The Great Alchemist voice hung over the square like a smog. Below the central spire, a massive iron cage sat suspended by chains, filled with the huddling shapes of the village elders and childern. Their eyes, wide with terror,reflected the sickly green glow of the siphon above them.
"The spire is draining the land," the Yesterday girl called out, her form flickering wildly as she dodged a Thresher's sweeping blade. "But if you hi the tower now, the feedback will incinerate the cage!"
The protagonist froze. Her palm was already humming with enough violet energy to topple the iron structure, but he cost was to high. The Alchemist hadn't just built a machine; he had built a hostage situation.
"Looking for a choice, little spark?" a new figure stepped onto the spire's balcony.
Hello was draped in robes of woven copper, his face hidden behind a gas mask with glowing emerald lenses. In his hand, he held
a staff topped with a fragment of the Silver serpent's fang—he creature she had defeated in the Heart.
"I didn't kill the serpent," the Alchemist chuckled, the sound distored by his mask. " I merely refined it's hunger. The forest was selfish, hoarding it's pulse. L am simply... redistributing the wealth."
He pointed the staffat the cage. The green light intensified, and the villagers began to scream as their own life-force was tugged toward the glass canisters.
" Don't do it!" the Yesterday girl cried, but she was pinned down by a net of electrified copper thrown by a secondry Thresher.
The protagonist looked at the glowing mark on her skin. It wasn't just a battery; it was a connection. She didn't aim at the tower. She didn't aim at the Alchemist. She slammed hand into the cobblestones at her feet.
"The Earth doesn't belong to you," she whispered.
She didn't send a bolt of power. She sent a call. Through the stone, through the oil, down to the roots that the machines were trying to bleed.
The ground didn't just shake; it opened. Not in a crack, but in a blossoming of giant, bioluminescent lilies of giant, bioluminescent lilies that erupted directly beneath the iron cage, catching it in a soft, springy cushion of petals as the chains snapped.
The villagers were safe, but the effort drained her. The lilac light on her wrist flickered and went dark.
"Noble," the Alchemist sneered, raising his staff. "But now you're empty. And I still have the fang."