Taboo Online

The severance struck both anchors within seconds of each other, but the sixth ring gave way first. Its silver roads sagged beneath the abandoned district before snapping apart, carrying ruined homes, broken bridges, and the last green light of the outer roots into the smoke below.

Deep beneath the junction, the seventh anchor twisted inside the lower network. The break traveled upward through the Heartroot with a violent crack, and the central terrace dropped several feet beneath everyone standing on it.

Luke’s legs folded, but Lauren caught him around the waist before he struck the wood. The sudden weight nearly brought her down with him. Nearby, the Thornmender grabbed Aelira’s arm while Iris braced the Queen from the other side.

Rhea’s returning panel slammed into the terrace and skidded across the bark. The rootkeeper carrying the unconscious child rolled safely onto the platform, while defenders caught the three wounded elves before they could tumble from the shield.

"Move them!" Rhea shouted. "That panel won’t take another drop."

Rootkeepers pulled the survivors onto stable wood and passed them toward the healers. Once the last wounded defender was clear, Rhea recalled the panel and wedged it beside the shield already supporting the fractured junction. Cracks widened across both blue surfaces as the roots shifted above them.

At the southern edge, Dorian still had his black hook lodged beneath the hammer wielder’s broken chest plate. The giant remained on one knee, but every root tearing free around them sent fresh vibrations into his armor. Pressure gathered around the hammerhead until the air above it began to ripple.

Dorian leaned back and used his full weight to keep the giant away from the terrace. Iris’s lifeline flashed around his ribs as the strain opened his wound again.

"Let him go," she said. "Your side is bleeding through."

"He reaches the terrace if I do."

The hammer wielder lifted his head and showed his teeth. "You noticed."

He planted one boot against the damaged bridge and hauled himself forward using the hook trapped in his armor. Dorian slid toward the edge, his heels carving two lines through the silver bark.

Rhea turned one panel away from the junction. "Drop the hook before he takes you with it."

"He’s using it as a ladder."

"I can see what he’s doing."

"Then you know why I haven’t let go."

Behind the giant, the masked woman raised both hands. Threads crossed the gap and pierced Dorian’s forearms, locking his fingers around the hook before he could release it.

"She has both arms," Iris warned. "Dorian, stop fighting his weight. Fight what she’s making your hands do."

Rhea sent the free panel across the edge of the terrace. Its cracked side cut through several threads near Dorian’s elbows, but the strands buried deeper in his arms remained intact.

The masked woman curled two fingers.

Dorian’s shoulders twisted against his will, and the hook dragged the giant another step closer. Bronze light flared beneath Dorian’s boots and climbed around his forearms, tightening wherever the threads pulled.

His oath could not tear the strands from his flesh, but it changed the struggle. The command in the threads tried to make him drag the giant across the line he had chosen to defend, and the bronze light resisted it with him.

Dorian stared at his trapped hands and forced his fingers open one at a time.

"My people are behind me now," he said through clenched teeth. "You’re not crossing that line."

He released the hook.

The hammer wielder had already thrown his weight into the pull. When the resistance vanished, he lurched backward and drove his wounded knee into the bridge hard enough to split the root beneath it.

His hammer struck beside him and released every vibration stored inside the weapon. The blast ripped the southern bridge away from the junction and threw several corrupted elves into the smoke.

Threads wrapped around the giant’s armor before he could fall. While the masked woman dragged him back, the leader drove one marked palm against the root beneath their feet.

Black brands spread through the dying wood and forced the collapsing bridge to bend downward. It twisted around a lower branch, creating a narrow path into the ruins.

The leader stepped onto it as the masked woman pulled the hammer wielder after him.

"They’re getting away," Kellan said.

He lifted one hand, but the lightning around his fingers broke apart before it could form a full bolt.

Iris looked at the flickering lifeline around his injured thigh. "So is the muscle in your leg."

"I only need a spark."

"You need a stretcher."

Kellan kept his eyes on the retreating villains. "I can limp and shoot."

"You can do one of those badly."

Rhea caught his shoulder before he could prove her wrong. "Both of you stop. They’re retreating in formation, and we’re not following them onto a root their leader controls."

The leader paused on the descending path and looked back at Aelira.

"You cut away the kingdom to save its heart."

Aelira stood with one hand pressed against the newly sealed wound beneath her armor. Dried blood covered her side, and Iris’s lifeline flickered around her ribs whenever her breathing grew uneven.

"I chose the lives still within my reach."

"And what did you leave them?" His gaze traveled over the wounded elves packed across the terrace. "Their homes are burning below us. There isn’t a single outer root left beneath the kingdom you claim to have saved."

Aelira did not look toward the ruins.

"I saved the people you came here to enslave. You arrived too late to take them, and no speech from you will change that."

The leader’s expression hardened before his attention moved toward Lauren.

"Ask your Oracle what happens to a heart after every root feeding it has been cut away."

Lauren’s blindfold remained dark. She had no mana left for another vision, but she could feel something moving beneath the terrace. Every surviving channel was drawing inward, carrying the last traces of green mana away from the severed edges.

The pull reached her through the faint thread of partner resonance. Lauren tightened her hand around Luke’s arm and tilted her head toward the central tree.

"It’s sealing the paths behind us," she said. "All of them."