Huarti feels the pull first, a deep bruise of arcane pressure below the basalt seam. He steps through the dimensional tear and drops into Merllin’s underways, where lava rivers race between black stone ribs.

Vast pools boil under a red glare. Devils with red wings wheel and shriek, while wingless black dragons claw at the air, all of them agitated by the same bright source far beneath.

The Obsidian Dragon follows through the tear, his presence steady and anchoring. Around him, the nearest swarm hesitates, then surges again toward the light.

Huarti’s sense for evil arcana catches the fracture beneath the frenzy. These caverns are not just a den, they are a boundary, and the light below is testing who owns it.

The words land cleanly in the hot air, and the creatures below seem to answer the claim with a harsher, wronger shimmer.

The wingless black forms recoil from the light’s pull, their scramble turning from hunger to panic as the ward beneath Merllin strains louder.

A harsh pulse rolls through the basalt, and the black-red seam Huarti marked before answers with a faint, ominous throb.

The upper ward flickers under the pressure. If the source is not checked, the breach will climb.

Huarti answers the pressure with a single red bolt. It cracks down into the swarm and catches one black creature squarely, blasting it apart into ash and hot sparks.

The surrounding forms flinch back as if the strike names them for what they are. The basalt seam beneath them shudders and spits a harsher pulse in reply.

But the discharge bites back through the air and stings Huarti's own hand, leaving a bright burn along his fingers and a taste of iron on the heat.

The Obsidian Dragon stirs under the flare, head lifting at the violence. Their eyes sharpen toward the wounded gap in the ward, not away from it.

Below the broken drift, the black-red seam brightens like an open vein in stone. The upper ward flickers, and heat begins to leak upward in a thin, dangerous draft.

Huarti lets the burn settle instead of shaking it off. The backlash tastes sharp and old, and the corruption in it opens like ink in water.

Through the sting, he reads a split pattern, wardwork forced against something foul and patient. The seam is not merely failing, it is being pressed from below.

The dragon remains half-risen beside him, watching the glow with a guarded, tired calm. The upper ward flickers overhead like a breathing eye.

Huarti's scorched fingers flex once, and the backlash answers with a cleaner pulse, as if his attention has found the shape of the poison. Beneath the basalt, the hidden pressure gathers itself again.

The dragon lowers its head to the seam and draws a slow breath. The heat steadies, pulled into a narrow, disciplined current instead of a roar.

Huarti answers with a measured pulse of red force. The black-red crack brightens, then holds, as if the mountain recognizes a shared grip.

The upper ward flickers once more, and a thin flare of soot-black dust sifts from the seam. The effort costs Huarti a sharp tremor through his burned hand.

Huarti lets the pain settle instead of flare. His red skin darkens in moving blotches, his shape tightening and twisting into something harsher, meaner, almost ceremonial.

The change deepens along his face and shoulders, making his long form feel more monstrous than regal. The seam below answers with a steady throb, as if it recognizes a fitting pressure.

Soot-black dust trickles from the crack in a thin veil. The dragon lifts its head a fraction, studying Huarti through the steam, respect sharpening behind its fatigue.

The dragon holds still beside the seam, waiting. Above them, the upper ward gives a faint, uneasy shimmer, and the crack keeps its narrow, steady pulse.

Huarti closes the gap in one deliberate surge, and his huge hands clamp around the black creature as it writhes out of the steam. Red lightning jumps from his grip into its body, and the thing locks stiff against him.

The drain takes hold. The creature’s foul glow gutters inward as Huarti leeches it dry, its strength pouring into the crackling red surge instead of the ward below.

The black creature collapses limp in his grasp and breaks apart into ash and heat-haze, gone before it can slip back into the seam. The narrow pulse in the basalt steadies for a breath.

That breath is enough to turn the chamber. Above, the upper ward flickers harder, and a tremor passes through the mountain as the hidden will beneath it loses one anchor.

The seam answers with a sharper, uglier pulse, and dust sifts down in a sudden black veil from the ceiling, forcing the choice into the open.

Huarti lifts both hands toward the basalt seam, and the red surge in his grip turns inward instead of striking out.

A thin ring of reverse force spreads from his palms, pale-red at the edge and black at the core, catching the foul pulse as it rises.

The seam shudders, then the corruption peels loose like soot in water. Its ugly pressure unwinds into harmless heat, and the ward above stops flickering for one clean beat.

The last black thread snaps free, and the mountain’s hidden taint loses its shape. The basalt below Huarti glows steady, no longer feeding the wrong thing.