Chapter 16 – The Unraveling
The world returned as a scream.
Lucian struck the ground hard, rolling through mud and divine sludge that hissed against his skin. The air stank of ash and metal. When his vision cleared, he saw the impossible: the valley had been split clean down the middle.
To the west stretched rot.The soil fumed like tar, armor and flesh fused into black statues mid-prayer, mid-scream. Trees sagged beneath their own decay.
To the east, the world froze. A forest turned to glass and blade; ice spires jutted skyward, refracting firelight into cruel halos. The air from that side was ancient, sharp enough to flay the breath itself.
And between them stood gods.
Ursa, King of the Frozen Wilds, towered like a living glacier, his fur glimmering with frost and starfire. Every breath he took rippled through the valley, the echo of something older than creation.
Opposite him, Asad Al gleamed like a corpse risen from heaven, armor of pale bone veined with gold light, rot crawling at his feet, a blade that pulsed with ruin.
When they met, the sky tore open.
The sound was not thunder. It was creation breaking against itself. Frost and decay collided in a storm of blinding white. The earth convulsed, mountains groaned, canyons bled molten snow. Men vanished where they stood.
Lucian's body lifted and crashed back down. His chest emptied of air, lungs clawing for breath. When the ringing in his ears dulled, all that remained was wind and the stench of dying gods.
He pushed himself up. The camp was gone, barricades splintered, tents shredded, fires drowned in sludge. A cough drew his eyes."Garrick," he rasped.
The knight was half-buried under a beam, his armor fused into his flesh by black veins of corruption. Lucian knelt, pressed his hand to the wound, and drew on what mana he could.
Frost bloomed from his palm, halting the spread for a heartbeat. It was not healing, but it was life.
Then the world shifted again.
Ursa struck.
A roar rolled through the clearing like the voice of a glacier breaking. Frost surged across the battlefield, turning corpses to statues. Asad answered with laughter, low and cruel, and his sword rose, cutting through ice as if it were silk. The valley screamed.
Lucian threw himself over Garrick as debris rained down. When the tremor eased, shadows were moving through the mist, dozens of them. Eyes glinted red in the haze.
The Beastborn.
Without Asad's command, they had splintered into chaos. Hunger drove them now.
"They're coming!" someone shouted.
Lucian rose, voice cracking into command. "To the ridge! Form a line! Move!"
The wounded stumbled to obey. Archers, squires, bloodied knights, all broken pieces of an army that refused to die.
Lucian slammed his hand into the mud. Mana surged. A jagged wall of ice erupted, uneven but enough to stall what was coming.
A shout behind him. Auron emerged from the mist, torn cloak, frost on his shoulders, eyes like tempered steel.
"You made it," Lucian breathed.
"Ursa's awake," Auron said. "That's all that matters." He glanced past him."
The first Beastborn hit the ice wall. Cracks bloomed like spiderwebs.
"Hold!" Lucian yelled.
Auron drew Vowkeeper. The blade caught the firelight, its edge flickering between silver and gold. His first strike cleaved a Beastborn clean in half. Lucian followed with a spear of ice that drove through another's chest. The air filled with screams and smoke.
The line wavered.The ice shattered.
The Beastborn poured through.
Lucian met the first with a dagger and raw instinct. The claw came down, and metal rang like struck steel. Sparks scattered across his vision. He looked down.
His arm shimmered. Faint silver runes pulsed beneath the skin, geometric and alive. The claw had met something divine.
He twisted the Beastborn's wrist, snapped bone, and drove his blade up through its throat.
The creature fell silent.
Around him, the battle dissolved into fragments, screams, steel, blood.
Ursa and Asad still clashed at the heart of it all, each impact a world-ending drumbeat.
Then came the light.
Half blue, half gold, a divine shockwave tearing through frost and rot alike.
"Down!" Lucian shouted, throwing himself over Garrick again.
The world became light.No sound. No air. Just light.
When it faded, the valley was unrecognizable.
Lucian staggered upright, boots sinking into black sludge where frost and corruption mixed. The ridge had collapsed. The camp was a graveyard of twisted steel and frozen bodies. The snow no longer fell. It drifted as gray ash.
He turned. Garrick still breathed, barely. The corruption had spread, veins crawling toward his heart. Lucian tried to summon mana. Nothing came. His core was empty.
"Stay alive," he whispered. "Just until dawn."
Ursa's roar rolled across the valley again. Through the fog, Lucian saw the titan still locked with Asad. Every strike painted the sky in blue and gold.
Frost-fire met decay in waves that flattened the land itself.
Lucian forced his shaking legs to move. "Form up!" he shouted. "Shields front! Get the wounded behind the wagons!"
The survivors obeyed, more out of fear than hope.Shapes moved again in the mist, Beast born packs, dozens strong, drawn by blood and ruin.
Lucian's fear hardened into focus. "Archers left! Oil if you've got it!"
The first of them hit. The sound was bones and madness
Lucian met them with what was left, shattered swords, half-spells, and the stubborn will to live.
Auron reappeared beside him, his body a ruin of blood and frost, but his eyes still sharp."The bear still fights," Lucian said."Not for long," Auron answered.
They fought together, steel and ice, sun and frost. But the wave did not end.For every beast they cut down, two more crawled from the fog.
"Fall back!" Lucian yelled. "To the ridge!"
They dragged the wounded through sludge and smoke. The Beastborn came howling behind them. Lucian stumbled, caught himself on a broken wagon, and the runes along his arm pulsed again, faint light answering metal.
"Just one more minute," he whispered.
Another creature lunged. He met it barehanded, blocking the strike with the same glowing arm. The impact rang like a bell. He struck back and dropped it clean.
He turned toward Auron. The warrior was twenty paces ahead, cutting down beasts like a man refusing to die, every motion deliberate, each breath a victory.
Then came the final roar.
Ursa had driven Asad back. Frost blanketed the ground, glittering blue for miles. For one heartbeat, it looked like triumph.
Then Asad laughed.
His sword rose. Gold light flared brighter than dawn.
Lucian's eyes widened. "Get down!"
The explosion came a breath later.Frost and rot fused into molten light. The ridge cracked open. The sky screamed.
Lucian hit the ground beside Auron. No air, no thought, only the echo of dying gods.
When the noise faded, only the wind remained.
Lucian's fingers closed around his sword. His body trembled, but he forced himself upright. Around him, the survivors, dozens reduced to a handful, were gathering again, weapons shaking in their hands.
He turned to Auron. The young man's eyes were open, dazed but alive.
Lucian leaned on the wreck of a wagon and whispered, "Then we hold."
No one heard him but when the next tremor rolled through the valley, every man still breathing lifted his weapon, not because they could win, but because there was nowhere left to run.