Ascended chapter 2 part 3

Lyrics

Grogu activated his pulse core, steam hissing from his shoulder ports. Silas’s chains began to glow brighter with each heartbeat. Iana stepped back into the center of the rooftop, already building her healing field from memory and instinct. Azriel stepped toward the edge. He looked at them one last time. “We stand,” he said quietly. “Together. Always.” And then the sky fractured ribbons of red lightning tearing across the heavens. The Soul Storm had come. Chapter 3 When Time Shattered Ten years ago, on the day the storm fell. **Aetheric Wisps** whispered grief into the ears of the living—shadows of children begging for mothers they’d never had. **Obsidian Shards** burst from the ground like jagged declarations, impaling, splitting, cleaving. **Neon Geists** corrupted every screen, flickering with false hope and decaying code. **Blood Mist Phantoms** moved like breath over a corpse—touching, draining, stilling. **Rust Hulks** groaned beneath their own mass, dragging wires, walls, and the screams of the dying behind them. And **Sound Wraiths**—those dreadful echoes—screamed with the voices of the forgotten, warping air and mind alike. And still, I moved. My blades—twin arcs of dusk and dawn—tore through a Wisp that had latched to a fleeing nurse. I blinked sideways through a collapsing apartment, grabbed three children, phased back, handed them to a rescue drone, then vanished again. A Phantom lunged for an infant. I severed it midair. The child did not cry. I moved too fast to be seen. Too fast to bleed. But not untouched. A Geist hit my shoulder. Static tore my aura. My coat smoldered. I screamed only once—inside. But I didn’t stop.