Once more, after so many months of silence, the world shivers.

The Titan Alps, barely even visible by the glowing white envelope of its summit-line, shifts. It fractures. The entire line breaks, filtering light through cracks in mountains that weren’t there moments ago.

With Eldest Ember’s protective light gone, the world quivers in response. The very air falters as the earth screams out in agony. Deep, groaning rumbles thrum up from the deepest parts of the land, declaring a defiance to the assault.

And the Titans of the world respond.

Bellowing roars empowered with unparalleled presence crash through the air with visible waves that warp everything they touch. To the west and south, the devastating giants screech with ferocity and unity.

I twist to the south, finding the subtle, barely noticeable peaks of the Titan Alps beyond the horizon sliding to the side. Even so far away, the effect is the same. This was not a one-off. The Collapse was not a singularity, but our fate. Armageddon comes. The earth will continue to crumble under the assault of the Anatla until nothing remains.

The cliffs all along the fjord quiver and crumbling rock tumbles into the waters below. Ripples bubble over the seas, growing more intense and vicious with each quake. Waves crash against the sides of the dark wooden vessels, whipping all besides the jarlship into a discordant flurry that threatens to topple each.

I’m not the only one frozen from the worldwide repeat of the Collapse. Every heqet from the lowliest of crewmen, to the Jarl herself watch — or feel — as beings greater than we can comprehend tear our world apart in their struggle. Without Eldest Ember’s protection, the Anatla are free to unleash their devastation upon the world. Without embers protection, we are vulnerable to the inevitable devastation that comes.

Another rumble crashes through the land. It’s louder than than the others, more of a shear and a crack than the constant low thrum. Moments after I hear it, the effect becomes visible. It becomes impossible to ignore. The gorge where the Jarlship fort once stood splits. The cliffs moving away from each other is, at first, all that’s visible. But soon, the gorge widens and the river can no longer hide the fissure splitting the mountain in two.

Water drains down the crack, leaving the river as nothing more than a wet fissure in mere moments. But the opening into the earth doesn’t stop there; it widens, spreading into the fjord. The cliffs to the sides all around us shift, spreading outwards as parts of the rock crumble under the quakes assaulting them. The gorge splits as far out as the ocean beyond the fjord.

At first, all seems safe. Despite the massive fissure splitting through the island, out over the water, it only manifests in rough waves. At least, until the very seas open beneath us. The water dips, falling into a pair of massive waterfalls as the ocean flows into the ever-growing fissure through the land.

The Jarlship jolts, and in an instant I sweep Leal up in my flames and take to the skies. I watch as the Jarlship tilts to the side, before crashing into the opposite flow. Any lesser ship would have shattered from the impact, but this is the same one that fell hundreds of metres from its construction site without problem. But just because it survived the first crash doesn’t mean it or the hundreds of heqet aboard are safe. Immense flowing rapids crash into the ship, until the earth widens enough to swallow it whole.

A maw of the earth, greedy for all it can consume.

The other ships and their crews row with desperation. Every heqet puts all their strength into keeping away from the sudden rift through the fjord. But the intense currents and gusting wind prevent escape. Despite their efforts, the strength of the earth is too great; the ocean carries them into the maw, their ships churned and crashing with the waves that I wouldn’t be surprised if they died long before they reach the dark recesses of the cavity.

“What the fuck. What the actual fuck.” Below, Jarl Anoures clings to my flames with webbed fingers flowing with her presence. She watches, mortified, as both hers and Sylvan’s fleets disappear from the fjord in mere moments.

Anoures somehow has the audacity to cling to me. It would take but an instant to disperse the fire she clings to and she’ll fall to her death amongst her kin. Really, it is nothing better than a slaver deserves, regardless of the cultural norms of her race. But the way she clings to me gives me pause.

Such masterful control of one’s presence is something I’ve only ever seen from Tore. She can actually touch me, even while my flames aren’t physical. For her to have such capability means she’s far stronger than I gave credit for. I don’t think she’s anywhere Tore’s equal, but she could have given me a much harder time than I’d expected, and yet she chose not to fight.

Not wanting to think about it much further, and also not willing to toss someone to their deaths while they cling to me so desperately — regardless of how much I despise them — I turn away from Anoures and look upon the Anatla beam. No longer does it reveal the presence of any such immense Titans through its world altering colours. Instead, something far worse takes its place.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Through the beam, I see the same world from the green-eye Anatla. Yet unlike what I witnessed through the window on the Chthonic Island, this world mixes with ours in an ugly subjugation of natural laws breaking down and bending to the will of the alien ones. Through the light of the beam, I see a horizon without distinguishable end. A sea of cloud that blends with the air, but never seems to truly touch. Its incomprehensible laws intertwine with reality and altering it to something impossible. Something unlivable.

