Destiny: The Legendary Hunter

[Freehold Crater]

The fire settled, and the blinding light faded.

What remained of the battlefield outside the dome was ruin in every direction.

The smouldering heat of the orbital strikes had caused the crater's edges to cave inward, leaving fresh craters inside the old one, the ground reshaped into something that bore no resemblance to what Freehold had looked like minutes ago.

Cabal tanks sat half-buried across the field, twisted into shapes that no longer resembled vehicles but mere carcasses of metal and rock, their barrels pointing at nothing. Vex frames were scattered in pieces across every scorched surface, their radiolaria bubbling and evaporating away in the residual heat.

A thick curtain of smoke had risen above the crater, marring the horizon a dark, murky brown.

Only three things had survived intact.

Cabal heavy legionaries, the ones whose shields had gone up in the seconds before impact, stood in isolated clusters across the field, their armour scorched black at the edges but holding, their formations broken but their numbers present.

Hobgoblins that now kneeled exactly where they had been standing when Rasputin fired. Their invulnerability subroutines had triggered at the precise moment the strikes landed. Their rifle-limbs were still raised toward targets that no longer existed.

And finally, the Titan dome that shielded every guardian present against the strikes.

But now, a thin fracture spread from the dome's peak downward in branching lines that let white light bleed through before the whole structure gave at once, shattering outward in a wide dispersal pulse that rolled across the crater floor and faded into the smoke. The Guardians inside it exhaled as one.

Jason rolled his shoulder and looked out across what remained of Freehold. "We...made it."

"Barely." Edith coughed and wiped the dust on her visor.

"Eyes up." Cory cautioned, already scanning the field, moving his eyes methodically across each quadrant. "Cabal remnants are regrouping on the western edge. Vex count is..." He paused, doing the math. "Forty? Rasputin wiped hundreds of them. We've only got a few left."

"For now," Bandit replied.

"Taeko, what's the status on the cage?" Pahanin urgently triggered his transponder, unable to see through the clouds of dust obscuring his vision.

Taeko's strained voice answered, "Cage is holding! But not for long, Alemyr's running out of fuel. We don't have much time."

"Alemyr! What's your condition right now?" Pahanin's urgency spiked.

"Its." Alemyr staggered, one hand still raised to maintain the cage as he stood next to The Stoic, "It's fine. I can keep going."

"Stop messing around." Isidel chided, she dropped to one knee as the dome shattered around them, unable to maintain her posture, "He's hurt. The strikes penetrated further on our sides than expected."

"He's not got long. A few more minutes and he'll collapse. There's a goddamn hole in his side." Uzoma clicked his tongue and dusted himself off.

"If that cage breaks, we're all done for." Pahanin gave a heated response.

"We have no healers on this side. There's nothing we can do!" Gallida cursed.

But just before their conversation could go any further, the Gatelord in its cage threatened to break out once more.

The Gatelord shrieked.

The sound tore across the crater without warning, a bone-deep frequency that bypassed the ears entirely and hit somewhere behind the eyes.

Inside its astral prison at the crater's centre, the massive form convulsed against the spectral chains, slamming itself against the containment walls with a violence that cracked the prison's surface in three places simultaneously. Alemyr and The Stoic staggered into each other, feet shifting, the threads of their shared magic straining as the containment flared against each impact.

A tremor rippled across the crater.

Pahanin steadied himself, "F*ck, we need a healer, now!"

"Leave it to us." Wei Ning grabbed his shoulder and walked past.

Pahanin's eyes widened as he witnessed her back.

Her armour was singed, broken and fused at the joints. Her gauntlets had long since shattered, and her knuckles had broken through the metal.

Sai Mota and Eriana walked side by side behind Wei. The Praxic Fire squad parted the crowd and hurried to the centre of the crater.

Eriana brought about her wings of flame that radiated a bright light, healing everything it touched.

But as her light reached the skies above Freehold, the skies instead answered the shriek of the Gatelord.

Rifts split open across the crater's upper atmosphere one after another, each one bleeding violent light into the smoke above. Three at first. Then five. Then more appeared faster than anyone had time to count, the air above the crater tearing itself apart at the seams as the Vex network responded to its Gatelord's call with everything it had.

The Wyverns came first, tearing into reality with their characteristic shriek, leg-cannons already charging before they'd fully crossed through, screaming downward into the crater at full speed. Minotaurs dropped through behind them in dense clusters, hitting the ground and advancing without pause or formation. A tide of Vex frames moved forward with the relentless momentum.

