The battlefield echoed with the survivors' pounding rhythm, their broken choir no longer a melody but a storm of defiance. Sparks leapt from spear and blade, from fists and nails, each strike carving fleeting gaps in the suffocating ash.

The boy clung to the rhythm, his breaths shallow yet steady, every convulsion turned into a jagged chant that held the lattice together. For a heartbeat, it seemed enough.

But the fissure pulsed again, dark and deliberate.

The ash quivered. Then—it answered.

A pulse rippled outward, a counterbeat, deeper and heavier than the survivors' own. Each thud rolled like a war drum struck from the abyss, shaking the lattice to its core.

Kael staggered as the shockwave rattled through his fused blade. The widow fell, clutching her chest as if her heart had skipped with the alien rhythm. The farmer cried out, his fists striking his ribs not in defiance but in forced mimicry.

The Unborn laughed, its voice layered across the beat. "You gave me rhythm. Now I make it my own. Your hearts will march to my pulse."

The scarred woman roared, slamming her spear again, desperate to break free. But the ground itself throbbed with the counterbeat, drowning her cadence. Her arms shook violently, the weapon slipping from her grasp.

Elara held the boy tighter, her voice hoarse as she forced out a lullaby fractured into rhythm. "No, my son. Don't let it take you. Stay with me. Stay with us."

The boy writhed, torn between two pulses—his fragile chant and the abyssal thrum pressing into his veins. His glow flickered wildly, half-light, half-dark.

Kael staggered forward, slamming his blade into the earth in sync with the boy's faltering breath. "Don't follow its drum! Follow ours—the scarred, the broken, the real!"

The widow, trembling, forced her voice into the cadence again. The farmer followed, pounding his chest not to the abyssal pulse but against it. The scarred woman retrieved her spear and struck anew, sparks bursting defiantly.

The clash of rhythms filled the battlefield: the survivors' jagged defiance against the Unborn's abyssal drum. Every strike was agony, every beat a war for the boy's heart.

The child screamed, his voice splitting into two tones at once. The lattice convulsed, torn between collapse and renewal. Elara kissed his brow, her tears hissing on his burning skin. "You are not his echo. You are our song. Scarred. Imperfect. Ours."

The boy's scream broke, splintering into a rhythm raw and uneven—but his own. The survivors seized it, matching the imperfect cadence, their broken choir reforged in defiance.

The Unborn shrieked, its counterbeat staggering, faltering under the weight of scars. "No… your rhythm bleeds. It is chaos, not strength!"

Kael roared, his blade blazing with every strike. "Chaos is life—and life will not march to your drum!"

The abyss shuddered, its beat broken. The ash receded, though not gone. The fissure's voice coiled low, venomous with promise. "Then bleed louder. I will take you when your chaos burns to silence."

For now, the rhythm held—and the boy's fragile heart beat on.