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Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 131: The Shattering of Reality
The dust settled in the air like a veil, the silence heavy and still after the explosion. Ethan dragged himself up from the ground, his body screaming in protest at every movement, but his frozen muscles didn't let him look away from the sight before him.The figure stood in the center of the ruined battlefield, its eyes glowing with cold, eerie light, sending shivers down his spine. Its presence felt like nothing ever known before that's how his feelings were affected. It possessed such an intense aura that it changed reality itself to fit its mien. That radiating energy alone was able to make the earth shake under their feet. The power felt a little weak compared to his flickering energy while feeling the burning flames of his Phoenix. This is now weakly glowing against that new source.Lysara looked up at the figure, her eyes wide with disbelief, still recovering from the shockwave she felt moments before. "No… it can't be."Ethan turned toward her. "What… what is this?" His voice
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 132: The Final Descent
Chaos on the battlefield. The earth shook beneath the clash of powers. So much so that it was splitting open as if, indeed, the very world's heart was at war with itself. Ethan gasped for breath, fighting to find his way onto his feet, his legs barely supporting him at all. The Phoenix fire in him lit weakly, like a dying ember, against this overwhelming darkness that had engulfed the land.However, even as it appeared to waver, its pure light faltered against the oppressive power of the being before them. The figure, which earlier had loomed only as a vague threat in their minds, now stood fully realized as a towering force of malevolence standing at the very center of the shattered battlefield."Never to win, Ethan," the figure spoke in a voice that was like a death knell, a thing cold and unyielding. "This world will break beneath the weight of my power. You were never meant to stop me. You were only meant to awaken me."His heart slammed within his chest, and he stared at the bein
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 133: The Abyss Awakens
The battlefield was in shambles, the sky twisted and torn, dark clouds swirling overhead as the remnants of the battle echoed in the air. Ethan's body felt like it was being pulled apart. His muscles ached, and his breath came in shallow gasps as the Phoenix flame flickered weakly around him. He could barely hold himself upright, the remnants of his power draining away with every passing moment. And yet, in the depths of his chest, the faintest flicker of hope remained.The figure before them once a looming shadow in their minds was now all too real, a manifestation of darkness and despair that had plagued the land for eons. It had been moments since their final clash, but Ethan could still feel the oppressive weight of the figure's power bearing down on him.The figure's form was now broken into parts, cracks shooting along its massive body, its aura shimmering with a malignant energy. It stood, unmoving for one heartbeat, then let out a low, mocking laugh that sent shivers down Etha
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 134: The Dawning of the Apocalypse
The air was heavy with the smell of battle, heavy with the scent of burnt earth and the acrid sting of blood. Ethan's body shook, his breath coming in ragged gasps as the last vestiges of his power drained from him. His sword, still glowing with the faint traces of Phoenix flame, felt like a dead weight in his hand. He could feel the warmth slipping away, and with it, his strength.Beside him, Lysara also wrestled with her attempt to rise, her face pale and her body battered by the blast. The golden light of her staff flickered dimly, a stark contrast to the overwhelming darkness that began to encroach on them. They fought with everything they had, yet it had been too little. The figure before them a twisted embodiment of corruption stands up with its form writhing like a serpent, struggling to keep its shape. Despite the pure energy that had blown out of Ethan, the figure remained alive and worst was even stronger than before."You are a tenacious one, I'll give you that," he said, h
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 135: The Awakening of the Dark God
The battlefield was under Ethan's feet, as the ground was actually shaking under it, with a rift in the sky expanding all the way through. A deep, otherworldly voice began to resonate across the fabric of reality, sending an unmistakable sense of inevitable doom throughout the air. The voice didn't belong to a mortal creature; it belonged to something much more ancient, far more terrible.The end has come, mortal. Prepare yourself for the dawn of destruction.Ethan's heart pounded within his chest. The weight of the words hung over him, crushing him with a force like a sledgehammer. With all the strength that coursed through his veins, with all the strength he had drawn from his bonds with his companions, a sense of foreboding gripped him. What was emerging from that rift wasn't just a monster. It wasn't just a dark force. It was something ancient, something that had been waiting for this moment for millennia.Lysara stood beside him, her staff crackling with golden energy, and could
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 136: The Final Hour
