Chapter 108

Aurelion and Miralis came at me together, their weapons blazing with Faith. Solenna’s hair flared into a roaring inferno, her flames crashing against Adhaneth in a storm of heat and light.

Through the fire, I caught movement - dozens of brown blurs erupting from nowhere.

They hit like a pack of wolves.

Ashira, Thalos, Kaelira - knocked from their feet in an instant as more of the blurs slammed into the gate. Wood exploded into splinters.

I barely had time to register it.

Aurelion’s blade came down - I caught it on my shield.Miralis’ spear punched deep into my shoulder. Pain lanced through me, white-hot and immediate.

The flames died. Not slowly - snuffed.

The temperature dropped in an instant. Rain turned to sleet, the mud hardened beneath our feet, and frost crept across the battlefield.

Yveth stood beside me, one hand raised, her presence cutting through the chaos like a blade.

“Cease this madness,” she commanded, her voice carrying with absolute authority. “Seth is not your enemy!”

Another torrent of flame roared toward her-

-and shattered against a wall of ice.

Fire and frost collided, steam exploding outward as divine power met divine power in perfect balance.

Elthira screamed. A brand of molten red tore through her chest, searing from within.

Zelmyra stood behind her, laughing - sharp and unhinged.

“Elyndra stole Dromaia’s Faith!” I shouted, ripping myself free of Miralis’ reach as I parried another strike. “Not me! I don’t know how I absorbed it!”

No one listened. They never did.

Kareth was nowhere to be seen, but I felt him anyway. His Faith slipped into me - quiet, subtle - threading itself through what I’d already taken.

I didn’t have time to process it. Aurelion and Miralis pressed in, relentless. Every second I wasn’t fully focused was another step closer to dying.

Music exploded around me.

Guitars. Drums. Noise and fury and rhythm. “With the fire from the fireworks up above me,” I sang, my voice warping with the sound.

The ground surged upward beneath Aurelion, throwing him off his feet. Miralis’ spear scraped across Adhaneth as I stepped inside her guard and drove my shoulder into her chest.

Agony flared from my wound.

She went down.

I went up.

I hovered above the battlefield for a moment.

Outside the walls, humans and orcs tore each other apart - but they weren’t alone anymore.

The Bloodchildren had come. Dozens of them, riding wargs, crashing into both armies like a living storm.

Moss dragged an orc warlord down, her teeth ripping out his throat as she followed him to the ground. Clo was everywhere - flashing from one soldier to the next, claws opening throats before they even knew she was there. Nim stood on the bridge like a mountain, unmovable, unstoppable, holding the line alone. Tansy waded into the thickest fighting she could find, carving through it with brutal, gleeful efficiency.

Vel and Thae faced Kaelira.

The Tempest Queen stood at the heart of a tornado, lightning lashing out in violent arcs. My daughters dodged around her - testing, baiting, learning.

Adhaneth shifted to a staff again.

I dropped. Straight into the storm.

The staff slammed into Kaelira, the impact shattering her focus. The tornado collapsed in on itself, wind dying in a sudden vacuum.

“And the devil in a black dress watches over-” The music roared.

Vel and Thae struck.

Wind exploded outward - Thae was hurled over the wall, disappearing from sight. Vel slipped through the chaos and carved into Kaelira’s roiling gray flesh.

Something hit me. Hard. Radiance. It slammed into my back and drove me into the curtain wall. Stone cracked beneath the impact.

Aurelion.

Unstoppable. Unyielding. Marching through the chaos like it didn’t exist.

I pushed off the wall.

Miralis leapt in from the side - I twisted, barely avoiding her strike, and swung Adhaneth into Aurelion.

Steel met steel. Again and again.

We moved across the battlefield in a blur - leaping, spinning, trading blows that shook the air around us.

A massive stone slammed into Aurelion’s side.

More Faith surged into me - new, strange, vast.

Journeys. Voyages. The unknown stretching out in every direction.

Mirri stood behind Aurelion, already lifting more stone - four massive chunks, each the size of a VW Beetle.

She sent two more crashing toward him.

Aurelion’s blade cut them apart midair.

That was enough for me. I swept low, took his legs out, and before he hit the ground I spun and drove Adhaneth into his chest.

He flew over the wall and vanished into the slaughter below.

“Help Vel!” I shouted, pointing.

Mirri didn’t hesitate.

Elyndra was gone , but there was a new player on the field.