And then the rift at the crater's centre tore wider.

Much wider.

Something large was pulling it open from the other side, forcing it outward with sustained, deliberate effort. The edges of the rift burned brighter as the thing crossed through, its chassis vast enough that even the widened rift barely admitted it.

A Vex Mind descended over Freehold, its body enveloped in a spatial matrix that isolated it from all damage. It rose above the crater floor and immediately turned its attention back to the rift it had come through, beginning the process of anchoring it open permanently from the inside.

On the western edge, the surviving Cabal heavy legions jumped into action and restarted the surviving imperial tanks. Their barrels swung upward and tracked the descending Wyverns, the first salvo cracking out and catching two mid-descent, sending them spinning into the crater wall in pieces. The legionaries reformed around the tanks, tightening their line, their own weapons coming up against the Minotaur columns now hitting the crater floor.

Shaxx stood on the furthest edge of the crater, watching the battle unfold in front of his eyes.

His shoulders rose and fell, his lungs sputtered with breaths. The skin of his palms had long ripped across the seams as he gripped his hammer.

"The Cabal can't hold that line." He murmured to himself.

But his words hadn't gone unheard.

Tevis's eyes darted to Shaxx, "What?"

"They don't have the numbers. The Vex are going to walk straight through them." Shaxx's eyes widened as he took in the battle.

A descending legion of Vex, held back by only a small cluster of Cabal and their tanks.

"We need to go in now!" Shaxx bellowed. Tevis gave him a brisk nod.

"Levi, gather the forces. We need to match the Cabal resistance. There's no time." Tevis barked his orders into his wrist.

From across the crater, a single shadow fluttered and sliced apart the dust with a kick. "You got it, boss. I've been waiting for this," Levi rolled his shoulders and fell into a low stance, shadows drifted off his figure.

"We're going in?" Bandit's eyes widened.

"We must keep the battle balance. The moment the Vex take out the Cabal, it's only us left." Shaxx turned to face the assembled Guardians, and his voice carried across the crater without effort. "Crucible squads, all Warlock orders. Move to the western line and fill the gaps. Effective immediately, suppress the Vex with the Cabal. Go!"

"All units." Levi's voice echoed on the comms channel.

He drew in a breath.

A spike of lilac light pierced through the dust, the noise and the smoke.

Levi looked up, void light bled into his eyes, his feet dug into the crater floor.

"Follow me."

Levi shot forward. Streaking through the crater like a fleeting shadow,

The void light that bled into his eyes poured outward, spreading down through his arms and into his fingertips as he ran, building pressure with every stride, his form darkening at the edges as the shadows pulled tighter around him.

The dust parted around him in thin curling sheets. The noise of the battlefield fell half a step behind, unable to keep up with his sheer speed.

He locked onto the descending Vex legions, hammering the Cabal's left flank, pulled the energy back into his chest and leapt.

Then he released it with a kick.

The ability tore out of him in a single violent exhale, a lance of lilac light that split the dust and smoke clean open as it left his stride, the air around it bending inward from the pressure.

It shot in an absolute straight line through everything standing between him and the far edge of the Vex formation, a light so concentrated it left a burning seam in the air behind it.

As the lance passed through the Vex legions and kept going, its void energy detonated in chain bursts as it crossed each consecutive target, each explosion feeding the next.

Levi hit the ground running, not slowing, the lilac light still bleeding off his figure.

"CHARGE!" Shaxx bellowed again.

Behind him, the Guardians came through the gap Levi had opened.

The Cabal legionaries stiffened when the first Hunters appeared at their flanks, weapons raised. But as they realised what was happening, the Cabal had no choice but to cooperate.

Crucible Hunters went wide immediately, drawing fire away from the Cabal regiments, pulling the aerial threat off the tanks so they could keep their barrels on the Minotaur advance.

Warlocks raised their own magical rifts in the Cabal formation, empowering the legionnaires enough to fight back effectively.

Wei Ning drove forward into the densest pocket of Minotaurs she could find and hit them at full force, her fists leaving craters in chassis that the Cabal legionaries beside her finished off without breaking stride.

Levi had climbed to a high position on the crater's rubble, his bow drawn, tracking the Vex Mind hovering above the centre of Freehold. His eyes narrowed.

"That thing holds the rift open much longer," he said over comms, "and we won't be able to close it. Its shields are still up. If I fire, nothing will happen."

