Chapter 20

Kifo stands at the center, arms outstretched. His tattoos glow violet as dark energy begins to pulse outward in rhythmic beats, igniting the glyphs hidden beneath the stone.

Kifo (chanting):
"By the bones of the dragon, by the stillborn starlight… seal the dusk, and lock the maw."

A wave of darkfire spirals outward from him, engraving a massive containment circle that hums low and ancient. Shizuku walks up behind him, arms folded.

Shizuku:
This’ll hold?

Kifo:
It won’t hold forever. But it’ll be long enough to kill it—or worse, seal it. I’m tired of seeing this world devoured by this evil dragon.

Around the edges of the ring, the Universal Guard is hard at work:

Asche calibrates arcana stabilizers and dispersal pylons, each one thrumming with arcane geometry.

Berwick conjures kinetic barriers, reinforced with his own blood magic.

Eris hovers overhead, carving sigils into the sky itself with a radiant ink brush from Hufrat Alzalam.

Alto aids her, his hair now braided tightly back thanks to Eris’s earlier work, conjuring a celestial dome above the circle with his stellar magic.

Astera lugs massive thorn anchors to reinforce the central lure station.

Lily kneels beside the bait—Jioni’s fallen feather—coating it with mirrored mana, her specialty in light-dark manipulation radiating around it.

Astera (grinning):
Feels like we're preparing for a festival.

Lily (dryly):
Except the fireworks bite back and breathe death.

Shizuku moves to the center of the containment circle and kneels, drawing the final sigil with one finger dipped in a mixture of spirit ink and his own blood. As the last mark completes, the ring surges—a vertical pillar of midnight blue energy blasts into the sky.

Kifo slams his staff into the earth, dark lightning crawling across the pylon grid.

Kifo (loudly):
The trap’s set. When the void fracture opens, this becomes a cage. If it senses the feather, Jioni will come.

Eris:
And if it doesn’t?

Kifo:
Then we go to it. But don’t worry—Jioni’s hungry. And we’re dangling its favorite dish.

A low rumble echoes across the field. The stars overhead flicker unnaturally. The fracture is near. The captains ready their weapons, their aura flaring in sync.

Shizuku (calmly):
Positions, everyone. Dusk falls soon.

The void above begins to crack like glass. The sky pulses—then silences, as if holding its breath.

And far, far off in the distance, something roars.