Across the yard stood a woman made of parchment. Her arm was buried deep inside Ashira’s back - not piercing through, but inside, swallowed by something deeper than flesh.

Words crawled across her skin in jagged, endless script. Her face was a void of constellations - stars bursting and dying in violent flashes of color.

Ashira’s crystalline skin cracked. Black veins spread across her crystalline form.

Her light died. She shattered.

And her Faith - red-gold and flickering - rifted toward me.

“You!” I shouted. The music died. Silence slammed down.

The woman of parchment looked at me and laughed. “Now we will see who is the greater god!”

The sky tore open above her.

Not split - torn. A pulsing wound in reality.

Sound vanished beneath a deep, bone-rattling hum. Light spilled from the rift in impossible colors - shades that didn’t belong, that hurt to see.

Something moved within it. Something vast. Something wrong.

Black tentacles pushed through as the first of the Myrddin arrived.

* * *

The Myrddin poured from the tear like a tidal wave of black ink.

The moment they touched the ground, they surged forward - flowing over the wall and into the battlefield.

Before, they had fought each other to be first. Clawing, lashing, tearing at their own kind in a frenzy for dominance.

Not this time. This time they came through in order. Controlled. They spilled out in twos and threes, each giving way for the next. No infighting. No chaos. Just a steady, horrifying procession.

Adhaneth screamed.

Her form dissolved into a storm of silver motes that wrapped around me, formed plates that locked into place. Armor snapped together over my body - smooth, seamless, alive. A winged helm closed around my face, the world narrowing through its gaze.

A silver sword formed in my hands. Long. Heavy. Perfect.

I didn’t hesitate. I launched myself at the nearest mass of writhing black. The blade cleaved it in two. Flames licked along the severed edges as it split - but it didn’t die. Both halves hit the ground, writhing, reaching for me.

I answered with dragonfire.

Silver flame roared from my lungs, consuming it - burning until there was nothing left but drifting ash.

Above me, Yveth took to the skies. Her vast draconic form cut through the storm, white scales gleaming faintly beneath the heavy clouds. Frost poured from her maw in waves, freezing clusters of Myrddin where they gathered thickest. Mist trailed her like a veil as she dove again and again, a living blizzard.

There should have been screams. There should have been rallying cries. There should have been calls to retreat. But it was all drowned beneath the low, bone-deep thrum of the tear. A vibration that swallowed everything else.

I scanned the chaos. Found Mirri. She was backing away, stone rising instinctively around her as one of the horrors reached for her - slow, deliberate, interested.

I moved.

One leap carried me dozens of feet. I came down on it, driving my blade straight through its mass and unleashing fire.

It disintegrated beneath me.

I grabbed her. Jumped again. We landed atop the watchtower.

“Close the rift!” I shouted.

I didn’t know if she could hear me. I couldn’t even hear my own voice. But I pointed and she nodded.

From the north came pale shapes charging down the mountains. Ashlara led them - fast, relentless. The Troll King thundered beside her, his massive form shaking the ground with every step. They crashed into the corruption like a landslide.

Soldiers touched by the Myrddin collapsed as the trolls’ aura washed over them - grief, heavy and suffocating.

This seemed to slow the Myrddin as well. I wondered briefly if the aura of sorrow that the trolls projected affected the unearthly horrors and what they saw. I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

I fired two blazing spheres into the sky - signals - and dropped back into the fight.

I cut through one of the creatures locked with Aurelion, my blade tearing it apart, my breath consuming it in a flash of silver fire. He said something - his mouth moved - but I couldn’t hear it.

Didn’t matter. I was already moving.

Toward the tear.

Last time, I’d **** it closed. Pulled it shut with my hands. I just had to do it again.

I leapt. Caught the edge.

It felt wrong. Not like anything real - like gripping the edge of a wound in the world itself.

I exhaled fire into the void beyond. The flow of Myrddin faltered, writhing back from the flames.

I pulled. Muscles strained. Power surged. The tear resisted - but it moved.

Slowly shrinking.

Black tendrils, wrapped in dark metal, struck against my armor - sparking, screeching.

I held on. Breathed fire again. The impossible colors within the tear twisted and recoiled. I pulled harder.

The Myrddin fought back. Dozens. Hundreds. They clawed at the edges, prying it open again. Every inch I gained slipped away under their pressure. I gritted my teeth. Strained. Held.

“Thank you, Seth.” The voice cut through everything. Clear. Close. Impossible.

