Ashes and Ascension

The air stank of copper and decay.

Blood soaked the broken stones of the battlefield, steam rising in curls as the dead began to rot before they had even cooled. The sky was the color of burnt charcoal, churning with thick clouds that had no right being there.

Liora stood still at the center of it all.

Her corrupted army — monstrous, skeletal, and barely restrained — shifted behind her, the eerie silence before a scream.

Across the field, Mavrek watched her.

Not with anger.

Not even with caution.

With admiration.

"You've done well, little ember," he said, arms folded, voice calm. "Better than Alric ever managed."

Liora's jaw tightened. Her corrupted forces rippled like a rising tide. The mask fused to her soul pulsed once — and she gave the signal.

War answered.

They surged forward, shrieking through the broken earth, limbs twisted, weapons drawn from the carcasses of forgotten gods. The corrupted weren't mindless anymore — they were hers, and she aimed them like blades at the heart of the enemy.

Mavrek barely blinked.

With a flick of his wrist, the White Circle moved.

Pale-robed mages appeared from the shadows, each marked with arcane circles carved into their flesh. They began to chant in unison, and the ground cracked.

Then came the Veilborn Wretches — raw, skinless beasts summoned from the Second Echo. Spitting black magic and fire, they met the corrupted wave mid-charge.

And the world exploded into chaos.

Hale was the first to fall.

He'd fought beside Liora since the raid on Mornhollow — cocky, grinning, loyal to a fault. His blades danced as he cut through two Wretches, screaming defiance—

—before a White Circle assassin stepped from a fold in reality and sliced his spine in two.

Liora saw it.

And felt it — his dying scream echoing in her mind like a cracked bell.

She didn't flinch.

She couldn't.

This wasn't a battle.

This was a purge.

To the west, Renna fought like a woman possessed. Her twin sabers blazed with soulfire as she cut a path through the enemy ranks, screaming curses at Mavrek.

"For my brother!"

"For Hale!"

"For the Circle you stole!"

But vengeance doesn't care for theatrics.

A Wretch barreled into her, its maw opening impossibly wide, swallowing her left arm whole.

She screamed.

Liora tried to reach her—

—but Seris held her back.

"She's already gone," Seris said coldly. "Focus, girl."

Liora turned.

The battlefield burned.

Friends screamed.

Mavrek walked slowly through the carnage, untouched. Every attack veered away from him at the last second, redirected by the swirling halo of cursed light around him. He raised his hand — and reality rippled.

A fissure tore across the sky, and something began to descend.

Not a beast.

Not a man.

A god-forged terror, bound in chains of starlight.

"Liora," he called gently, "do you see now? You think you've gained power… but you're still playing catch-up."

The thing hit the earth like a falling mountain.

Everything shook.

Half the corrupted army was incinerated in a single breath.

Liora stumbled back, blood dripping from her ears.

The power… the madness… the sheer scale of destruction — this wasn't war. This was the end of an age.

"No," she whispered. "Not yet. Not like this."

She opened herself wide — let the soul-fusion technique tear her apart again.

Dozens of spirits flooded her.

Hale.

Renna.

Old fighters.

Ancient beasts.

Their strength surged through her. Her body burned from the inside out. Her skin split.

She screamed.

And rose.

Half-human. Half-abyss.

Her eyes flared — the color of the First Flame.

"You want power, Mavrek?" she shouted. "I'll show you what it costs!"

She launched herself at him, trailing corrupted light and ancestral fire. The air shrieked as their magics collided.

Mavrek smiled.

And met her head-on.

They fought like titans.

His blades dripped with entropy. Hers crackled with fused memories, reforged into pure soul-force. The battlefield tore itself apart beneath them, stones shattering mid-air, rivers boiling in their wake.

Neither gave an inch.

Neither could.

They clashed again — and this time, Mavrek whispered something only she could hear.

"You still don't know who you really are, do you?"

Liora hesitated — a flicker.

Enough.

He struck her across the chest with a spell that didn't just cut — it erased. Skin, bone, magic. Gone.

She fell.

Her corrupted minions wailed and convulsed, half of them bursting into black ash as their bond severed.

Seris screamed Liora's name, but it was drowned out by thunder.

And yet…

She rose again.

Barely breathing.

Clinging to the last threads of her power, face half-scorched, eyes blazing with a fire that refused to die.

"I may not know who I am," she spat, coughing blood, "but I'll make damn sure you regret finding out."

Mavrek cocked his head.

For the first time… he looked curious.

Then he vanished.

Not in defeat.

But in invitation.

The battlefield was still.

Burning.

Dead.

The White Circle had retreated — not routed, but satisfied. This wasn't their endgame. This was their opening act.

Liora collapsed to her knees, surrounded by the bodies of those she loved. Her corrupted army was gone. Her strength was broken.

But her resolve?

Sharper than ever.

Mavrek had made his move.

Now it was her turn to end the game.