Chapter 926: Second Anchor: Activated (2)

"Make it move left," Liam said.

Asher sent a controlled pulse of blue heat along the crack beside the Hollowback rather than at its body. The flame slid low across the stone, heating the line without exploding it. The creature recoiled, plates grinding softly, and shifted away from the warmth. As it moved, two more sections of the road shivered in response.

"Three at least," Celia said from above. "No, four. One near the carriage remains. One under the marker path."

"The marker path matters," Liam said.

"I noticed."

He formed a narrow spike of shadow in his hand and threw it into the ground near the carriage remains. It pierced a patch of dust beside a sunken wheel. The ground answered with a sudden collapse as a Hollowback lunged upward, jaws snapping through empty air where a foot might have been if someone had tried to pass that way. Asher drove another heat pulse toward it, not enough to kill, enough to force it back under the broken carriage and away from the road’s center.

Liam moved.

He did not step onto the road directly. Not yet. He used the raised edge of a retaining wall, a half-buried stone marker, then a section of root-wrapped ground Celia had not marked as unstable. Each movement tested weight before committing. Shadow Sight sharpened the gaps beneath the road, showing where darkness pooled under thin stone and where something alive disturbed the wrong edges of those pools. He marked one safe landing with a small cut of shadow against a slab, then tossed another stone farther ahead.

The second Hollowback rose faster.

It erupted from a mound of broken paving near the direct line to the anchor, shell expanding as if the mound had become a shield. Its claws struck the slab Liam had been about to test. The stone dropped inward under the impact, revealing a hollow beneath deep enough to swallow a student to the waist if not worse.

"Useful," Liam said.

Asher laughed once. "You call that useful?"

"It revealed the hole."

"You are a miserable creature."

Asher pushed forward along the edge Liam had marked, blue flame tight around his boots to help him redirect without cracking the stone beneath him. The first Hollowback lunged toward him from the side, but he did not meet it with a wide swing. He stepped back, slashed a crescent of heat across the ground in front of its claws, and forced it to lift its weight awkwardly. Its shell opened just enough to expose pale underside.

Liam’s dagger flew.

It struck the softer flesh beneath the shell, not deep enough to kill but enough to make the creature jerk away from the anchor route. Asher followed with a compact burst of flame to the underside, scorching without blasting. The Hollowback slammed back into the rubble, hissing through its stone skull of a head.

Celia’s voice came sharper. "The area near the snapped marker has the least interference. The ground is still broken, but the signatures are not layered there. If you angle from the retaining wall to that marker, then across the raised slab, you can reach the anchor without crossing the deepest hollow."

Liam looked where she indicated.

She was right.

The path was ugly, narrow, and one bad step away from becoming a fall, but it existed.

"Raven," Celia said.

Raven shifted before the next threat fully revealed itself.

A Hollowback erupted beneath the dead tree she had been about to use as another perch. The trunk cracked, roots tearing from the roadbank as the creature’s shell rose through the base. Raven launched sideways in the same instant, wings snapping open. Stone fragments and dead bark scattered beneath her. Celia gripped hard, her body jolting with the sudden movement, but Raven’s claws caught another raised wall edge cleanly before the collapse could drag them down.

For one breath, Celia stared at the shattered perch she had nearly trusted.

Then she looked at Raven.

"Good movement," she said, restrained but honest.

Raven turned her head just enough to give Celia a look of deep offense.

The compliment was apparently insufficient.

Asher saw it and barked a laugh before ducking a swipe from the Hollowback near the carriage. "Your shadow bird-cat has standards."

"She has ears," Liam said.

"Good. Then she heard me compliment her."

"That was not a compliment."

"It was close enough."

"No."

Liam moved again before the exchange could become more useless. He crossed the retaining wall, landed on the snapped marker, and used a small shadow platform to test the raised slab ahead without placing his full weight on it. The slab held. The darkness beneath it was shallow, not empty. He crossed.

The anchor sat within reach now, but the stone post around it had shifted. Rubble and dust had jammed the lower edge of the device, and one root had grown across part of its activation surface. Celia could not use it cleanly unless someone cleared it without breaking the stone post or triggering the Hollowback beneath the marker path.

"Hot head," Liam said. "Keep the nearest one back."

"Already doing it."

Asher planted his feet on a stable edge and sent a narrow blue flame pulse along the crack where the Hollowback under the marker path had begun to rise. The heat forced the creature to withdraw from the immediate area without collapsing the slab above it. It hated the flame but did not have enough room to lunge through it.

Liam used a thin shadow blade to cut away the root covering the anchor, then scraped dust and stone grit from the lower edge with the flat of his dagger. The post trembled beneath his hand.

Celia descended with Raven to the raised wall nearest him, then stepped down carefully onto the safe marker he had used. Raven hovered close rather than landing on the road itself, wings beating with controlled force that stirred dust without driving it into the anchor.

"Here," Liam said, shifting aside just enough to give Celia access.

She crouched by the device, eyes narrowing. "It is jammed, but the rhythm is there."

"Hurry," Asher said, flame straining against another Hollowback’s push. "This one is very committed to becoming gravel."

"Do not break the road," Liam said.

"Tell the road to stop being alive."

Celia placed her hand against the exposed activation surface. The first pulse of Myst flickered unevenly and died. She adjusted immediately, lowering the pressure and feeding the anchor in smaller intervals to avoid pushing against the jammed section. The device hummed once, then stuttered as the ground beneath it shifted.

Liam drove a shadow spike into the crack beside the post, not into the anchor, but into the stone around it, bracing the smallest movement for the few seconds she needed.

"Again," he said.

Celia did.

This time the anchor answered.

Its surface brightened, the academy markings glowing through dust and old damage. The hum steadied, then locked into place with a pulse that traveled through their insignias.

A task update appeared.

Northern Collapsed Road Anchor: Activated.

Remaining Anchors: 1/3.

Asher grinned and stepped forward toward the nearest Hollowback as if the update had freed him to make worse choices. "Now can I finish this ugly road parasite?"

"No," Liam said.

"It tried to bite me."

"Many things do."

"That sounds like a reason."

"Our objective is complete."

"It is still moving."

"So are we."

Asher looked genuinely displeased. "You are allergic to satisfaction."

"I am allergic to wasting time."

The Hollowback beneath the marker path shifted again, but not aggressively enough to force a fight. The heat, injuries, and activated anchor had disrupted the immediate trap. More might still be under the road. That was the point. There was no value in staying long enough to discover how many.

Celia stood and returned to Raven. This time, her hesitation was shorter. She still did not look pleased about mounting the shadow beast, and Raven still looked as if she considered carrying Celia a moral burden, but the movement was quicker and less stiff. Practical trust, perhaps.

Liam checked the remaining time through the task display, then looked eastward.

"One left," he said. "Eastern ravine path."

Asher exhaled like someone being denied a second helping of violence and fell in beside him. Raven lifted Celia from the broken edge of the road and rose above the unstable ground. Behind them, the northern anchor continued to glow near the leaning marker, surrounded by a road that still looked ready to swallow anything foolish enough to believe the danger had ended.

They had two anchors activated.

The task was not getting easier.

Liam turned from the collapsed road and started toward the eastern ravine.