expression.
'Now, what to do.' He thought as he contemplated the most subtle course of action.