"I know," Shiro-4 replied, zig-zagging and weaving between pockets of fighting. "Maybe we need more up there. Overwhelm its shields."

"Working on it," Cory said.

"Work faster," Levi replied, as the rift pulsed wider above them and two more Minotaur squads dropped through.

The Cabal tanks fired again, one salvo catching a cluster of Minotaurs square on before they could spread from their landing point, the detonation scattering chassis across the western edge in pieces.

A Wyvern broke from the aerial formation and dove at the nearest tank, its leg-cannons charging. Tevis raised his bow, and his Shadowshot caught it mid-dive and pulled it into the ground before it could fire.

Shiro-4 vaulted a piece of collapsed ruin and kept moving. Beside him, a silver spectre kept pace.

"Taeko," Pahanin called again. "I need to disable that mind's shields."

"Already on it," Taeko-3 raised a spell formation and replied. "Give me thirty seconds."

"You've got twenty."

The battle above Freehold intensified in every direction simultaneously. For the first time, the Guardians and the Cabal worked together to push back the Vex legions, as both knew that the enemy of their enemy was, for now, a friend.

-

A/N:

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[Black Garden]

The rifts tore wider, and from within it stepped out three figures, drenched in the Heart's viridian flames.

The flames that clung to their chassis burned without consuming them. Deep green light crawled across the strange geometric scripture etched into their bodies, illuminating each rune as they advanced and took their positions in a wide triangle before the Heart.

"Looks like the boss is here." TheOneWhoKnocks took in a sharp breath.

"Damn, but like, aren't three too much?" Gandalf cursed.

Waffles raised a brow, "I thought the heart was the boss?"

With a shriek, the three figures asserted themselves. These three were hybrid Vex Axis Minds, created by utilising the dark, solely to protect the black heart.

The players immediately saw three tags float above their heads.

[The Primaeval Mind], [The Eschaton Mind], [The Imminent Mind]

With the appearance of the Axis Minds, the Black Heart's pulse changed.

Void's instincts screamed.

'Something's wrong.'

"Get behind me!" He immediately flared his light in an attempt to shield the players.

The heart's slow rhythmic draw had been bleeding the players' light bars down, quickened.

The interval between pulses collapsed, each draw coming faster than the last, and what it pulled was no longer just the ambient light of the clearing.

The Heart reached further. The air around the altar thickened as it drew inward, the sourceless violet light that saturated the Garden pulling toward the membrane's core from every direction at once, the clearing dimming as though the Garden itself was being drained.

The players again felt it hit their frames simultaneously.

Light bars dropped a full segment in one movement.

Their HUDs blinked.

Warning: Light suppression active. Abilities severely restricted.

"What the hell—" TheOneWhoKnocks checked his bar. Another notch gone.

Void felt it too. His light was being slowly but surely pulled away from him; his reserves were dropping. His face darkened. Without Zamyr to shield him, he had no way to restore what the Heart was taking.

With no way to recover his light in the Vex Dimension, every ability he spent here was gone. If he burned through his light fighting a battle of attrition against three Axis Minds and the Heart itself, he would have nothing left for what came after.

He couldn't get through this fight on his own.

But Void had already considered that. His eyes drifted to the players. Just because he couldn't, didn't mean that the players were limited in the same way.

"Don't focus on the Heart," he said immediately. "Put everything on the Minds. Without them, the Heart is powerless."

"On it," Waffles confirmed.

With the final battle of the raid at hand, the players were itching to jump into action.

IEatPaint instantly took out his shotgun.

The players opened fire. Yet every round, every beam, every ability the players threw at the nearest Axis Mind deflected off a surface that wasn't visible. The Minds didn't react. Didn't move. Stood exactly where they had positioned themselves and simply observed the battle.

With the players still shelling out a storm of bullets, the Axis Minds replied in kind, using their plasma lasers and energy rifles to wreak havoc.

"F*ck? They're immune!" BearSpray darted back as a plasma round barely grazed him.

"All three?" IEatPaint fired twice more at the Eschaton Mind on the far side of the altar, but nothing changed.

"All three," Gandalf confirmed and jumped behind a pillar of the altar.

Void flickered, jumping above the pillar, and the gears in his mind turned.

There was simply no way that all the Axis minds were invulnerable permanently. If the Heart could do such a thing, would it not just make itself invulnerable?

Before Void could contemplate any further, the Garden itself gave him the answer.

His thoughts spiralled. This place existed outside of time. Not adjacent to it, not insulated from it, but genuinely disconnected, a space through which every timeline cycled without any single one taking hold.

