The Unmaking Spell

Ashren

His knees buckled, but he didn't fall.

Not while the Hollowborn loomed above him—its form shifting faster now, a storm of limbs and mouths and voices from every soul it had consumed. It was breaking free of the circle, feeding on its unraveling. Magic crackled in the air, sharp as shattered bone.

But Ashren didn't let go of the blade.

He whispered the next line of the incantation—words so ancient they tasted like sand and iron.

Blood dripped from his nose.

The Hollowborn laughed.

"You are dying."

Ashren smiled faintly. "So are you."

---

Selene

She drove Liora to her knees.

But she couldn't finish it.

Not yet.

The thing inside Liora twisted her daughter's body like a puppet, coughing black smoke, skin cracking from the force of resisting Selene's attacks. Her magic was fire, relentless—but Liora was still in there.

She could feel her.

"Don't make me do this," Selene begged, voice shaking.

Liora's mouth moved. For a breath—a blink—her eyes cleared.

"End it."

And then she screamed, the Hollow reasserting control.

Selene unleashed her final spell, a lancing bolt of light straight through Liora's chest.

The circle surged.

The Hollowborn roared.

---

The Hollowborn

It felt her death.

It felt it.

And for the first time—it staggered.

The anchor to its fail-safe was gone. The tether it wove into Liora's soul severed. The circle began to repair itself, driven by Selene's final sacrifice.

Ashren seized the moment.

He plunged the blade—his soulbound blade—into the Hollowborn's heart.

And uttered the final phrase:

"I return you to the void that made you."

---

The World Trembles

Light. Endless, suffocating light.

The Hollowborn thrashed, trying to shed form, trying to become shadow, mist, voice—anything to escape.

But the binding circle held.

And Ashren—bleeding, shaking, barely conscious—held the blade steady.

"You are not my fate," he whispered.

"You are my vengeance."

And with that, the Hollowborn shattered.

Not just body.

But being.

---

Aftermath

Silence fell like snow.

The runes dimmed.

The circle turned to ash.

Ashren collapsed beside what remained—nothing but dust and a faint, pulsing echo that would fade with the wind.

Selene crawled to him, broken and grieving.

"She's gone," she whispered.

Ashren nodded.

"So is it."

But neither could forget:

The void doesn't die.

It waits.