Page 45 of Whispers of the Magical Forest

"Stay with me," Bas murmured. His magic probed the edges of my wound. "Don't let it pull you under."

"Wasn't planning on it," I managed. However, the effort of speaking made black spots dance across my vision. "I’m too stubborn. Plus, I’ve got you, Violet, Aislinn, and the kids. There’s nothing that could pull me away from you guys."

The ground shook violently as ley lines reacted to the ritual. Ancient power surged through paths that hadn't been active in centuries. It made the very foundations of Hambledon tremble. Through my wound, I felt the corrupted magic flood the network. It was like watching poison spread through veins. Each pulse carried more darkness into places it was never meant to exist.

"The wine cellars are going tits up," Bas reported as another quake rocked the tunnels. Bits of ancient stone pelted us like the world's worst confetti shower. The wound in my side throbbed, making me nauseous. Pain radiated outward, feeling like someone had replaced my blood with molten glass.

I nodded in agreement. "Yeah, this whole thing's spreading faster than gossip at a town council meeting."

Through the crystal at my neck, I heard Violet's voice crackling with static. "Shit is going down now. We’re out of time. We need to regroup and getAislinn. Now."

"He’s a conductor leading Hell's orchestra," I managed before another wave of pain hit. "We're in the west tunnel, near a hideously expensive Bordeaux section. Cellar organization down here went out the window long ago. Who stores their reds next to corrupted magical artifacts? Absolute savages."

"The resonance patterns in these tunnels," Thanos began through the crystal, "are oscillating between magical frequencies that shouldn't be able to exist together. He's forcing quantum superposition on a metaphysical level. The corruption's creating impossible harmonies. And the wine barrels are acting as amplifiers. The vintage years are mathematically significant dates. The bastard's turned this whole cellar into a tuning fork for chaos."

Bas's arm tightened around me as more stone rained down. The air tasted like copper and decay. There was also something older that made my magical core want to curl up and hide under a blanket with a nice cup of tea. The reaction was instinctual to protect my power from being stolen.

"Fi and Bas are closest to her," Argies's voice crackled through the crystal. It was tight with barely contained fury. "I can smell her essence from here. They're less than fifty meters from the ritual chamber. The corruption's trying to mask it, but dragon senses don't lie.”

"Stay where you are, Fi," Violet cut in. "We'll come to you. No one goes in alone. This daisy chain of evil ends now, but we do it together."

"We’re already moving their way," Gadross added. The sound of his copper artifacts whirred in the background. "My readings suggest the barriers are becoming critically unstable near their position. Whatever Marcus is doing, it's reaching a peak."

We jerked around when we saw movement ahead. We were poised to fight back. But instead of more twistedshifters, Argies burst around the corner. His form flickered between human and dragon as his control slipped. The temperature spiked about twenty degrees just from his presence. Dragon magic leaked off him in waves of heat that made the corruption in the walls recoil.

"I can smell her," he growled. Flames flickering between his teeth. His eyes had gone fully reptilian and were glowing with inner fire. "She's close. The corruption is using her. It's twisting her essence into something that isn’t her. What if we’re too late?"

"We aren’t. She is fighting to stay alive until we rescue her. No matter what, she will still be in there. We will get her back," I promised as I grabbed his hand and tried to keep him grounded. I understood why he was about to lose his shit. I wasn’t far behind him. If Bas were being held, I was pretty sure the tunnels would be filled with my lime-green flames. Argies nodded in agreement and began pacing a short circuit in the narrow passage.

Right as I thought Argies was going to barrel forward, Violet and Thanos appeared from another tunnel. She had her blue witch fire coating her arms. It cast light across the stone while Thanos’s demigod power crackled like contained lightning. He must be as worried as we were. His power rarely sparked like that. It was telling that the corruption writhing through the walls didn't back down at all. The combination was overwhelming.

"The barriers between magical disciplines are breaking down," Thanos reported grimly. His face was tight with concern as he scanned the tunnels. "Whatever Marcus is attempting, it's affecting the fundamental structure of magic already."

"Right then," I straightened despite my body's protests, forcing a grim smile. "Time to show this pretentious git why messing about with fundamental forces isn'tas clever as Oxford made it sound. Can I just say that his timing is rubbish? We had plans to try that new Thai place tonight. Nothing ruins dinner reservations quite like a magic-hungry horror show."

The shadows around us moved in that unnatural way we’d become accustomed to down there. They peeled away from the walls and condensed into creatures that made pus demons look tame. They were former shifters, who now looked like someone had liquidized a Hot Topic store and taught it to kill.

"Isn’t this just lovely," I muttered as we formed a defensive circle. "Thank you for this. This day wasn't already complicated enough. Hey, do you think they've got a loyalty program for apocalypses? You know, buy five end-of-the-world scenarios, get one free."

"That’s a sale we can’t afford to indulge in," Bas replied. The Fae runes along his blade cast an ethereal glow across his aristocratic features, reminding me absurdly of those nights when Dad would hold a flashlight under his chin during ghost stories. The memory felt oddly fitting, given our current situation involved actual horrors rather than imagined ones. "They're trying to drain our power before we reach the main chamber. See how they're moving? It's coordinated."

He was right. The shadow-hybrids weren't attacking randomly. They flowed like dark water and were trying to separate us while herding us deeper into the complex. We stuck together like glue and watched as their forms shifted constantly. One moment they were humanoid. The next they were bestial. Sometimes they even existed in multiple states at once. Someone had taken their physiology and put it through a blender.

"Well spotted," Thanos commented as his power lit up the tunnel. "They're part of the network and tied to you two. Ithink that each one we destroy will feed more into whatever Marcus is building. We shouldn’t kill them."

"Brilliant," Violet muttered as her witch fire blazed brighter. "Any other wonderful news you'd like to share? Perhaps there's a hungry hellhound waiting around the corner?"

Through my wound, I could feel the corruption opening something. It had to be the barriers they kept talking about. Shit! To make it worse, each pulse sent fresh agony through my veins. It also let me sense how the network was changing, so I had to shove the discomfort aside. We needed to know what was happening before he unleashed the performance from hell.

"Marcus," I gasped as another wave hit, “is using each surge to break down the barriers between worlds. He’s opening the way for the First Ones. They’re going to come through any second."

"If they do, we've lost," Argies growled. His voice was rougher as his dragon tried to emerge. "We won't be able to put the genie back in the bottle if that happens."

Before any of us could respond, the shifters surged forward like a dark tide. Dozens of them peeled away from the darkness. Their forms rippled and writhed. They were caught between human and beast in ways that defied natural law. One moment, they had too many limbs. The next, their bodies seemed to fold through dimensions that shouldn't exist. The sight made me nauseous.

"Well," Violet managed as we formed a defensive circle, "I suppose asking them to queue up properly would be too British of me?"

The battle that followed was pure chaos. I’m not talking about the fun kind you get at family Christmas when someone mentions politics, either. These things jumped at us. Their constant morphing forms made itimpossible to pin them down. Traditional attacks simply passed through them. It forced us to get creative.

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