The Garden had seen every version of every moment that had ever occurred or ever would. It didn't exist in the past, the present or the future.

It existed in all three simultaneously.

'Three Minds. Three timeframes.' Void's eyes lit up.

"The invulnerability will wear off," Void said aloud.

"What?" Waffles turned.

"Each Mind represents a point in time. Past, present, future. The Garden moves through them. When the cycle aligns with the right moment, the corresponding Mind becomes vulnerable. We can't force it. We need to wait for it."

"Wait?" Undecided rushed to cover and repeated hesitantly. "While those things are shooting at us?"

"Yes."

The raid team felt their minds go numb. The altar wasn't that wide; the space given was probably just a few hundred feet. There was simply no way they could easily wait out the Vex shields without getting hit.

"F*cking Lovely," BearSpray said, and began recording again.

The Heart pulsed.

Dark energy erupted from the altar's base in a wide churning tide, rolling outward across the clearing's floor in both directions simultaneously, travelling the full circumference of the altar's outer ring. The tide was dense and fast, carrying a pressure that was immediately, physically apparent.

"What the actual-" TheOneWhoKnocks's eyes widened.

"Move! Now!" Void bellowed.

The players broke into a run along the altar's outer edge, racing clockwise as a dark energy swept behind them, hugging the altar's circumference, and where it passed, the stone floor cracked and blackened. The three Sol Progeny stood unmoved at the altar's centre, their chassis unaffected, watching the Guardians run the ring.

Throughout all this, the Minds hadn't stopped firing.

Within an instant, the altar was thrown into chaos. The players ran frantically, dodging with their lives on the line, as dark bolts rained from all three directions simultaneously, while they raced an inevitable tide that threatened to catch up to them.

They had no time to stop; the moment they did, the tide would catch up. However, the tides weren't monodirectional. The moment the players got too comfortable with the rhythm, the heart would pulse again and abruptly change directions, forcing the players to pivot again.

"It's slowing," Waffles hurriedly pointed to one of the axis minds.

The Primaeval Mind's movement had changed, its chassis shifting weight fractionally, its eye dimming by the smallest possible degree.

As they had expected, the cycle within the Garden was aligning.

"Primaeval Mind," Void said just as the Vex Shields around the mind disappeared. "It's opening. Hit it now."

He reached for his own heavy weapon, slipping out the rocket launcher from his inventory.

Three rockets struck the Primaeval Mind square in its chassis, and the mind staggered back a half-step.

The players converged everything they had on it simultaneously. Void kept his heavy weapon firing in controlled bursts, pacing his remaining ammo while the players burned their cooldowns, dumped their ammunition, pushed every available resource into the window while it was open.

The Primaeval Mind absorbed the punishment and fought back harder, the more damage it took, dark energy erupting from it in expanding rings that the players stepped through or vaulted without fully stopping their fire.

Then the window closed.

The Primaeval Mind's invulnerability returned, and its brightened back to full luminance. Invulnerable again.

"Keep moving!" Void called out

The players didn't lose track as the dark tide resumed its circuit. The three Minds repositioned slightly, the triangle formation rotating a few degrees as the cycle moved to its next phase.

Then the Heart changed.

The pulse that had been driving the tides simply stopped. The dark energy dissipated across the floor without completing its arc. Void's instincts snapped once more.

"Get behind the pillars. Now. Move!"

He was already running for the nearest one before the last word left his mouth.

IEatPaint, Undecided and Waffles raced, scattering to the tall stone pillars that lined the clearing's outer edge. Void pressed his back against the nearest one.

The Heart drew in a breath so deep that the air pressure changed.

Just before the last seconds, BearSpray and TheOneWhoKnocks slid behind the opposite pillar.

Then the Heart exhaled.

The shockwave came outward from the membrane in a single total eruption, a wall of force that crossed the clearing in a fraction of a second and hit everything that wasn't behind stone.

Loose debris tore from the clearing's floor and scattered into the horizon. The altar's surface cracked in a ring pattern outward from the membrane's base. The viridian flames that had been burning across the Sol Progeny's chassis extinguished in the blast.

The three Axis Minds went to one knee and became immune to the force.

Void pressed hard against the pillar as the shockwave rolled past it, the stone shuddering under the impact but holding. Around the clearing, the players stayed tucked behind their own cover, the blast passing over and around them, the noise of it fading into the violet expanse beyond the island's edge.

