A x PROMISE x KEPT x PART 3
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣
THE WILDS Depth 16 - Ridgeline
Buck is standing closer than before.
Too close.
Like something moved his body for him.
Kyro’s grip on the Relic tightened.
Viper noticed it.
She recalibrated her scan.
Her mask pulsed once.
Her head turned, not toward Kyro…
…but past him.
To Buck.
A small line of blue text scrolled down her visor.
UNSTABLE ORGANIC SIGNATURE DETECTED.
FOREIGN AETHER PRESENT.
Vipers tone carried a cold accusation void of concern.
“…you brought a parasite topside?"
Perfect silence.
Kyro didn't look back at Buck.
He already knew something behind him was wrong.
He also knew he couldn't waste a breath on it now.
The relic hummed once in his palm.
A spiraling thread of flame snapped into existence. Draconic force, winding upward like a whip being uncoiled from another world.
At the head of it: A roaring draconic wyrm of golden flame, jaws open showing a thousand teeth in silent fury.
Viper’s mask logged a new threat level.
Kyro rolled his shoulders once.
Annoyed now.
Done with the warnings.
“So come finish your report.”
He said it calm.
Final.
The Relic snapped forward — and the dragon with it — a spiraling arc of force slamming toward The Fist with the weight of a collapsing mountain.
The ridge split on impact.
The ground peeled backward.
Stone turned weightless.
Every Echo Beacon within thirty meters exploded into static.
The blast picked the operatives up like toys.
Falcon hit the far slope so hard his body folded in on itself — metal buckling with a crash.
Jackal’s rifle melted in his hands, the barrel sagging to molten liquid before he dropped it.
Spider’s emitter surged red, then black, the neutralizer pulse backfiring into his chest and dropping him to his knees, spasming.
Fox who had barely recovered, slid unconscious down the ridge in a limp skid.
Only Viper remained standing.
Barely.
Her boots carved trenches as she forced herself upright, HUD glitching from overload.
Kyro closed the distance.
He walked toward her through the settling dust. Calm, unhurried, annoyed.
Viper raised her katana again.
This time only pretending she was still in the fight.
Kyro stopped three steps away.
The draconic wyrm above the Relic coiled once, tightening like it was waiting on a nod.
Viper’s mask kept recalibrating, violently now, trying to map a threat that didn’t fit any of its categories.
“Report this part accurately.” Kyro let out.
Viper froze.
Kyro tilted his chin toward the trench the dragon-whip carved.
Her mask’s expressionless slit flickered.
Fear.
Real, unmistakable fear.
Then.
A tremor behind Kyro.
He turned half an inch.
Buck was gone.
Just an empty stretch of ridge where he’d been standing.
The parasite moved him.
Or he moved because of it.
Kyro felt his stomach tighten.
Damn it.
Viper saw that moment.
She logged it.
She would use it.
But Kyro didn’t give her the chance.
He pointed the Relic downward.
The dragon dissolved into smoke leaving behind a heat physically felt.
He stepped back from Viper, only because Kit was farther now. Safe enough.
Viper staggered upright, mask cracked down the center.
"You'll have your day, Saint" she rasped. Even more conviction in her now.
"But today, is NOT the day" Kyro responded walking directly passed her without turning.
He just walked off the ridge toward Depth 7. Toward his nephew.
A promise kept.
A warning delivered.
A war delayed.
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