“Ready yourself,” Slashex muttered over Bee’s shoulder. His voice was a low rasp, barely audible above the murmurs of the gathered crowd. “This will be over quickly.”


    Bee scowled, glancing back at him in the dim light that filtered through the shattered entrance to the spire. The pale light of the bone sky, removed from that dazzling bright within, cast shifting shadows across his face, the metal plates covering his eyes reflecting a faint gleam. Ignoring the unsettling aura he emanated, she turned her gaze forward to the bridge spanning the abyss between the twin spires of Ymmngorad.


    Out on the narrow span, the Eidolon and Jhedothar stood poised, their figures stark against the backdrop of the bone sky. The winds whispered around them, and countless inhabitants—freaks, chimaeras, and forgotten souls—had emerged to watch the spectacle above.


    “Who do you think will win?” Bee asked quietly. “If I didn’t... you know...”


    The Worm squirmed rebelliously behind her eyes, a sickening sensation that made her vision blur at the edges. She felt her brain matter being stirred, pressure building beneath her temples. Taking a shaky breath, she leaned against the crumbling archway, seeking support. The Worm’s insistent whispers filled her mind, pleading with her: Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt your love. Don’t hurt the Eidolon. The words made her heart ache, her knees threatening to buckle.


    “Jhedothar was always the more skilled warrior,” Slashex said, ignoring her near-collapse. “This Eidolon is a cruel mockery—an ill-disciplined creature that the erstwhile Pilgrim molded into his most terrifying instrument. An insult to those who worshipped his return, such was his contempt for the very concepts of godhood and idolatry. She was perhaps the lowliest beknighted of the order he inherited by force. Now she roams, mighty with the daemonry rendered in place of her flesh.”


    “So you’re saying Jhedothar will win, or..?” Bee pressed, her voice barely more than a whisper.


    “Perhaps,” Slashex mused. “Though he was broken for his arrogance not so long ago, his weapon remains deadly.”


    Bee swallowed hard, her eyes fixed on the two figures who now began to circle each other on the bridge. The tension was palpable, a silent charge that electrified the air. Warriors and servants crowded the far end of the span, their postures a mix of anticipation and dread.


    Jhedothar stood tall, his centaurian form imposing even without the full might of his dead augmentations. His golden armour gleamed with the promise of strength, irregardless of those ruined enhancements, and the ruby spear in his grasp pulsed with an inner light, casting its baleful glow across his bestial features.


    Opposite him, the Eidolon was a figure of silent confidence. Her tattered cloak billowed around her, revealing glimpses of the mechatronic musculature beneath. Her dozen eyes glowed with a cold fire, unblinking as they locked onto Jhedothar. In her hand, she held her blade—a weapon as unadorned as it was lethal. A borrowed weapon given for the sole purpose of killing this freak.


    Bee’s heart pounded in her chest. She could feel the Worm’s agitation, its mass tightening around her thoughts. The urge to intervene at Slashex’s behest warred with the fear that the parasite instilled in her core.


    But this wasn’t to be like the duels that forged the realms within Acetyn proper. Honour was a dying concept now, and valour was lost to the foul creations birthed from half-forgotten technologies brought forth from a primordial age of inequities.


    Without warning, the Eidolon moved. In a blur of motion, she drew back and hurled her blade with a force that defied belief. A thunderous clap rocked the air. The sword became a silver streak, slicing through the air like a bolt of lightning.


    Jhedothar’s eyes widened, but his reflexes were honed. He brought up his ruby spear just in time, the blade clashing against it with a resounding impact. Sparks erupted from the collision, and the shockwave rippled outward, causing the bridge to tremble. Though he deflected the projectile, the sheer force sent him staggering backwards. His four massive legs scrambled to maintain balance, hooves scraping against the stone as he fought to stay upright.


    Seizing the moment, the Eidolon propelled herself forward, her enhanced limbs driving her at an impossible speed. Before Jhedothar could recover, she was upon him. Her fists, forged of cold metal and powered by mechatronic strength, slammed into his face with devastating precision.


    The first blow shattered his helmet, fragments of metal and bone spraying into the air. The second struck his jaw, dislocating it with a sickening crack.


    But as she charged, Jhedothar had not been idle. With a roar of defiance, he drove his ruby spear forward, the weapon’s beaming tip piercing through her abdomen. The blade tore through bony plates, machine, and synthetic flesh alike, emerging from her back in a spray of molten metal and black fluid.


    Both combatants screamed—a raw, primal sound that resonated through the tower and the realm below. The momentum of the Eidolon’s assault, combined with the force of Jhedothar’s desperate strike, sent them both teetering on the edge of the bridge.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Gasps echoed from the spectators. Bee leaned forward, her breath caught in her throat.


    “Now!” Slashex urged. “Use it now!”


    But Bee faltered. Time seemed to slow. She watched in horror as they swayed, their forms entangled as they bludgeoned each other. Their weight shifted irrevocably, and they plunged over the side.


    “No!” Bee cried out, her voice lost amid the clamour of the crowd.


