Khael traced the first sigil.
The ground beneath them began to glow lines of Shinrei spreading outward like veins of molten gold, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. The cold earth responded, humming with buried life as his essence bled into the soil.
Behind him, Lito extended his hand. His aura flared wind howling like a guardian spirit, coiling into the storm that circled the camp.
For the first time in decades, father and son stood together not as warriors of bloodline, but as conduits of salvation.
And above them, the heavens roared.
Thunder answering thunder.
As the Corzedars defied a curse born not of gods, but of man's hubris.
The ritual circle expanded geometric rings layered atop each other like clockwork, forming a lattice of gold and azure light. Each line was deliberate, a pulse of intent, mathematics woven into faith.
Khael's fingers moved with mechanical precision, sketching sigils with gestures born from memory and instinct. Every stroke of Shinrei carried purpose: amplification, regulation, containment. His dragon blood sang with the resonance of the land, linking every heartbeat in the camp to the same invisible rhythm.
Around them, the soldiers watched in breathless silence. Some whispered prayers. Others simply stared, half in awe, half in terror.
The wind bent around the ritual field, forming a dome of pressure so dense that even sound seemed to hesitate before entering.
Inside that sphere, it was only Khael, Lito, and the dying.
Khael's thoughts pulsed like heartbeats.
Regulate the Shinrei flow… redirect excess current to external nodes… emotional harmonics must synchronize or the field collapses…
He could feel it the raw energy inside each corrupted soldier. Not a poison, but a feedback loop: emotion feeding Shinrei, Shinrei feeding decay. The Lunaris Dust had overstimulated the neural conduits of the spirit, forcing open their Vein Gates before they were mature.
It wasn't divine wrath.
It was chemistry fused with desperation.
An artificial miracle turned weapon.
"Stabilizers! Channel on my mark!" Khael's voice thundered. "Wave types, focus on breath modulation. Bloom types open your aura resonance and link through me."
The healers nodded, their palms glowing with gentle light. One by one, they sank to their knees around the ring, spreading their hands toward the center where Arden lay. The corrupted energy writhed above him, a spectral flame of blue and black, flickering like a dying soul.
Lito's voice joined, low and commanding.
"All units maintain the circle's integrity! Anyone who breaks the pattern will rupture the flow!"
The soldiers braced against the rising wind. Dust and ash swirled in the air, caught between the collapsing storm and the ascending light.
Khael closed his eyes. His perception expanded outward, a web of luminous threads connecting everything: the healers' trembling souls, the flickering Shinrei of the dying, even the faint electromagnetic hum of the stormclouds above.
Then he spoke not in words, but through resonance.
His Shinrei flared, spiraling upward in a golden column that reached into the clouds.
"Initiating Reversal Sequence. Emotional harmonics, align."
The circle ignited.
Blue flames erupted around the perimeter, crackling against the gold lines. The air itself vibrated, each frequency a note in an unseen symphony. The ground trembled as the excess Shinrei began to reverse polarity siphoning the corrupted energy out of the soldiers and into the ritual field.
One of the healers gasped. "It's working—!"
But her voice broke as her aura began to flicker violently.
Khael's eyes snapped open. "Hold the pattern! Don't fight the feedback, flow with it!"
He extended his hand, weaving a stabilizing sigil midair. His golden aura split into hundreds of fine threads, each one connecting to a healer, reinforcing their link. The circle brightened again steady, breathing.
He could feel it now: the rhythm of life and emotion intertwining.
Every soldier's Shinrei pulsed erratically, oscillating between collapse and renewal.
Beneath the chaos, Khael searched for harmony that one true frequency where fear turned to release, where pain could dissolve into stillness.
"Emotional resonance… recalibrating…" he whispered.
His dragon blood surged, carrying with it the hum of the Dragon Veins, the lifeblood of the earth. Through them, he felt every heartbeat, every pulse of dying Shinrei like echoes in his chest.
The corrupted energy began to pour outward streams of black vapor rising from the soldiers' bodies, twisting and clawing as if unwilling to let go. It screamed as it left them the sound of anguish, fury, and loss all condensed into vibration.
"They're resisting," Lito growled. Lightning rippled along his arms as he anchored the storm's energy into the ground. "Khael! Their emotions are bleeding into the field!"
"I know. That's the point. They have to let it go."
Khael's eyes opened, burning with golden light.
"Come on, Arden. You too. Let it go."
Within the center of the circle, Arden convulsed. His body arched, mouth open in a silent scream as black energy poured from his chest. For a moment, his Shinrei fractured — shards of blue and black light spiraling out of control. The sigils wavered, the earth cracking beneath their feet.
Healers screamed as the backlash struck. One collapsed. Another's aura shattered.
The field trembled.
Lito roared, slamming his hand into the dirt. "I've got the barrier! Focus!"
The wind exploded outward, bending the storm's rage into order. Lightning forked across the ritual dome, feeding power back into the circle.
Khael pressed both palms to the ground, his breath ragged.
His voice dropped to a whisper, half prayer, half formula.
"Emotion is energy. Emotion is matter. Emotion remembers. If it remembers the pain, it can remember the peace."
The words became mantra.
The mantra became resonance.
And the resonance became power.
A deep hum filled the camp a low, unified vibration that made every heart stutter in sync. One by one, the soldiers' veins began to clear. The black faded into pale blue, their breathing steadied, their eyes fluttering open.
Even the storm seemed to still the clouds parting slightly, revealing a single beam of sunlight that pierced through the haze.
The corrupted energy above Arden condensed into a dark sphere, pulsing weakly.
Khael reached out, his voice a soft command.
"Return to silence. You have no place here."
He clenched his han and the sphere collapsed in on itself, vanishing into golden dust.
Silence fell.
No one moved.
Then, slowly, the healers began to weep.
"It's… over." one whispered. "They're breathing. They're alive."
Khael fell to one knee, chest heaving, sweat mingling with the rain that had begun to fall. The sigils faded beneath him, their light sinking into the soil like dreams dissolving at dawn.
Lito approached, kneeling beside him. His voice was low, steady, but thick with something deeper.
"You did it, my son."
Khael's eyes remained on Arden alive, weak, but breathing.
He exhaled softly.
"No, Father. We did."
The wind whispered across the camp no longer howling, but sighing.
A sound not of grief… but of release.
To be continue