The Field of Ash was quiet.
Not from peace.
But from breath held by the world.
Smoke curled upward like supplication. The ground quaked with the groans of dying titans, and shattered wards glimmered like broken halos in the soil. Where once the black army surged, there now stood a single figure, a knight, a lord among demons, forged in void.
Riven.
His blade pulsed, whispering names it had yet to slay.
He stood amidst ruin. A cathedral of corpses. A king of carnage. Unmoved.
But high above, light answered.
Seven wings of judgment tore through the sky, each beating with the fury of heaven's oldest decree. They descended in silence. No horns. No chants. Only the weight of consequence.
The Seraphim.
Not angels. Not saviors. They were retribution clothed in fire.
And at their center, descending slower, was Lucien, the crownprince of Artherion. Blade sheathed. Eyes closed. His very fall was a hymn. The light around him bent not out of reverence, but recognition.
He landed first.
The field trembled.
And Riven smiled.
"It took all of you," the shadowborn whispered, his voice a rasp of blade against bone.
Lucien said nothing. He stepped forward.
The first strike came not from Riven, but from the seraph known as Aurelion the Blazing Veil. His blade was a whip of starlight, coiling through air like a comet on leash. It cracked once, and a dozen shadow beasts still writhing behind Riven were incinerated.
Riven moved.
Too late.
Aurelion's strike didn't aim to kill.
It was a signal.
The seraphim began.
One by one.
Each wielded a different dominion, light, time, judgment, fire, silence, gravity, memory. Their movements harmonized like celestial chords, too vast for mortal comprehension, yet precise enough to parry every twitch of Riven's void-sheathed blade.
The ground broke beneath them.
Mountains trembled.
Clouds scattered.
And Riven bled.
For the first time.
He grinned through cracked teeth. "So... you are real."
Then he vanished.
And reappeared behind Seraph Maelira, the Silent Gaze.
But her wings did not falter.
She spun.
A prayer on her lips, a psalm that unmade shadow.
Boom.
The clash split the air like a thunderous scripture. Riven staggered. His helm cracked. His sword, that cursed blade of absence, dimmed.
He got up and spun his long sword then summoned lightning on the seraphs.
Then a blur. They evaded the lightning attacks effortlessly, sidestepping with ease and finesse. Aurelion then surged foward. As seraph Maelira fortifies him with buffs and debuffs for his weapon. Then he released a barrage of slashes.
Drain
Paralyze
Drain
Paralyze
Riven fell on his knees after the ordeal. He coughed up blood. The debuffs were draining him fast.
'What, w-what sort of power is this! Where did they come from,' he groaned in pain as he breathed fast as his heart thumped.
He tried to retreat.
But they surrounded him now.
Lucien still hadn't drawn his sword.
He merely walked forward.
"You fought for purpose," Lucien said, voice low. "But it was never yours."
Riven coughed blood.
And laughed. "You think I serve Saevan? I serve what comes after him."
"No," Lucien replied, and this time, the sword did leave its sheath.
The light that emerged wasn't blinding. It was cleansing.
He raised it once.
And Riven was gone.
Not slain.
Undone.
His armor collapsed empty. His sword turned to ash. The whispering voices that trailed him screamed once, then fell silent.
The Field of Ash knew silence again.
And far beyond, the war collapsed.
---
Across the eastern coast, the vampires of House Nox knelt. Their eyes wide, fangs dulled by dread. The sky they once ruled now wept sunfire.
On the southern front, the Crawlers convulsed mid-burrow and died in silence. Their tunnels filled with molten judgment summoned by the Earthguard's final invocation.
The sea beasts recoiled. Krakens dove into trenches. Leviathans turned from war.
The mages of Dravenguard on Mount Vehris dropped their staffs and wept, their spells disarmed by a hymn whispered from the Radiant Choir, still singing.
And in the western mountains, where trolls and titans once surged, the ground itself rejected them. The Knight had walked there.
And his steps still spoke.
---
Atop the black walls of Dravenguard, Saevan felt it.
Not the pain of loss.
But the clarity of inevitability.
The war was over.
He turned from the window as the last draconic banner was pulled down by its own shadow.
---
In Artherion's capital, cheers echoed like the rebirth of a world.
But Lucien did not stay to bask.
He walked into the night.
The seraphim followed behind, silent again.
The war had ended.
But the true reckoning was only beginning.
---