    Down they fell, a tangle of limbs and metal, disappearing into the abyss that was Cruiros. The wind howled around them, the darkness swallowing their descent.


    Chaos erupted among the onlookers. Warriors shouted, some in triumph, others in dismay. The bridge trembled as those gathered pressed forward, straining to see what had become of the would-be Lord and his adversary.


    Bee felt her legs weaken. She might have collapsed if not for the singular impulse to move. Run. Do something. She sprinted to the edge as the crowd still howled out their reactions. She didn’t even look to see who was there.


    An instant later, Bee was already airborne, diving over the edge of the bridge. The air whipped past her as she plummeted, down past the unthinkable heights of great and ancient Ymmngorad, the ruined expanse of Cruiros rushing up to meet her. Below, a cloud of dust and debris marked the point of impact where the two had fallen, breaking and collapsing a terraced structure at the fortress’ periphery.


    She descended swiftly, eyes scanning the chaos for any sign of the Eidolon. The Worm’s urgency spurred her on.


    Amidst the shattered remnants of structures and the tangle of overgrowth, she caught sight of movement. A buzz of her wings and she slowed herself, her fluted siphons screaming as they sucked in air for her bioengines. Then, landing amidst the rubble, she stumbled, her knees buckling under the strain.


    “Are you there!” Bee shouted, her voice hoarse. “Can you hear me?”


    A groan answered her—a low, guttural sound that could have been either of them. She scrambled over the debris, ignoring the pain of sharp edges catching into her flesh where it was not plated.


    There, partially buried beneath fallen stones and twisted metal, lay the Eidolon. The ruby spear still impaled her, its crimson glow bright. Her eyes flickered, the light dimming and dazed.


    Bee rushed to her side, hands trembling as she reached out. “Hold on,” she pleaded. “I’m here.”


    The Eidolon’s gaze fixed on her, a flicker of recognition passing through those many eyes. Her rings of prehensile teeth flexed as if to speak through some near-forgotten reflex, but no words came.


    Behind them, a harsh laugh echoed. Bee turned sharply to see Jhedothar struggling to his feet. His armour was shattered, one of his legs bent at an unnatural angle. Blood poured from wounds too numerous to count, yet his eyes burned with unrelenting hatred.


    “You... monster,” he rasped, stumbling forward. “I will... end this.”


    Bee rose to her feet, positioning herself between him and the Eidolon. “Stay back!” she warned, her voice steady despite the terror that gripped her.


    He sneered, baring bloodied teeth. “You think... you can stop me? Stay out of this, girl.”


    Bee felt the worm surge within her, a flood of anger, fury, and need welling up from the depths of her being.


    “I won’t let you hurt her,” she said.


    But a hand reached out and shoved Bee to one side. A rough motion that had her falling on her hand and knees amidst the rubble, well out of the way.


    Standing, the Eidolon faced Jhedothar again, her battered and cracked plates and mechanics churning and grinding with every step. Then, tearing the infamous ruby spear from her own heart, she weighed it in hand with a wheezing, near-silent laugh, a manic realisation of the extent of her own inhuman, unnatural corporality.


    Bee rolled onto her back, gasping as she sorely caught her wings beneath her own body weight. She looked from Jhedothar and the Eidolon as they squared off again, each intent on risking their own lives to see the end of this, up to the bridge between the spires, now the barest thread in the distance, obscured by the dust and ash kicked up by their fall.


    She had to stop them. No one else could. They would actually kill each other. There was no other way to end this without someone dying.


    “No, dear sweet Bee,” the Worm rolled over heavily inside her skull.


    Bee’s back arched and she grunted, her body going stiff and numb.


    “I have to do this,” Bee internalised. “If Jhedothar dies, this place will fall apart. If the Eidolon dies… I don’t want her to die…”


    “It’s alright. Let the Eidolon kill him,” the Worm whispered. “Let the Eidolon feast on you to recover her strength, my love. Oh, it will be beautiful. Give yourself to her.”


    Bee’s eyes widened in fear, but the fear melted away to such blissful, happy feelings. It would be nice to give herself to the Eidolon. To be devoured. To lose herself that way and forever be a part of her love.


    “Our beautiful children will live on in her,” the Worm cooed. “You will be a mother. I’ve filled you with so many of my eggs.”


    Bee grunted as her eyes unfocused. That wasn’t right. She didn’t want to die.


    Yet even as Bee found herself numb and paralysed, unable to move her arms or legs, she felt that splinter in her mind’s eye. That weapon bonded into her psyche. Some program imparted into her neural lace by Slashex, and the entity that ruled over him. She realised she could still move it, to the given extent that moving it was real, immaterial as it was.


    Bee gasped as she swept its insubstantial direction around and around, fumbling as she got a feel for its slippery, frictionless nature.


    Some clang and a shout made Bee want to turn her head. She couldn’t. She couldn’t move herself at all. But she knew where they were.


    So she aimed that weapon and fired it. Not just in the direction of the Eidolon and Jhedothar, meeting each other in their mortal combat, but at her own head and the thing that squirmed therein.


    She fired it, and the whole world died.