"Holy shit, we're safe!" Waffles cried out, watching the eruption fade.

Then the Heart breathed in again, steadying itself, the viridian flames climbing back across the Sol Progeny's chassis as they rose from their kneel and returned to their positions.

The dark tide reformed at the altar's base.

And began to move. With the return of the tide, the players had no time to rest. They immediately fell back into motion around the altar, reading the tide's direction, spreading their spacing, settling back into the rhythm of the fight.

"Wait! Where's Gandalf!" BearSpray whipped around, but only saw the five of them running from the dark tide.

"What!"

"This motherfu-"

Waffles's eyes widened as she saw a mote of light floating at the edge of the altar, indicating his dead body. "HOW!"

"I PANICKED", Gandalf cried out on the voice chat, unable to stay quiet.

"F*CK, I'll get the revive, don't stop moving!" Undecided grit his teeth and saw the tide wash over Gandalf's revive point; there was simply no way of moving back.

-
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The three Vex Axis Minds hunkered back before leaping across the altar, their chassis locking into place in the air. The three minds hovered above the altar, radiating a grey energy that seeped out around them. Then the Primaeval Mind raised one arm, and multiple rifts tore open above the edges of the altar, like wounds cut into the fabric of space.

Hordes of Wyverns barreled through the rifts, a cacophony of shrieks cut across the altar before they'd fully crossed, their leg-cannons charging mid-flight.

Dozens of them leapt into the air and banked hard downwards, descending into a crushing flight to hit the ground.

"HOLY SHIT!" Undecided sped up with a dash and a roll. Waffles flashed a horrified look, IEatPaint stood stunned, and BearSpray and TheOneWhoKnocks immediately darted to the sides.

The dark tides surged forward, and Wyerns shot down from the skies one after the other, erupting into a massive explosion that shook the altar from side to side.

[Guardian Down!]
[Guardian Down!]
[Guardian Down!]
[Guardian Down!]

A turbulent upsurge collapsed on itself, breaking into a thunderous whip of air that cracked centrifugally.

The dust snapped away, leaving behind four faint motes of light.

[Last Guardian Standing!]

Only Waffles hung in the air, hovering inches above the ground. She had jumped a split second before the Wyerns struck. Her health bar flashed a dreadful bright red. She slowly drifted back to the ground.

"MOTHERFUC*ER", TheOneWhoKnocks cried out.

Undecided immediately crashed out. "NOOOO. STAY ALIVE, STAY ALIVE!" Undecided immediately crashed out.

"Alright, boys, looks like the run's over. We'll try again next time. Like, subscribe and don't forget to leave a comment!" BearSpray immediately transitioned to his outro for his recording.

"SHUT UP, shut up." Waffles panicked. She sprinted towards the closest revive point, but the moment she triggered a revive, a Minotaur blinked and immediately slammed downwards.

Waffles jumped again, the attack barely grazing her.

"HOLY SHIT. HOLYYY SHIT."

Their voices went crazy, no matter what happened, Waffles was the only one alive to clutch it.

"WYVERNS AGAIN!" Undecided called out the enemies spawning above. Waffles chucked down a healing grenade, but her health bar only crawled forward at a snail's pace. With no choice but to run from the surging tides and the Wyerns above, she raced around the altar.

Void perched atop a pillar, watching it all unfold.

He had masked his presence the moment the Wyerns had appeared. It had worked. As long as the Vex didn't notice him, they'd focus all their efforts on the players. That was precisely why he'd brought them.

But with only Waffles left, the probability of them failing here was too high.

'Of course, I can't let that happen.'

He flickered down, akin to a spectre prowling the altar. With a swift stride, Void closed the distance between himself and Gandalf.

His eyes snapped back; the tide was far but steadily approaching.

Void reached for the mote of light and offered it a wisp of his own light.

Gandalf's figure burst into glimmer and respawned in the chaos. He immediately fumbled with his controls and slobbered on the mic, mumbling as if chewing on something, then he wiped his lips. "Wha- WHAT! I'm back!"

"YOU BASTARD! Lock back in, now!" Undecided growled. He didn't know how Gandalf had respawned, but this was no time to be asking questions.

"Wait! Were you eating? Did you die earlier just to eat!" TheOneWhoKnocks immediately picked up on the mumbling and lashed out.

"No- NO!" Gandalf hurriedly darted across the altar, running from the tides and reequipping his primary rifle. He gunned down the Minotaurs from the back and rushed towards Waffles.

