Chapter 49: The Word of Unmaking
Light spiraled around Jean's form, not warm, but infinite—each thread laced with agony and clarity. The Primordial Codex hung open before her, its pages inscribed with runes written in the voice of creation. Every symbol she absorbed etched itself into her soul, into her very blood. Her body trembled, her heart pounded like a war drum.
Then, the voice returned.
> "The First Spell is not power. It is truth."
Jean raised her eyes, voice steady despite the storm within.
"What truth?"
The Codex turned a single page.
> "That this world was made to break itself. That gods are caretakers, not kings. That the cycle of war, of succession, of dragons and steel—was written to contain what sleeps beneath creation."
Jean saw it then—a great eye opening in the abyss below all things. It was not Antares. Not a god. Not a dragon. But something before all that. Something that fed on conflict, and grew with every spilled drop of divine or mortal blood.
She fell back, breath stolen.
"Antares…" she whispered. "He's trying to destroy the world… to keep that thing from waking."
The being of starlight approached her once more.
> "You now carry the Word of Unmaking. One of the seven final Words. With it, you may sever fate itself."
"But the cost?" Jean asked.
The being said nothing.
It simply placed a hand over her chest.
And Jean Luther was branded—a glowing mark forming over her heart in the shape of a broken circle. A symbol of defiance… and of doom.
---
Outside the mountain, Silvia Luther watched the gate pulse violently. The very earth screamed as ley-lines cracked and winds howled across the cliffside.
Then—
Jean emerged.
But she no longer walked.
She hovered, her hair aglow, white turned silver, eyes burning with script not meant for human sight. Whitney knelt before her as if before a goddess.
Silvia took a step back.
"What… have you become?"
Jean descended slowly.
She looked at her sister—not with fear or pride—but with certainty.
"I saw the first lie," she said.
"And now… I have the means to break everything."
---
Far away, Ryan Magus stood before an altar bathed in blood. The false Codex trembled in his hands, the stolen Word of Unmaking coursing through his veins like fire.
But unlike Jean, he had not learned.
He had taken.
And his soul was already starting to tear.
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