CALAMITY : Legends Of The Chosen

Morgz didn't scream. He couldn't.

Blood poured down his neck from where his ears had once been. Pain throbbed through every step. But he moved anyway, driven not by courage—but by raw, desperate instinct.

The moment he reached the village square, he launched forward with all the pressure his body could produce.

Twin spirals of water blasted from his palms—OCEAN BOREAL DRILL—and he slammed into the statue's base with a concussive roar that sent shattered stone and ancient blood-metal spraying through the mist.

The Siren Queen reeled back, shrieking—not with sound, but with something worse.

A psychic scream.

The air fractured. Reality itself seemed to shudder. Morgz was blasted backward through the square, tumbling across cobblestones like a ragdoll.

His shoulder dislocated with a sickening crack.

His ribs crunched.

He landed hard. Gasped. Couldn't hear his own breath.

Above, the Siren Queen opened her arms like a goddess of ruin.

And the others… turned.

First came Shojiro.

His pupils were pinpricks. His muscles rippled as if itching to explode. He stepped forward, fists coiled, breath steady.

Then he lunged.

The punch came faster than thunder.

Morgz barely rolled aside—his shoulder screaming with agony—and Shojiro's haymaker tore a crater into the stone where his head had been a second ago.

Morgz scrambled to his feet, forming a weak water shield—but then Enme appeared.

A shimmering sigil burst into existence above her palm.

The Phantom Dome slammed down like a collapsing meteor.

Morgz dove, narrowly avoiding being flattened. The blast radius still scraped his back, peeling flesh like bark from a tree.

He crashed against a broken fountain, coughing blood.

His vision blurred. The air reeked of mist and metal.

Then—

CHRRRRRRM.

Karl's arm locked in place. Nanites hissed. Targeting lights blinked red.

> "Locked."

VYTHRA ARTILLERY MODE: SPEARFIRE 03.

A plasma beam cut the air where Morgz had been a heartbeat earlier. It scorched the square, melting old stone and boiling puddles dry.

Morgz ran—limping now.

His skin blistered.

His arm hung useless.

He didn't fight back.

Not really.

He swung to deflect, not to kill. A splash of high-pressure water knocked Enme away briefly, leaving only a bruise. When Shojiro lunged again, Morgz swept his legs with a water whip and leapt away, not striking the jaw, but the air near it. Karl was temporarily blinded by a mist cloud Morgz formed—not even scalding, just enough to stall him.

They healed almost instantly.

Because he didn't want to hurt them.

Because to him… this wasn't a battle.

It was a rescue.

But to them—

He was the threat.

Max appeared behind him—silently, like lightning incarnate. His eyes glowed white-blue. Sparks crackled across his arms. Morgz turned too late.

BLACK OVERDRIVE: TRACER PALM.

The electric strike exploded across Morgz's ribs.

His body convulsed.

His lungs seized.

He hit the ground, twitching, teeth clenched to keep from biting his tongue.

But he still moved.

He rolled, drew up a puddle, forced it into a spiraling shell—and launched it like a cannon at Karl's arm.

The metal twisted. Karl staggered. His cannon fizzled and cracked—but his wound knitted back together within seconds.

Yggdrasil's regeneration protocols.

Morgz saw it. Realized the truth in horror:

"They'll heal from me…"

"But I won't heal from them."

Another punch from Shojiro grazed his leg—it broke his femur on contact. Morgz screamed silently, fell hard, tried to crawl.

The failsafe.

Yggdrasil knew. If Chosen ever turned on one another… the damage would linger. Wounds would fester. Until they reconciled.

But what if they were forced?

What if they were not themselves?

Still, the failsafe held.

His wounds wouldn't close. Blood continued to spill. His internal organs were beginning to fail.

He couldn't outrun them forever.

And the Queen just watched.

Floating above the chaos, smile serene. Her black hair moved like serpents in water, eyes glowing softly as if admiring her work. A goddess watching her faithful wage war in her name.

Morgz tried to form one more water blade.

The spell collapsed.

His hands were shaking. His pressure was dropping.

He stumbled backward, then turned, bolting for the alleys.

Walls closed in. Mist swallowed the streets. He kicked down a door, sprinted across rotting floors, and leapt out a side window into the courtyard of some forgotten shrine.

They were behind him—he knew it. He felt them. Every step sent agony through his body. The world swam. His balance failed.

He needed to vanish.

The well.

He saw it near the edge of the village—dark, moss-covered, deep.

Morgz sprinted, formed a final pressurized blast beneath his feet—WATER CANNON: RECOIL FLIGHT—and launched himself into the air, flipping once before diving headfirst down into the shaft.

The cold engulfed him.

Brackish, still water swallowed his broken form.

No light.

No sound.

Just the taste of blood and rust.

He curled into the darkness, clutching his ruined chest.

The Siren's song echoed above.

And his friends—his family—were hunting him.