Chapter Five: Shadows Before the Spark
Part Three – Riftborn Surge
Date: Maelis 27, Year 204 PCR
Location: Caervale Ridge – Shattered Pulsewar Basin
Time: 04:08 Veil Standard
The hum cracked.
Not in the sky, not from the glyphs—beneath them.
The ground split along the memory line Tether had collapsed on, splitting wide enough to whisper. From its center rose not flame, not stone, but music. A corrupted note, stretched thin through time, trembling with dissonance.
Kaelen raised his halberd, stepping into a defensive brace.
"What is that?"
Yolti's voice tightened. "It's not Pulse-born."
Zephryn exhaled slowly, eyes narrowed.
"It's Choir-born."
—
The first Riftborn surged from the opening like a scream in reverse.
It wasn't shaped like any beast they knew.
Its limbs folded wrong.
It ran without touching ground.
And its face—no eyes, no mouth, only threads of broken glyph etched like veins over a choir-mask welded to skin.
Selka didn't wait.
She struck.
Blade met resonance.
The Riftborn shrieked in static, dodging backwards as if the air remembered pain before the body did.
—
At the basin's edge, Medic Unit rallied into formation.
Nima had already moved in front of Luma and Elari, arm outstretched.
"Stay behind me."
Luma grabbed her shoulder. "You can't block it alone!"
"I'm not blocking," Nima snapped. "I'm buying time."
The Riftborn swerved toward them—too fast.
Nima's glyph flared.
But it wasn't fast enough.
—
The blow didn't hit her.
It hit Luma.
A thin tendril of Dirge energy, like a songstring cut wrong, shot through Nima's guard and carved across Luma's ribs—glyph-burn black, not red. Luma dropped to one knee, choking on breath.
Elari screamed her name.
—
Recon Unit was already in motion.
Mino's voice sliced through the air.
"Scatter! These aren't natural Riftborn—they're activated!"
Torr and Rhea peeled left and right, catching the curve of the field to flank. Bubbalor soared overhead, emitting a pulse that shattered three incoming songlines—but more kept coming.
Kaelen leapt from the center ring, striking clean through the first Dirgecast's leg.
It didn't fall.
It dissolved—reforming behind him.
Kaelen's pulse signature buckled for a second, flickering into static.
Selka saw it.
"Kaelen—your sync!"
"I know!" he shouted. "It's dropping—I don't know why!"
—
Zephryn stepped forward, hands not raised.
No casting stance.
No incantation.
He breathed—and his glyph flared without touch.
The ∞ spiraled once midair and launched a pulsewave from memory alone.
The Dirgecasts staggered.
Some flinched.
One shattered.
It didn't die—it unmade, pulled back into the Rift line it came from.
Yolti turned toward Zephryn, mouth open.
"You didn't even cast—"
Zephryn's voice came low, focused:
"I remembered how."
—
But the cost hit immediately.
His arm trembled.
Veins surged with light, then dimmed into glyphburn.
He staggered a step and nearly fell—Selka caught him.
"Don't do that again," she hissed.
Zephryn's eyes met hers.
"It wasn't a technique."
"I don't care."
"…It was me."
—
Meanwhile, the Riftborn stopped moving.
Their heads—what remained of them—tilted toward the sky.
And they spoke.
Together.
Voices inverted.
A choral line stitched backward:
"From Caelus they rose, and to Ruin they return."
The words were not threats.
They were ritual.
Nima pulled Luma back into cover.
Kaelen grit his teeth and shifted stances again—halberd in reverse hold, eyes sweeping.
"They're stalling."
"No," Yolti murmured. "They're summoning."
—
Then he arrived.
The sky didn't ripple.
The glyphs didn't shatter.
He didn't appear.
He was already there.
Standing in the memory gap where no one had looked.
Wearing no mask.
No armor.
His body was humanoid, but split down the center with threads of Veilmark etched into muscle and flesh.
He was bleeding from his songlines.
Not like a wound—like it was his nature.
He raised one hand.
"Name: Thrynn."
The Riftborn behind him bowed.
"I bleed where the Chord broke first."
—
Zephryn felt the hum pull against his ribs.
That name.
He didn't know it.
But his body did.
Selka stepped forward.
"Are you Choir?"
Thrynn smiled—but it wasn't a face.
It was the mask beneath the skin that smiled.
"I am what they cast away when memory refused its final note."
—
Torr looked up from Recon's perimeter.
"Do we fight that?"
Mino's answer came through clenched teeth.
"We survive that."
—
Bubbalor flared his wings.
The hum in the air recoiled.
For a moment, the Riftborn froze.
But Thrynn looked straight at the resonance beast.
And hummed back.
Not a growl. Not a call.
A perfect echo of Bubbalor's tone.
But corrupted.
Twisted in pitch, folded backward.
Bubbalor screamed—first time anyone had heard it.
He plummeted from the sky, wings spasming, crashing through a glyph ring and skidding along the ground.
"BUBBALOR!"
Zephryn ran toward him.
Thrynn raised both hands.
"You sing on borrowed breath, Ruinborn."
—
And the battle truly began.