The backlash from the broken oath hit Sineus like a physical blow, throwing his head back into a white haze of pain. The world vanished. When it returned, the deep, tearing roar of the tower's collapse was already consuming it.
The sourceless light in the ceiling flickered wildly, then died, plunging them into a terrifying gloom lit only by the phantom light of the prison unmaking itself.
The fortress shuddered, a violent tremor threatening to shake the structure apart as its foundational principles unraveled.
Through the chaos, Sineus saw his goal. Escape.
The door, once a seamless wall of unbreakable will, now showed a hairline fracture. The structural collapse had weakened its metaphysical bonds. It was no longer a concept. It was just a door.
“The door!” Fedor’s voice cut through the roar. He was already moving, his earlier caution burned away by the simple, physical opportunity. He needed no order.
He slammed his armored shoulder into the cracked surface. The impact was no longer a dead thud. It was the crack of breaking bone. The door shuddered, splintered, and with a second charge from the big warrior, it blew inward in a shower of black, dissolving shards.
“Go!” Sineus yelled, grabbing Alani’s arm and pulling her to her feet. She was limp, her face ashen, the psychic fallout of the unmaking having struck her harder than any physical blow.
Fedor was already through the opening, axe in hand, his broad back a shield against the chaos. Sineus half-lifted, half-dragged Alani after him, out of the dying chamber and into a corridor of pure pandemonium.
The fortress was coming apart. The hallway before them was a nightmare of shifting reality. Sections of the floor tilted at impossible angles, while walls dissolved into a grey mist that revealed the vast, dark space beyond. Contained tornadoes of whispering shadow writhed in the distance, their forms now unstable.
The guards, the silent Blightforge Acolytes in their robes of ash and dried blood, were in disarray. They were not fighting the prisoners. They were fighting the collapse. One stood with its hands pressed against a dissolving wall, its cowled head bowed in concentration, trying to hold reality together with its will. It ignored them completely.
Another acolyte simply stood still as the floor beneath it frayed into nothing, falling silently into the grinding darkness below. Their focus was on damage control, not containment. It was the opening they needed.
“This way!” Sineus shouted, pulling Alani along a section of corridor that seemed momentarily stable. Fedor fell in behind them, his head on a swivel, his axe ready for a threat that had no single shape.
The floor ahead of them sagged, then vanished, leaving a chasm ten meters wide. On the other side, the corridor continued.
“We can’t make that!” Fedor yelled over the grinding shriek of the fortress.
Alani stirred in Sineus’s grip. Her eyes fluttered open. She pointed a trembling finger to the left, down a narrow service conduit that ran alongside the main hall. Its metal was slick with the same black ooze.
“Not that way,” she whispered, her voice thin as thread. “This way. It feels… less agonized.”
Sineus trusted her. He changed direction, ducking into the conduit. It was tight, forcing them into single file. Fedor’s pauldrons scraped against the walls. The low ceiling forced them to a crouch. The air was thick with the smell of ozone.
They moved through the guts of the dying fortress. The grinding sounds were louder here, vibrating through the metal under their feet. A section of the conduit ahead glowed red, then white, the metal melting from some catastrophic power failure. They scrambled back, Fedor shielding them from the intense heat with his body.
“Another path, Alani,” Sineus urged, his voice gentle but firm.
She leaned against the wall, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She closed her eyes, searching. “There. A maintenance ladder. Down.”
They found it twenty meters back, a simple iron ladder set into the floor, leading into the darkness. Fedor went first, his heavy boots ringing on the rungs. Sineus followed, helping Alani descend. The darkness was absolute, the only sound their own breathing and the groaning death of the fortress around them.
The ladder ended on a wide, grated catwalk. Below them was a drop of hundreds of meters into the swirling, controlled Blight. Ahead, a set of heavy blast doors stood slightly ajar, light spilling through the gap.
“Out,” Fedor grunted, and pushed his way toward it.
He put his shoulder to the heavy door and heaved. With a screech of tortured metal, it slid open enough for them to slip through. They stumbled out onto an open platform of black iron, the cold, thin air a shock after the confines of the conduit.
They were outside.
They had reached an outer platform. The main tower, the prison they had just escaped, stood against the swirling dark for a moment longer. Then, with a final, soul-shaking roar, it collapsed in on itself. It did not fall. It imploded, folding inward, a vortex of screaming light and black dust pulling the structure into a point of nothingness.
The roar faded, replaced by a profound silence. The cold air was still.
