The Frostspire Wastes were exactly as they sounded—merciless, frozen, and deathly silent.
The team moved through knee-deep snow, their breath fogging in the freezing air. Jagged ice formations rose like tombstones from the white expanse, each one gleaming under the light of the fractured moon. In the distance, an enormous spire loomed—ancient, obsidian-black, half-buried in frost. The ley-line fort.
Kael led the way, cloak snapping behind him in the bitter wind. Elena was beside him, her fingers crackling faintly with moonlight-infused energy. Greg brought up the rear, grumbling and stomping louder than either of them liked.
"Whose dumb idea was it to fight abyss monsters in a blizzard?" Greg muttered, frost gathering in his beard.
"Mine," Kael said dryly. "But feel free to head back and warm your toes at the sanctum."
"No thanks. I'd rather die here than let Seraphina say I chickened out."
Elena smirked. "That's… oddly noble."
Kael raised his hand. "Quiet. We're close."
Through the biting wind, the sound came—low, rhythmic thumping, like a great beast breathing beneath the ice. The ley-line.
It pulsed through the land itself, drawing abyssal energy from deep underground. The closer they got, the more corrupted the snow became—stained gray, lifeless, and swirling unnaturally in the air.
"Set the runes here," Kael ordered, motioning to a patch of flat ice. "Greg, watch our backs. Elena, help me prepare the temporal sigil."
As they worked, Elena glanced at him. "Do you really think we can sever a ley-line? Even temporarily?"
"No. But we can disrupt its flow long enough to collapse the spawn nests. If we overload the conduit with reversed temporal flow..."
She blinked. "You're going to feed the ley-line its own future?"
Kael nodded. "Force it to choke on potential. It's risky, but if it works—"
"It'll collapse the corruption feeding this whole quadrant."
Greg groaned. "Why do all your plans involve blowing up something ancient and important?"
"Because everything ancient and important is already halfway to corrupted."
---
The ley-line fort rose before them—massive, angular, covered in abyssal growth. Once a tower of arcane scholars, it now pulsed like a diseased heart. Black tendrils crawled from its base, latching into the frozen ground and pulling energy upward in thick, glowing veins.
Kael activated the hourglass symbol.
Time rippled.
For a heartbeat, the fort's structure peeled away in his mind—revealing the ley-line's path, its roots, and the three abyssal cores buried beneath it. Each one guarded by a creature… and one of them was marked.
"Get ready," he said. "There's a Commander-class Abyssspawn inside. It's protecting the main node. We take it out, the structure falls."
Elena cracked her knuckles. "Then let's bring the house down."
Kael raised his hand, channeling the hourglass.
The team vanished into blur—time folding around them—reappearing inside the outer wall of the fort.
It was like stepping into a wound.
The inner chambers were soaked in abyssal essence. Stone walls bled black mist. Shattered banners of old mage guilds hung in tatters, corrupted and rewritten in abyssal runes.
The first core lay ahead.
Guarding it was a spider-like monstrosity—eight legs, a warped humanoid torso, and a writhing mass of eyes on its back. It hissed and surged forward.
Greg roared and met it head-on, slamming it back with a flaming war hammer.
Kael activated time dilation—slowing the beast's perception—and Elena unleashed a spiral of crescent blades that sliced its legs cleanly.
The creature screeched and fell. Greg crushed its core with a final blow.
"One down," Kael said.
The second core was deeper—and its guardian was faster.
A panther-like Abyssbeast with blades for ribs and shadows for skin.
It moved like smoke, dodging every strike, lashing out with claws tipped in corruption. It grazed Kael's arm, drawing blood—but he countered, reversing time just a second, slipping past it with a fatal strike through the skull.
The beast faded into dust.
Kael winced. "Time magic's getting harder to control in here. The ley-line's pushing back."
"Then we better finish this quick," Elena said.
They reached the central chamber.
The heart of the fort.
And the Commander waited.
It was tall, nearly three meters, humanoid with armor of living black steel. Twin horns curled from its skull. In one hand, it held a massive abyssal glaive; in the other, a severed mage staff still flickering with corrupted runes.
"You are unworthy," it growled, voice like grinding stone.
Kael stepped forward. "I've killed your kind before."
"Not like me."
Then it charged.
Faster than Kael expected.
He barely dodged the first strike. The glaive cleaved through stone like air. Kael countered with a slash of time-empowered energy, but the Commander blocked it easily.
Elena flanked it, unleashing lunar chains that wrapped around its arms—but the creature broke them with brute force.
Greg tried to strike from behind, but the Commander whirled and launched him across the chamber.
Kael's thoughts raced.
Too strong. Too fast. Every strike feeds the ley-line. It's drawing power constantly.
He narrowed his eyes.
Then starve it.
"Elena! Break the outer runes. Sever the ley conduit!"
"What?! That'll overload the chamber—"
"I know!"
Elena nodded and moved. As she shattered the outer runes, the ley-line's energy spiked—then destabilized.
The chamber screamed as the flow reversed.
Kael activated the hourglass with everything he had.
A surge of golden light burst from him.
Time collapsed inward—freezing the Commander mid-strike.
Kael ran up the glaive, vaulted onto the beast's shoulder, and drove his blade into its core.
"Time's up."
The Commander exploded in a wave of light and shadow.
The fort trembled. The ley-line cracked.
Chunks of the tower fell as the abyssal infection recoiled, severed from its power source.
Kael and Elena barely escaped before the tower collapsed in on itself.
Behind them, Greg limped through the snow, armor scorched but intact.
"You... people... are nuts," he muttered.
Kael smiled faintly. "But effective."
---
Back at the sanctum, Seraphina watched as the map updated.
The Frostspire node went dark.
The abyss's influence receded slightly—just slightly—but enough to make a difference.
Enough to show the world that resistance was not only possible—it was working.
Kael stood before the map, eyes on the next target.
"Two more nodes remain," he said. "Then we draw the General out."
Greg grinned. "Let's make him bleed."
Elena looked to Kael. "But what if the General sends more Harbingers before then?"
Kael clenched his fist.
"Then we kill them too."
And somewhere, far away in the dark beyond the rift, the Abyss General opened his eyes.
He smiled.
And began to walk toward the veil.
!