The world was coming to an end.And at the center of the storm stood Ethan, his sword crackling with a brilliant blaze of white-hot flame; his friends and allies bracing themselves for the biggest fight of their lives. The ground shook beneath their feet as dark energy poured out of the abyss and into the world. He towered before them as the insatiable force, the embodiment of pure destruction, with eyes like burning suns and a voice like thunder rolling across the battlefield.For the briefest of moments, all was still. The roar of dark power in the air receded into the distance, the world holding its very breath. Then, like a storm before the lightning, all exploded.The Dark One's massive hand swung down, faster than the eye could follow. Ethan barely had time to raise his sword in time to block the blow that sent a shockwave tearing through the land. The ground cracked open beneath them, and for a heartbeat, it seemed as though the entire earth would break apart. Ethan was thrown
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 137: The Last Resort
The explosion had left an aftermath that drenched the atmosphere. The war-torn terrain, once alive with battle action, was laid to waste, and the darkness of the power of the Dark One still vibrated in the air, carrying residual energy enough to shake the earth beneath their steps. Ethan could hardly stand up as the ground beneath him was shifting, his body aching from the strain of the battle. His sword, now dimmed from the burst of divine light, felt heavier than ever.Lysara toppled beside him, her staff dimly aglow. She had strained herself to the breaking point, yet still stood, unmoving. Each of them looked at the other for a fleeting instant, knowing well neither was done. There was still but one final battle left. The final part of the jigsaw was yet to be plopped into place.Then, out of the smoke and dust, a dark figure emerged one far more menacing than any foe they had yet faced.It was not the Dark One. Not at all. But something dark, much more twisted. The air warped aro
Rise of the Tamer ( Bound by the Beast) Episode 138: The Awakening of Hope
The world was falling apart.Ethan could feel the ground cracking and buckling beneath him as the vortex of darkness continued to grow. The Shadow King stood tall, now a figure of pure malevolence, at the center of the storm. His laughter boomed through the dying world, a god of shadows with nothing more than a flicker of light struggling against the encroaching darkness.But even as hope seemed lost, Ethan's resolution flared brighter than ever."We can't let him win," he whispered to himself, his teeth clenched and his hands shaking as he clutched the charred hilt of his sword. His body was on fire; every movement was agony, but his spirit would not break.Lysara's voice came to him, her determination unbreakable. "We have gone this far, Ethan. We can't go back now. You are not alone in this.He looked up in time to see her stand beside him, her staff shimmering with the last remnants of divine energy. Her face was white, her eyes exhausted by both the desperation and hope within th
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Episode 185: The Shadow That Called My Name
The world broke.Not in a blast, not in a brutal collapse, but in unwinding as if reality itself was being remade, ripped apart at the seams of existence. The light that had burst forth in the Rift wasn't redemption. It was transformation.And Asha was trapped in between.The pressure of the explosion hurled her across the floor, her body floating in midair, her ears ringing with something that was not sound but memory: thousands of voices talking all at once.Ethan!She struggled to get up, struggled to reach for him, but she couldn't see only glimpses of things that had already occurred, things that ought not to have occurred.The Hollow Crown.The battlefield that wasn't a battlefield. The throne, waiting and empty.And Ethan.Ethan, standing before it.Not now. Not in the present.Before.Before he had ever left.Before he had ever been Ethan.Asha gasped, pushing forward, pushing herself back to the now.And suddenly, she was falling.The ground reformed beneath her feet, hard an
Episode 184: The Rift Remembers
A World UnravelingAsha's cry was gone into the abyss.The Rift opened wide, devouring them in a sea of nothingness.No, not nothingness.Something far worse.Something that had existed and had no business ever existing again.The instant her hand had curled around Ethan's wrist, the world had collapsed. The sky tore apart like shattered glass, the earth curved beneath her, and then there was a tug, a savage, screaming tug tearing her down, down, down.The feeling wasn't like falling.It was like being erased.The blackness that surrounded them wasn't anything. It was everything thick, choking, heavy with whispers, heavy with names.Asha held onto Ethan as hard as she could, her heart pounding against the cage of her ribs. But he was frozen, too frozen, like the force of the Rift had already gotten inside him, already started its slow, inexorable claiming.She opened her mouth and attempted to call his name.The words did not exist.Something was amiss.Something was re-weaving itself
Episode 183: The Name That Was Never Meant to Be
The Night That ListenedThe world did not settle.Though dawn crept over the ruins, coloring the shattered stones with pale light, the air stayed restless, tinged with the resonance of something that shouldn't have been said.The words of the chronicler had shattered the thin silence Ethan had held onto, fracturing something within him that was never whole to start with.Asha watched him, still.He had not budged since those words had escaped the Chronicler's lips."You were never supposed to leave that throne.""You were the last."Ethan had just stood there, his shadow reaching in directions that did not exist, his shoulders rigid, his fists at his sides. He did not flinch, did not question.He only listened.As if he had known this truth all along.The Chronicler had withdrawn back into the ruins, its shape breaking down into parchment and ink, but its words remained.Cain, usually the most vocal of them, sat in uncharacteristic silence.Raven moved restlessly, eyes flicking betwee
Episode 182: The Fractured Oath
