Adrian ran toward the battle, abandoning the command center despite knowing it was tactically wrong.
He found Kieran fighting the entity's largest manifestation—a writhing mass of hunger and darkness that had fully materialized in the sanctuary's main courtyard.
"Adrian, get back!" Kieran shouted.
But the entity had already sensed him. All its hunger focused on Adrian, the ancient soul it had wanted for ten thousand years.
Mine, the entity's hunger whispered directly into Adrian's mind. Finally mine.
It lunged, bypassing Kieran's defenses through sheer focus. Adrian tried to create barriers, but the entity was too fast, too determined.
Then Kieran was there, throwing himself between Adrian and the entity. The darkness wrapped around him, beginning to consume him.
"NO!" Adrian screamed.
Through the blood bond, Adrian felt Kieran's pain, felt the entity draining him. Kieran was using himself as bait, letting the entity feed on his thousand-year-old life force to distract it from Adrian.
"Run," Kieran gasped. "Adrian... run..."
"I'm not leaving you!"
Adrian reached deep into his ancient soul, accessing power he'd never touched before. Seth's original power, the strength that had fought the entity ten thousand years ago.
His blood became pure light, brighter than the sun, stronger than life itself. He thrust his hands forward, pouring everything into Kieran, using his ancient blood to fight the entity's consumption from inside.
The entity screamed—an inhuman sound of rage and pain. It couldn't consume both Kieran and Adrian's combined life force. The mixture was toxic to it, burning it from within.
But it wasn't retreating. Instead, it was trying to consume them both, to absorb their bonded souls together.
"If we die, we die together," Adrian said, taking Kieran's hand.
"Together," Kieran agreed, his grip tight despite his weakness.
Their bond flared bright as a star, their souls merging completely. The entity consumed them—but instead of absorbing their power, it absorbed their bond, their love, their absolute unity.
And that's what destroyed it.
The entity had never encountered love before. It understood hunger, understood consumption, but love—true, bonded, eternal love—was alien to it. The power of their bond, their willing sacrifice for each other, was something it couldn't process.
The entity tore itself apart trying to consume their love, unable to digest something so fundamentally opposed to its nature.
When the light faded, both Adrian and Kieran lay unconscious on the ground. The entity was gone—not dormant this time, but destroyed. Torn apart by something it couldn't understand or consume.
Elena found them minutes later, checking their pulses frantically.
"They're alive," she reported through the comms. "Both alive. Weak, but alive."
Around the world, the entity's manifestations dissolved. The rifts closed. Reality healed.
They'd won. At enormous cost, but they'd won.