Realmshift: Triad Ascendancy.

Black heart.

[ARKANE]

The dragon's roar rolled through the chamber like rolling thunder, shaking loose sheets of obsidian from the vaulted walls. The warped forest—trunks of black glass, leaves of flickering embers—burst fully into flame, casting mad shadows across stone and magma. 

Heat pressed in on my lungs. Smoke stung my throat. 
Can I really bring this thing down? The doubt came fast, gnawing at the edges of my focus—but I clenched my jaw, forcing it back. This is the path I chose. Even if it ends here, I'll see it through. 

Lightning welled in my arm, racing into Thunderclap Edge. The runes hissed, a blue-white arc sparking down the fuller. Sharingan flaring, I hurled the blade like a bolt. It struck the dragon's neck with a crack of thunder, forcing the monster's head to jerk aside. A good hit—but hardly fatal. 

I yanked the sword back on a mana tether—already feeling the cost spike in the dragon's distorted aura. 

"Arkane!"
Three blazing orbs tore through the air toward me. I dove; one exploded against the floor, spraying molten rock. Ren landed on my right, twin blades whispering from their sheaths. Lyra appeared on my left, staff shining with gathering light. Doran stepped ahead, silent as ever, planting his massive sword in a ready guard. 

"Guess we're doing this together," Ren said, flashing a grin. 

"Couldn't let me have all the fun?" I muttered, eyes never leaving the dragon. 

Its wings snapped wide, furnace‑hot wind slamming across the arena. Fire gathered in its throat. 

"Scatter!" 

The breath blasted out, turning stone to slag. Lyra's barrier soaked the worst of it, but the concussion still rattled my bones. 

When the flames thinned, Doran spoke—one low, flat sentence: "I'll distract it." 

Before any of us could answer, he charged, greatsword cleaving upward. Sparks and molten scales flew as steel met armor. The dragon reared, claws snapping at the infuriating insect on the ground—exactly the opening we needed. 

Ren flickered behind the beast, carving lines across its rear tendons. Lyra layered speed and resistance on my limbs—magic light and easy as a breath. 

"We need a real breach," she said. "Nothing else will finish it." 

"I have a plan," I said. The true weapon lay in my left hand, not my blade: Decay. 

I sprinted, boosted by Lyra's buff, and vaulted onto a toppled obsidian pillar, using its tilt to spring toward the dragon's shoulder. Ash whipped past; every heartbeat stretched under Sharingan sight. The beast twisted, lunging to bite, but I dove beneath the snapping jaws and landed against a ridge of scales near the neck joint. 

The heat was blinding. Lightning still crackled down Thunderclap Edge in my right fist, but I needed my other hand free. I slid the sword into a gap for purchase, sucked a breath, and pressed my bare palm to the armor‑thick scale. 

Black cracks spider‑webbed outward the instant my skin touched it. Decay drank hungrily, pulling mana through my arm into the target, unraveling the scale's integrity grain by grain. On a lesser creature it would've killed outright; here, it weakened—turning once‑impenetrable armor chalky, brittle, thin as charred bark. 

The dragon shrieked, thrashing. I ripped my hand away just before a wing buffeted me off its back. Air whooshed; I tumbled, caught my sword mid‑fall, and skidded across scorched stone. My palm felt like frostbite dipped in fire, but the job was done.