The battlefield was wrong.It hadn't just changed it had been rewritten.Asha knew it in her bones, in the air she breathed, in the way time itself dragged between each heartbeat. The world was still here, but it was cracked at the edges, as if something huge had gnawed on its shape and spat it back out.The Hollow Crown was no more. The occupant of the throne had departed, but its departure was worse than its arrival.For it had left behind something.Ethan.Asha's fingers still throbbed where he had held them.The black was receding from his eyes, but not all the way, as if whatever had attempted to take him had only rested, waiting for the moment when it could drive its teeth in deeper.He wasn't talking.He was observing.Observing the throne. Observing the void where the thing had sat.Observing his own hands, as if he didn't know if they were still his.Asha pushed aside her discomfort and stepped closer."Ethan"A breath. A flash of movement.She wasn't aware of him getting up,
Episode 181: The Hollow Crown
Darkness bore down on the world.It wasn't lack of light. It wasn't even the press of shadow.This was more than that. This was old. A hollow that didn't just devour it recalled.And Asha was suffocating in it.She tried to breathe, her lungs spasming, but there was nothing only the overwhelming feeling of being observed. The battlefield was gone. The Architect of Graves was gone. Raven, Cain, and Yveth all gone to the black.But Ethan remained.Somewhere.She could not see him, could not hear him, but she felt him like a distant, fading heartbeat being consumed inch by inch.And the throne.The thing seated upon the throne.It breathed through the darkness."Did you think you were the first?"Asha gritted her teeth, pushing her feet onto something nearly solid. The emptiness writhed beneath her, curving in slow, ravenous spirals. The scream that had ripped through reality a moment before still rang in her bones. It had been more than sound it had stripped something from her, somethin
Episode 180: The Throne of Forgotten Names
The world was breaking.Not in body alone, not in land alone in memory itself.It was happening; Asha could feel it, her thoughts fraying at the edges, unraveling like some old tapestry being picked piece by piece by piece. What was she forgetting? What had she already lost? Her own name tasted heavy in her mouth, as though it was at best half hers.And yet the Architect of Graves stood, unchanged, untroubled, unblemished, and its being was a chasm in the fabric of reality.Ethan remained on his knees, breathless, his body warring with reality.The black chains that had bound him before were gone but only because they’d been replaced by something worse.The very shadow he cast had turned against him.It slithered up his body like ink, like living tar, sliding beneath his skin, staining his veins.His fingers trembled, his breath hitched, and for the first time since Asha had met him, he looked frail.Defiance had always been his strength.His will, unbreakable.But now?Now something
Episode 179: The Lament of Hollow Thrones
The world had ended.And yet worse was already on the way.Asha was breathing hard and scrambling up off the ground, the field of battle a tangled, unrecognizable wreck. Colors that didn’t exist churned in the sky above, the very air shredding itself as if in rebellion against reality itself.The Nameless Choir, by contrast, had smashed the order of things to flinders, a song out of tune digging into the very bones of reality and unraveling them, one thread at a time.Yveth loomed a thing of infinite hunger, its zillions of teeth grinding together as it feasted upon the world itself. But now even it hesitated, its impossible form quaking under the weight of something even it could not comprehend.Ethan, or what's left of him, stood recklessly before it. And the voice it was speaking in strange languages, a new tongue he once knew, but each word had been swallowed whole, replaced by the buzz of death, the rumble of hell.Asha had witnessed him cheat death before. She had witnessed him
Episode 178: The Maw of Perdition
The world was broken.Asha could still taste ash in the air, thick and acrid, clinging to the insides of her lungs like something alive. The battlefield if it could still be called that was no more than broken earth and bleeding sky, a wound rent in the very fabric of reality.The cuneiform figure had done something to Ethan, something that couldn't be explained. He was standing, yes, breathing, yes, but incorrectly.The void had taken him.And now it was looking at him through them.Cain remained rigid with the sword trembling in his hands.His face was ashen, and he was panting in short, coarse breaths.Even Raven, the ghost of them all, was the only one to be unnaturally still, her fingers flitting along the hem of her cloak as though she’d just be giving up on this place and leaving.But Asha could not move.She could only stare at Ethan at what had once been Ethan.His formerly recognizable features had contorted, the planes and angles of his face darkened by a thing moving under
Episode 177: The Hollow Crown the Ashen Reckoning
The sky bled ruin.Colors with no place in this world twisted through the heavens, putrescent violets and rotting blacks that twisted like wounds in the seat of reality.But the battlefield, already a Sargasso Sea of lost flesh and cracked subsoil and the hush of final embers, trembled under something formless, merciless, only hungry.Asha stumbled, dragging a streak of blood from her brow, the air heavy with the decay that made her lungs hurt. Cain was still rising to his feet, his sword a useless tremor in his shaking hands. Raven, always the specter, had already melted into the dark, cold and observing. Calculating.And then there was Ethan.Or what was left of him.He stood at the center of the slaughter, his body cloaked in writhing coils of silver and black, his eyes those twin eclipses alight with something beyond human understanding. He avoided looking at his friends. He did not acknowledge their pleading, horrified stares.He was staring into the face of the Warden of Ash.A
