[The battle erupts, chaos unfolding as Ishamon's Deepchime warps the battlefield itself. The squad moves, each adjusting to the terrain shift while golems rise from the ground, their forms jagged and shifting.]
Ubel's eyes darted over the battlefield. The half-formed boundary of Ishamon's Deepchime flickered like a mirage, unstable yet persistent. If it were complete, they'd already be trapped within its rules. The only advantage they had was keeping him from solidifying his control.
"Keep pushing!" Ubel commanded, already surging forward. He wouldn't let Ishamon gain an inch.
The ground beneath them rumbled as the resonance took hold, pulling raw material into twisted golems of stone and metal. They lumbered forward, their movements stiff yet relentless.
Leo was the first to reach them. His blade whirled in a deadly arc, cleaving through the nearest construct. The golem cracked, but instead of shattering, it reformed almost instantly. Leo clicked his tongue. "Great. They don't break."
"They're bound to something," Velvet called from behind, already weaving through the battlefield. Their daggers slashed at the gaps in the golems' frames, but the constructs simply reassembled. "He's not making normal constructs—he's puppeteering. The souls—"
"Yeah, I figured that out," Leo growled. "Got a plan?"
"Tear them apart faster than he can control," Ubel said, appearing beside them in an instant. His blade flared with ether as he aimed for the core of a larger golem. It twisted unnaturally, dodging the strike before lunging at him. He pivoted, avoiding the clawed swipe by a hair's breadth. "Keep moving! Don't let them surround you!"
Kouneli landed beside them, breathing hard, his blood-infused strikes ripping through another golem. He grimaced as it began reforming. "This isn't working. Even if we keep destroying them, they just come back."
"That's because you're not targeting the real source," Ubel muttered. His eyes locked onto Ishamon, standing at the center of the chaos, his hands weaving intricate patterns in the air, controlling the battlefield with every motion. "He's puppeteering all of them at once. His ether is stretched thin. If we can push him harder—"
"Then he loses control," Velvet finished, understanding dawning. They grinned. "Got it. I'll cut the strings."
They moved as one. Leo and Kouneli carved a path through the golems while Ubel vanished and reappeared at Ishamon's flank, striking without hesitation. Ishamon barely reacted in time, raising a jagged stone barrier from the ground. The impact sent cracks spiderwebbing across the surface, but it held. Barely.
Ishamon's voice was cold. "You think you can sever my hold? Do you even understand what you're facing?"
"Yeah, a bastard who won't stay down," Leo shot back, slamming his blade into another golem before leaping toward Ishamon. The ground split as a massive construct erupted between them, intercepting his strike.
Velvet vanished from sight, reappearing behind Ishamon. Their blade flashed for his throat—but a gust of wind from nowhere sent them tumbling back. Ishamon barely spared them a glance, his focus sharpening. "You're starting to become a nuisance."
Ether coiled around his form as he raised both hands. The half-formed Deepchime shuddered, as if reacting to his fury. The ground beneath them lurched, tendrils of metal and stone reaching up to ensnare them.
Ubel's gaze narrowed. "He's accelerating the manifestation—"
"Then we end this now!" Leo roared, charging through the shifting battlefield. His sword swung with enough force to split a golem clean in half. He didn't stop. Kouneli followed, weaving through the crumbling constructs, his blood-laced strikes ripping apart the ones in his path. They weren't giving Ishamon time to breathe.
The Duke scowled. "Enough."
The air grew heavy. The boundary of the Deepchime solidified just a fraction more, and the battlefield warped again. The constructs surged forward in waves, no longer acting as individual entities but as one unified force. A fortress of moving parts, a living battlefield.
Ubel's heart pounded. "Damn it—he's pushing through the instability. If we don't stop him soon—"
A shadow loomed over them. A massive construct, towering over the battlefield, its form shifting endlessly. The culmination of Ishamon's resonance.
Leo grinned, despite himself. "Oh, now that's just unfair."
Ubel's grip on his blade tightened. "Then we even the odds."