“You woke me from slumber. Pulled the shadow of grief from my mind. Showed me a world I thought was lost. Been a friend… when I needed it most.. It is time for me to do what I should have done millenia ago.”

The armor shattered. Silver light tore away from me, flinging me back. I hit the ground hard, air ripping from my lungs.

Adhaneth stood before the tear, no longer a weapon. A woman of silver and light. Wings unfurled from her back, vast and radiant. Her hair whipped in the foul wind spilling from the rift.

She turned - just slightly - catching my gaze.

Then she screamed.

The sound broke through the silent thunder of the tear - sharp, defiant, final. And then she dove straight into it.

The world snapped. The tear collapsed inward, sealing itself in a violent implosion.

Silence broke. Sound rushed back all at once. Screams. Steel. Chaos. War.

Something sharp hit my back. A black tentacle burst from my chest. My Faith screamed.

And above the door, Serah’s great gem burst into green fire, bright against the rain.

* * *

Carnage.

**** without restraint.

That’s what I was.

I dropped into the middle of them - humans and orcs locked together - and tore through whoever was closest. Claws, teeth, hands, whatever I had, it all worked. I didn’t slow down, didn’t think about it. They were the enemy. They threatened the pack. They threatened our home. That was all that mattered.

And it felt good. Too good. Like something inside me had been waiting for this. Limbs came free in my hands. Heads tore loose with wet, snapping sounds. I split ribcages open and left bodies in pieces behind me. Blood soaked into my skin, hot and thick, and I didn’t care. The mothers were going to be pissed about how filthy I was, but that was a problem for later. I’d take whatever they dished out if it meant I got to be here, right now, breaking things that needed breaking.

Vel’s wargs thundered past, the Others riding them like they were born to it. They hit hard - harder than anything else on the field. Armor crumpled, bones snapped, bodies flew. If the orcs killed five humans before they dropped, the Others killed a hundred. But there were too many enemies. I could see it, even through the rush. The Others were starting to fall. Even they couldn’t keep up forever.

A deep, rattling sound came from within the walls - drowning out every other sound. It hurt my eyes. It curdled my stomach.

Then the black came.

It arced over the wall in strange, impossible colors - like rainbows made of nothing - and splashed down across the battlefield. It didn’t stay still. It moved, crawled, found its way into mouths and eyes and open wounds. It burrowed into flesh like beetles into trees.

The screams, unheard over the bone-deep thrum that swallowed everything, changed. Bodies jerked and convulsed, blood vessels bursting until the whites of their eyes turned red and their tears ran like blood. Then they stopped thrashing. Just… stopped.

When they moved again, it wasn’t the same. No wild swings. No panic. Their movements were stiff, jerky - but precise. Like something else was pulling the strings.

I knew, right then, who the real enemy was.

I ignored the rest. The ones still fighting like animals didn’t matter anymore. I went straight for the ones covered in that black pitch.

I tore a head off one of them and it didn’t even fall. It turned toward me, sword swinging like it still knew exactly where I was. I jumped back, then surged forward and ripped its arm off at the shoulder. It tried to punch me with the other arm, but it was slow, off-balance. Not a threat anymore.

The others were.

If they couldn’t strike, they couldn’t hurt. Simple.

I dove into them, ripping and tearing as fast as I could, taking arms, legs - anything that would stop them from fighting. But these weren’t like the others. They didn’t flail. They didn’t hesitate. They fought back, clean and efficient.

A blade cut deep into my arm. I barely felt it.

Then hands grabbed my hair and yanked me down into the pile of bodies I’d made. They were on me instantly, stabbing, hacking, cutting from every direction. Steel bit into me again and again.

For a second, I thought maybe this was it. Maybe this was how it ended. And honestly… dying for the pack didn’t seem so bad.

But fuck that.

I wasn’t dying here.

I was Tansy - **** Without Restraint!

Something snapped into place inside me. I planted my arms against the ground while my other arms ripped swords away from the enemy.

Other arms?

Other arms!

I laughed, sharp and wild. “Fuck yeah!”

I leapt up, grabbed more blades, and became a storm.

Four arms, four blades, moving faster than they could follow. I carved through them, hacking limbs off, splitting bodies apart, turning that controlled precision against them. Black and red sprayed together as they fell around me.

Nothing could touch me. Nothing could stop me.

This - this was what I was made for.

I threw my head back and howled.