I suddenly snap my head to Leal, realising how horrible this situation is without the protection of Eldest Ember’s fire. Without her protection, the Anatlan energy flowing through Leal will consume her, morphing my friend to whatever the Anatla wishes.

My flames flow through her body before I truly process what changes might have been affecting her body, taking advantage of my flames’ incorporeality to push deep into her veins and hopefully hold off the Anatla’s influence like I did with the corrupting spread of the Chthonic Island. But oddly, it isn’t the Anatlan energy that holds me back. Something stops my flames moving more than skin deep through Leal’s body, and it isn’t until I actually look at the ursu that I realise why.

Her inscriptions are burning brighter than I’ve ever seen. The effect is so great that her eyes burn with the slight bluish tinge to the otherwise clear water hyle. And not only is it my flames that are halted, but the energy flowing over her shoulders cannot move from its spot. The Anatlan energy flashes, reflecting the changes of the beam, but it cannot spread across her form.

She remains unaffected.

Catching my eye — and likely feeling my flames trying to pilfer through her body — Leal flashes an unnerved smirk. “Didn’t think I wouldn’t make countermeasures, did you?” her voice wavers despite the strong front she puts on. This isn’t my Leal, she’s still the one that is far too familiar with murder, but it’s obvious she and mine are still the same person at their core.

The energy thrumming through her shoulders spikes again, and her own markings flash to counteract the intensity. She winces, but it doesn’t appear like it has any effect.

The rumbling of the earth finally calms, and I glance up just as Eldest Ember’s embrace ignites again. The beam falters for a moment, before its power concentrates and explodes from the just beyond the horizon with greater intensity. Embers fire almost immediately collapses, flickering like a mere candleflame. If it weren’t clear before, the battle between my Eldest, and the Anatla’s influence becomes certain.

The battle for supremacy lasts for a dozen seconds longer until the Titan Alps suddenly drop, and the Ember Moon finally gains ground and shuts out the Anatla beam entirely. The land once more bathes in the burning red light.

The barely visible mountain peaks to the south are no longer there, and those to the north, have lowered significantly. As with the previous Collapse, the Titan Alps lose much of its height, only this time, I swear it’s more than last.

The waters below still gush with the flow of the endless ocean filling the fjord and the greedy earthen maw that is never satisfied. Nothing remains to reveal that this had been the site of a battle mere minutes ago. Not a wooden plank, nor a life. None besides Jarl Anoures herself, of course.

“Well, fuck me then.” Her words are spoken aloud, but I don’t think she actually intends for either of us to hear.

Returning my attention to Leal, I spot her breathing hard, but her markings finally dimming from their intensity… and also fixedly avoiding turning her eyes on the moon.

“Leal,” I say. “I need you to turn to the Ember Moon.”

“No,” her response is more desperate than I expect, but it only makes me suspicious. “I need to avoid that to make sure the Anatla hasn’t affected me in any way I didn’t expect. The marking worked better than I hoped, but it was hard to control. I’m not so sure I avoided any side-effects. I need to run analysis before I reset myself. Besides…” She trails off, avoiding my eye.

I’m tempted to tell her to change anyway. I don’t want to risk anything when it comes to the threat of the Anatla; if even Eldest Ember struggles to hold them back, then a single ursu — regardless of who they are — is unlikely to succeed much the same. But it can wait for now. I still have an unwanted passenger to deal with.

Sensing my glare, Anoures glances up to me. “Hey… seeing as how my ride just got destroyed by the world itself, you wouldn’t mind taking me back to the Jarldom?”

I just sneer at her in return. If only she attacked me, then I would feel nothing by burning her here. But the knowledge that she’s strong enough to actually pose a problem, and yet she chose not to fight truly places her on a different podium than Sylvan. She’s a heqet, and she had the held back on her instincts to fight despite having an actual chance. She may be a slaver, but if that is the way of her kind, then she may be the only one I’ll be able to convince of moving beyond such treatment… however difficult it might be.

If I’m to kill her — assuming everything she’s said is true — than I might as well murder every heqet. For some inexplicable reason, committing genocide doesn’t seem like the right choice.

I glance back to the remains of the fort. Bits and pieces remain clinging to the cliff-faces, but they are so far apart now that it’s hard to tell they used to be part of one whole. The gorge that was once not even a hundred metres across now splits ten times that. What was once a significantly sized island, is now two; I can see all the way through to the ocean beyond.

If this is what happened to some island at the furthest distance from the Alps I’ve ever been, then what has occurred closer to home? Leal and I are safe this time, but what about next time? How great will this disaster grow.

That thought rings through me; Next time. It’s almost a certainty at this point, isn’t it. There’s going to be a next time. There’s going to be more Collapses until the earth itself is destroyed and the Anatla are free to unleash their devastation on the world.

How much time do we have left… until Armageddon reaches us?