ShadowBound: The Need For Power-Chapter 375: The Green Calamity (10)

Back in the heart of Sylvathar’s concealed sanctuary, the air was thick with the scent of scorched bark and mist-saturated soil. Liam and Mabel stood side by side, their bodies battered and bruised from the clash with the monstrous golem, but their stances unshaken. The pain in their limbs was nothing compared to the intensity in their eyes—sharp, focused, and locked on the elegantly eerie figure ahead of them.

Morenelle.

She stood in the distance, her tall frame still serene, her eyes gleaming like polished emeralds. But now, her smile had twisted—no longer calm, but cold, cruel, and unnervingly pleased. Around her, vines slithered like serpents, their edges glowing faintly, saturated with myst. The air pulsed with her aura, as if the land still obeyed her even after its mystical connection had been partially severed.

After a long, taut silence—broken only by Mabel’s ragged breathing and Liam’s steady exhale—Morenelle finally spoke.

"I must admit," she said softly, her voice laced with graceful menace, "you two have proven to be far more entertaining than I initially assumed. You severed my sanctuary’s tether to me using only a handful of well-placed attacks... impressive, especially from a dark magic user."

Her gaze turned toward Liam, unwavering.

"And then you dismantled my precious creation as if it were a child’s toy. I’m impressed. Truly. But I suppose it’s time to remind you of the real hierarchy here. Because you see... you’re not apex predators. You’re just garden weeds feasting on paradise."

Before either of them could respond—before they could even blink—something struck.

A thick root vine exploded forward with impossible speed, aiming straight for Liam. His eyes widened, instincts flaring. Reflexively, he conjured a shadow shield in front of himself—dense, opaque, braced for impact.

But the blow never came.

Inches from collision, a small, swirling green portal opened in the vine’s path. The vine vanished into it without resistance.

Liam barely had time to process what happened before another portal opened a heartbeat later—this time directly beside him.

The same vine shot out, now re-angled for his head.

He couldn’t react. There wasn’t time.

But again—just as death neared—a portal opened right in front of his face. The vine disappeared through it before it could land the blow.

Then—snap!—a portal opened just beside Morenelle.

The vine, now redirected, launched toward her with explosive momentum. She turned her head at the last moment. Thick roots surged to meet the attack, forming a bulwark of hardened bark that absorbed the redirected strike in a deafening crack.

The entire sequence had lasted less than five seconds.

Morenelle didn’t move. Her smile softened—not in kindness, but in acknowledgment.

"How impressive, young woman," she said, her voice smooth as silk and twice as deadly. "Not only did you detect my spatial tethering, but you acted fast enough to save him. Lord Sylvathar was right. You would have made an exceptional general."

She tilted her head slightly.

"Such a shame... that you’ll die here."

Mabel stood tense, her breathing measured, eyes locked onto Morenelle. She didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she side-glanced at Liam—who was still braced, his shadow shield flickering.

And then... he smirked.

The sudden shift in his expression caught her off guard.

"Spatial magic, huh?" Liam muttered, almost laughing under his breath. "It all makes sense now. It’s your spatial abilities that pulled us here... concealed the sanctuary... redirected the battlefield. And yet I failed to remember something so crutial until now. What the hell was I thinking?"

He chuckled again, but the sound was hollow—unsettling. Like someone on the edge of something dangerous.

"But it’s fine," he said with a cool breath, straightening his posture and letting the shadow shield vanish into black mist. "Nothing I can do about it now. So, might as well use it to my advantage."

He held his hand out. From the ruins of the destroyed golem, his hybrid javelin broke free and flew to him, spiraling with streaks of residual flame and shadow as it landed in his palm with a heavy snap.

"Mabel."

His voice was soft now. Sincere.

"I want to thank you... for saving my life. And for everything you’ve done to help me."

Mabel’s response was quick and sharp, even through her exhaustion. "Nice timing for sentiment, Liam. Maybe save it for after we survive."

Liam gave a short nod, that slight smirk lingering on his face.

"Yeah, I know. I’ve got a bad habit of picking the worst moments for real talk."

He rolled his wrist, spinning the javelin once, then crouched slightly, knees bending into a launch-ready stance. His eyes burned red under his tousled hair.

"But listen... what you just did—those portals. I want you to keep doing that. Watch every attack I throw. Especially this javelin. Focus on it and just do what you see fit."

Mabel eyed him for a beat, then let out a sigh. "Fine. Just don’t go doing anything reckless. I’m not about to have you dying on me when I’m the one stuck keeping you alive. So you better know what you’re doing."

Liam’s eyes flicked toward her for a heartbeat. Then back to Morenelle.

"I always know what I’m doing."

Then in an instant, he launched forward, his javelin streaking through the air in a tight spiral of dark fire and flickering shadows, aimed directly for Morenelle’s center mass. Mabel split in the opposite direction—her warp trail flickering with residual aqua light as she blinked from spot to spot, circling the demoness in a crescent motion.

Morenelle’s fingers twitched.

The ground responded like an organism with a pulse. Pillars of stone thrust up in unpredictable angles—angled slabs forming walls, spikes, and canopies all at once. Roots snapped like whips from beneath the moss, arching across the field with untraceable momentum. Mabel vanished in a flash, reappearing between the stone formations, skating along the flat surface of an earthen arc. Liam ducked low beneath one of the rising spikes, sliding across the cracked soil and spinning mid-glide to hurl another javelin conjured in his grip.

