The battlefield was drowning in chaos—lightning tearing the skies, black flames licking the earth, and the air saturated with the copper scent of blood. Alaric's boots skidded on the slick ground as he narrowly dodged a jagged spear of crystallized shadow hurled by the Wraithlord.
The creature's armor was a nightmare of bone and obsidian, its helm an unholy fusion of skull and shadow. With each step, the land beneath its feet cracked, bleeding streams of red qi into the air.
"You cannot stop what has already begun!" the Wraithlord roared, its voice both a whisper and a scream, echoing like the cries of the damned.
Alaric's eyes narrowed. "Then I'll just have to rewrite the ending."
With a sharp inhale, he unleashed Shadow Step, his form blurring into a stream of black mist. He reappeared behind the Wraithlord, his blade Ebonfang already thrusting forward. The strike landed—only for the blade to screech to a halt against an invisible barrier.
A surge of backlash slammed into Alaric's chest, throwing him into the ruins of a fallen watchtower. His vision swam, qi channels throbbing from the impact.
"Persistent, aren't you?" The Wraithlord advanced, shadow tendrils writhing from its back like a swarm of serpents. "You're nothing but a remnant of a dying age."
Alaric gritted his teeth. His hands formed a complex seal, drawing on both shadow and blood magic. Crimson veins flared across his forearms as Blood Convergence activated, pooling every drop of his life force into raw power.
The ground quaked. A rift tore open beside him, exhaling the stench of the Nether. From its depths emerged chains forged from pure darkness, each link whispering curses older than the stars.
"Bind," Alaric commanded.
The chains lashed out like striking vipers, coiling around the Wraithlord's limbs. The creature snarled, its armor cracking where the bindings dug in. Yet even restrained, its aura surged, threatening to shatter the spell.
From the opposite ridge, Lysandra unleashed a barrage of flame-tipped arrows, each one exploding against the Wraithlord's armor in bursts of molten fury. "Now, Alaric!" she shouted.
Alaric didn't hesitate. Pouring the last of his qi into Ebonfang, he invoked Oblivion Rend—a technique forbidden even among shadow magi. The blade drank in the surrounding light until the world seemed to dim, and when he swung, reality itself split open along the arc of the strike.
The Wraithlord howled as the slash tore through armor, flesh, and spirit alike. Black ichor sprayed into the air, sizzling where it landed. The chains tightened, dragging the creature toward the widening rift.
"You… cannot… seal… me…" it snarled, its voice breaking into distorted static.
"Oh, I'm not sealing you," Alaric replied coldly. "I'm erasing you."
With a final surge of strength, he drove the blade through the Wraithlord's chest, pinning it into the heart of the rift. A vortex of shadow and blood magic exploded outward, pulling the monster in piece by piece until only a fading echo of its scream remained.
Silence fell over the battlefield, broken only by the distant crackle of dying flames. Alaric staggered, his vision tunneling. Lysandra was at his side in an instant, catching him before he collapsed.
"You're bleeding out," she said, panic flickering in her voice.
"Not the first time," he smirked weakly. "But… this time… I think I took a piece of the darkness with me."
Above them, the tear in reality began to stitch itself closed, yet faint wisps of shadow still seeped through. The Veil was wounded—and something far worse was trying to push its way through.
Alaric's grip on Ebonfang tightened. The war wasn't over. It had only just begun.