Unleashed

The earth groaned beneath their feet.

Selena held Dante tight as he writhed in her arms, his scream ripping through the silent atrium like a curse torn from the pit of hell. Above them, the moon bled a deep, poisonous crimson, painting the world in apocalypse's hue. The once-calm pool nearby shattered its reflection—now roiling and crimson, a swirling mirror of blood.

"Dante—!" she gasped, her voice cracking with raw panic as his muscles convulsed violently. His eyes flickered—first golden, then coal-black, then a horrific red so deep it seemed carved from darkness. Ancient wrongs clawed their way to the surface.

Cassius lunged forward, his midnight-blue robes flaring around him in a windless gale. He pressed an ornate talisman to Dante's spine and chanted with guttural authority. The symbols etched on the talisman glowed—pulsing to some unseen rhythm.

But his magic shattered.