It whistled, arcing midair—and vanished into a green portal that Morenelle spawned without a gesture.

The weapon reappeared an instant later above Liam’s head, redirected toward his own skull.

But Mabel was there.

Another portal blinked to life, intercepting the javelin just before it could strike Liam, redirecting it again—this time slamming into one of the nearby stone formations. It detonated with a muffled boom, the fire-shadow burst swallowing the upper half of the pillar in a smoky spiral.

They didn’t stop.

Mabel’s blade glinted with pressurized water again, and she warped beside Morenelle, slashing in a curve aimed at her torso. But the roots exploded upward, forming a living wall that twisted to match the arc of Mabel’s blade. The edge of her sword sliced through the first three layers—splitting bark and leaf like paper—but was halted by a sudden surge of earthen armor that formed on Morenelle’s shoulder, absorbing the rest of the strike with a dull clang.

Simultaneously, Morenelle raised one hand and the entire terrain breathed—the sanctuary trembled, and from beneath the soil, massive stone arms burst forth. Three of them, each ten feet tall, jointed by thick vines and sealed with moss, hurled themselves in random, crisscrossing directions. One missed Liam by inches as he sprinted to the side, leapt onto a protruding boulder, and flipped mid-air to conjure three Umbra Stars—each one orbiting his wrist in a tight ring.

He launched them with precision.

One aimed high, another low, and the last dead-center—each timed to force Morenelle to choose between defending or repositioning.

She chose neither.

Instead, she dissolved.

For a heartbeat, Morenelle turned into a stream of leaves and wind, whipping around the battlefield before reforming across the field near the root cocoon that held Sheila. The stars detonated harmlessly in her absence, sending shockwaves that tore through bark and shattered stone, but their true purpose had been met—they’d disrupted the terrain, throwing the balance of the sanctuary off-kilter.

Liam and Mabel adjusted without needing a word.

Mabel warped again, appearing above the shattered canopy of a tree. She crouched midair, myst rippling at her feet, before propelling herself downward like a falling comet. At the same time, Liam rolled through a collapsing stone spiral and hurled another javelin—but this time, it wasn’t charged with fire or shadow. It was hollow, a feint.

Morenelle raised a hand to redirect it—but nothing came from it.

Too late, she realized.

The real javelin came from beneath—a shadow-forged spear that Liam summoned from a crater he’d created earlier in the fight, camouflaged in darkness and roots. It fired upward like a bolt, aiming directly for her spine.

She reacted fast, but not fast enough.

The javelin scraped across her shoulder blade, tearing through the outer bark-armor and slicing a thin line of emerald ichor across her back.

The moment it struck, the battlefield shifted again.

The land responded to her pain.

A quake shattered the terrain beneath all three fighters. Ridges split, trees toppled, and stone arms surged out from newly-formed fissures like the claws of buried titans. Vines coiled upward in columns, snatching at anything within reach. Even the sky above shimmered with spatial distortions—fractures through which chunks of the sanctuary were displaced, twisted, inverted.

Mabel was caught mid-warp.

Instead of appearing where she intended, she blinked into a swirl of spatial disruption—her form tumbling as gravity twisted unnaturally. But Liam moved fast, tossing one of his daggers infused with stabilizing shadow beneath her. The dagger struck the warped ground and expanded into a solid anchor of pure dark myst, dragging the immediate space around it back to normal.

She landed beside it, rolling to her feet.

"Thanks," she muttered—just loud enough for him to hear.

Liam nodded once.

Then they charged again.

Morenelle now moved differently—less fluid, more violent. Her face was still calm, but the barrage of attacks she unleashed said otherwise. She conjured walls, spears, tendrils, and even summoned spatial duplicates of herself across the field—each mimic capable of redirecting their attacks via portals. Liam’s Umbra Stars were flung back at him; Mabel’s blade met a mirror version of her opponent every few seconds.

But they learned fast.

They adapted.

When Morenelle launched a volley of stone shards from a distance, Liam redirected them by creating a curved barrier of shadow that angled the projectiles toward one of her clones—shattering it on contact. Mabel, recognizing the rhythm of her opponent’s warps, began pre-emptively adjusting her positions, warping just before Morenelle would counter—landing in blind spots created by her own attacks.

Their synergy became sharper and wordless.

When Liam threw his javelin, Mabel created a portal midair to adjust its trajectory, slamming it into Morenelle’s side at a diagonal no human could’ve guessed.

When Mabel was thrown across the battlefield by a shockwave, Liam used Solar Step to appear in her flight path, catching her midair and redirecting her momentum with a spiral dash that sent them both spinning into another coordinated strike.

The field was chaos—pure, raw, unpredictable.

But within it... Liam and Mabel moved like two parts of a singular mind.

Morenelle finally staggered. Not from injury—but from realization. That these two, despite their exhaustion, despite their wounds, despite being overwhelmed by myst they couldn’t fully grasp, were still adjusting faster than she expected.

Still learning her.

Still pushing through.

And that—was dangerous.

Her eyes narrowed as she summoned a wide veil of spatial mist—a dome of flickering green energy that began collapsing inward, reality tearing inside it like glass being folded in on itself.

Liam’s breath hitched. "Is she trying to erase the space?"

Mabel stepped beside him. "Looks like it. We have to stop her before she finishes."

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