Chapter 22: The Abyssal Dawn

POV: Liana Hart

The shard's explosion tore through the Gray, shredding the guardian's remnants into a storm of light and shadow. Liana fell through the void, Astra's ashes slipping through her fingers. Priam's voice echoed distantly, swallowed by the chaos.

"Liana!"

She crashed onto cracked earth, the sky above Erathia now a bleeding wound. Voidspawn poured from the rift, their jagged wings blotting out the sun. The Obsidian Spire loomed in the distance, its anti-void runes flickering like dying stars.

Erathia Status:

Void Corruption: 60% and spreading.

Casualties: Thousands. Villages reduced to smoldering husks.

A hand yanked her behind a crumbling wall. Lucien, his emerald eyes dull with exhaustion, pressed a voidsteel vial into her palm. "Drink. It'll stabilize your resonance."

She slapped it away. "You did this. You killed her!"

"Astra was never meant to live," he said coldly. "She was a vessel—Elyra's soul reborn to shatter the guardian. Now the real work begins."

POV: Seraphine de Valois

The Obsidian Spire's throne room reeked of burnt incense and blood. Seraphine stared at the cultist kneeling before her—Roland, his mask shattered, void corruption twisting his face into a grotesque mockery of the man she'd once trusted.

"Why?" she asked, her voice lethally calm.

He laughed, black ichor dripping from his lips. "You think you rule Erathia? The Sovereign was always our true king. Lucien showed me… showed us all."

She drove her dagger into his chest, twisting. "Then die kneeling to it."

As Roland crumpled, the spire shook. A Voidspawn leviathan slammed into the tower, its maw wide enough to swallow cities. Seraphine's Blackguard charged, their screams drowned by the creature's roar.

Seraphine's Resolve:

Action: Activates the Obsidian Spire's failsafe—a suicide spell to purge the capital.

Cost: Erathia's capital and everyone in it, including herself.

POV: Priam Lockhart

The corruption had reached his heart. Priam staggered through the ruins of the Gray, his body a patchwork of void-scarred flesh and flickering humanity. The guardian's death had left a hollow ache in his chest, a void where Astra's laughter once echoed.

Lucien found him amidst the debris, holding a pulsating void-core—the guardian's last shard. "You're dying. But this can save you."

"Save me?" Priam coughed, black blood staining his hand. "Or turn me into your next puppet?"

"Both." Lucien's smile was grim. "The Abyssal Dawn is here. The void consumes everything unless we control it. You've always been the key, Priam. The herald who chose the Gray."

Flashback: The First Cycle

Lucien, young and idealistic, begs Elyra to flee the ritual. She refuses, sealing the Sovereign. "Someone must carry the burden," she says. Lucien vows to destroy the cycle, no matter the cost.

Priam gripped the core. "What's the price?"

"Your humanity. And hers." Lucien nodded to the rift, where Liana fought beneath the spire.

The Final Gambit

Liana's light carved through Voidspawn, but the leviathan's tail slammed her into rubble. Seraphine's voice boomed through the capital via enchanted amplifiers:

"To all who hear this—Erathia falls today. But we do not."

The spire's runes ignited, a countdown to annihilation.

Countdown: 00:05:00

Priam emerged from the rift, the void-core fused to his chest. Corruption twisted his body into a monstrous hybrid of man and Sovereign, his voice a guttural roar.

"Liana!"

She looked up, tears cutting through the ash on her face. "Priam… what did you do?"

He seized the leviathan, tearing it apart with clawed hands. "What I had to."

Cliffhanger: The Price of Power

The spire's countdown hit zero. Seraphine's spell erupted, a wave of purging light—but Priam intercepted it, the void-core absorbing the blast. The capital survived, but the corruption in him surged.

Priam's Corruption: 100%

He turned to Liana, his eyes now voids. "Run."

Lucien's laughter echoed as the Sovereign's mark consumed Priam entirely.