As the tide passed over, Void flashed across the altar and revived IEatPaint.

Before the titan could register what happened, a Minotaur spawned right on top of them. IEatPaint planted his barricade directly in its path, hit it with everything he had before it could reorient.

The Minotaur staggered backwards toward the altar's edge. One more step and it was over the side, into the endless violet beneath the island.

It didn't take that step. It blinked again, reappearing ten metres to the left, already raising its weapon.

"PAINT! Revive, get the revive!" TheOneWhoKnocks felt his heart skip a beat.

The odds were no longer against them.

IEatPaint sprinted and slid to the closest mote of light and triggered the revive, but just beside him, another revive triggered.

IEatPaint darted his eyes to the right. He couldn't see anyone there; it seemed like a glitch, because something had definitely triggered the revive. Just then, the invisible figure in front of him rippled for a faint second, revealing Viper's signature black armour.

"It's Viper!" He gasped. TheOneWhoKnocks and BearSpray respawned side to side.

"There's a mechanic like this?" Undecided was utterly confused.

"F*ck if I care. We're back!" BearSpray did an instant 180 and restarted his recording, "All right, boys, we got the clutch, and we're BACK for worlds first!"

The players focused on the Minotaur beside them and savagely tore it apart.

"These things are insufferable," Gandalf said, and shot it twice in the chassis.

Then the players fractured their attention across four threats simultaneously. The dark tide which tracked their position around the ring, the Wyverns that dove from above, the Minotaurs that appeared from thin air, and finally the three Axis Minds, whose firing patterns had tightened since the last phase, their dark bolts now arriving in coordinated volleys rather than independent shots.

Waffles revived Undecided, and with the six-man squad back on their feet, they finally switched to attacking.

Waffles spotted the Eschaton Mind's barrier fading away and called it out.

"It's slowing," she called. "Same sign as before."

"Everyone, get the heavies out!"

BearSpray dropped a Wyvern with his last heavy shot and immediately switched weapons. "I'm dry on heavy."

"Same," TheOneWhoKnocks said.

"Use what you have," Waffled replied. "I'll call it."

The Eschaton Mind's eye dimmed.

"NOW!"

The players converged their fire without breaking their stride, shooting on the move while the Wyverns and Minotaurs were still active in the arena, and the tide still surged around the altar.

There was no pause in the chaos to stand still and aim properly. They fired through it all, each player managing their own immediate threats while pushing damage into the window, and the Eschaton Mind cracked further with each hit, its chassis fracturing along the geometric lines carved into its frame.

It fought back harder as the damage climbed. Dark energy erupted from it in wide pulsing rings that the players stepped through or absorbed, their health dipping and regenerating in ragged intervals.

Void joined in, firing controlled bursts with his heavy weapon, pacing every shot to only hit the criticals.

A moment later, the Eschaton Mind's health dropped. Its eye went dark.

It came apart from the inside out, the geometric carving across its body splitting along every line at once, a crack of light escaping through each fracture before the whole structure collapsed, and the viridian flames that had burned across it extinguished entirely.

"ONE DOWN!" Gandalf called.

"Don't stop," Waffles said immediately. "Watch the other two."

The moment the Eschaton Mind fell, something shifted in the remaining pair. The Primaeval Mind and the Imminent Mind abandoned their fixed positions in the formation and began moving, their chassis advancing toward the players with a sudden aggression that neither had shown before.

The invulnerability that had cycled predictably between three points now completely covered the two.

"Which one's open?" TheOneWhoKnocks fired at the Primaeval Mind. The shots deflected. He pivoted to the Imminent Mind. Same result.

"Nothing's happening!" BearSpray said.

"Conserve your ammo." Void chimed in and revealed himself. "The moment one opens, everyone switches."

But as his words landed in their ears, the Heart's pulse changed beneath their feet.

The steady rhythm it had kept through the first phase, that slow breathing draw, collapsed into something erratic.

One pulse drew inward, the air compressing toward the membrane's core, a sudden vacuum that pulled loose debris across the altar floor and tugged at the players' frames. The next pulse erupted outward, a concussive shockwave that radiated in all directions, not strong enough to kill but more than enough to fling anyone over its altar, into the nothing below.

The Heart continued, in and out, drawing and erupting with steady intervals while the Axis Minds stayed kneeling.

The dark tide now multiplied into a cross pattern. Two raced clockwise, while two surged anti-clockwise; the only way to dodge was to jump between the gaps, which required dexterity and timing to ever hope of making it.

-

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