There was no floor in the lower circuit.
Contracts, golden rings and energy veins hung above a shaft that descended into darkness. The dragon and the basilisk fell among them, tearing through the web with their bodies. Every severed line extinguished the lights in one of the halls above.
Leon caught a chain with his burned hand. I grabbed his wrist and struck the metal crosspiece shoulder-first. The System offered to enhance my muscles with human energy.
The panel vanished after my first refusal.
Below us, the Chain Basilisk closed its rings around the dragon's neck. Kane was directing it through the throne. White plates crushed black ones, forcing the beast towards the central vein.
The dragon could have escaped. His good wing could still hold the air, and a void rift was opening behind him.
He did not leave.
He grappled with the basilisk and deflected the ring that would have cut through Leon's chain.
Kane's voice carried through the entire circuit:
"Why are you protecting him? The contract is gone. There will be no reward."
Leon hung above the shaft and laughed, though every breath hurt him.
"You just answered your own question."
The basilisk tightened its rings. The dragon's damaged wing crunched. Pain struck Leon through the voluntary bond so hard that his fingers opened.
I held on to him with both hands.
"Close the bond!" I shouted.
"Then he'll be in there alone."
It did nothing to help the dragon physically. Leon simply refused to shut himself off from the price the beast had chosen to pay.
Styx stirred under my collar. She showed me the structure of the lower circuit: the void conduit ran through the dragon's core and returned to the throne. The Li family had raised the beast as a living key. As long as the core existed, Kane could repair the tower's space and seal any passage.
To break the channel, the dragon would have to tear out part of his own core.
Leon saw the same image through the remnant of their bond.
"No."
The dragon turned his head towards him.
"Don't. We'll find another way."
He said it as a plea, but the old note of command still cut through. The dragon flinched. The habit of obedience and his own decision were at war inside him.
Leon bit his lip.
"I'm afraid of losing you," he said more quietly. "But the choice is still yours."
The dragon drove a claw into his chest.
Void light burst out. For one instant the shaft vanished: instead of darkness, I saw streets, rooms and cages the beast had once linked for the Li family. Then space snapped back into place.
Leon screamed with the pain they shared.
The dragon tore out a black shard and crushed it between his jaws.
The conduit went dark.
The tower lost its support. The golden rings began to fall, the family doors opened, and the void traps released the people trapped in the corridors.
The dragon began to fall as well.
Without the core, his body was shrinking in mid-air. His wings could no longer bear his weight.
Leon let go of the chain.
This time I was not fast enough to catch him.
He fell towards the beast who no longer had the power to open a rift.
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