The tremors intensified.
Chunks of ancient stone fell from the ruined temple, thudding into the soaked earth around Liora. The masked White Circle soldier, still standing before her, paused—his hands clenching into fists, tension rolling off his massive frame.
Even he felt it.
The thing beneath them… it was older than the Circle, older than any Codex, any Order or Rebellion.
The earth cracked.
With a deafening roar, a fissure tore through the ground at Liora's feet, vomiting up tendrils of violet mist and the stench of rotted time. Something clawed its way into the world—something that had been waiting. Hungering.
It wasn't supposed to wake up.
Not yet.
The masked man staggered backward, his composure breaking for the first time. Liora, heart hammering against her ribs, planted her feet, forcing her magic to stabilize her body even as the world tilted.
A shape emerged from the fog—tall, grotesque, a skeletal titan with armor fused into its broken bones. Where its eyes should have been were burning coals, deep and furious.
The air around it warped.
"Child of the Tethered Soul," it rasped, its voice scraping through the marrow of the earth. "You have broken the seals. You have offered blood. I rise."
The masked man cursed under his breath in a language Liora didn't recognize. For the first time, the enemy of her enemy looked… afraid.
The creature's burning gaze fell onto Liora, and despite the searing power still thrumming inside her from the Heartstone, her knees threatened to buckle.
"You're strong.""But not enough," the voice inside her whispered.
The Heartstone pulsed at her side, vibrating wildly, almost panicked.
Liora bit down on her fear. She was no child. Not anymore. She had suffered, she had fought, she had bled for her power.
If this thing thought she would kneel—
It would learn differently.
With a roar, Liora hurled a blast of soul-forged fire straight at the titan.
It hit—hard enough to shatter mountains.And yet, the creature barely flinched.
Instead, it moved with terrifying speed. In a heartbeat, it was inches from her, a massive hand slamming down.
Liora barely rolled away in time, the impact sending a shockwave that flattened trees and sent the masked soldier flying like a rag doll.
Gasping, Liora scrambled to her feet.
She needed more.
More than what the Heartstone could offer. More than what her necromancy and soul-forging could conjure.
She needed to become something else entirely.
And somewhere, deep inside her—buried beneath layers of grief, rage, and raw survival—something ancient stirred.A gift from her bloodline.
Alric's legacy.
Not just necromancy.Not just soul magic.
A power that tethered worlds.
She remembered the faint whispers of her ancestors, the forgotten spells woven into her dreams.
The Veilborn Rite.
The titan lunged again, but this time Liora met it head-on.
She drew a line in the air with her bloodied fingers, chanting words that burned her tongue.
The world shivered.
Tendrils of blue fire erupted around her, weaving a lattice in the sky—a gateway, half-formed, trembling under the strain of her incomplete understanding.
The titan hesitated.
A mistake.
Liora thrust her palms forward, and the gateway behind her flared open, unleashing a torrent of ancestral spirits—shades of warriors, sorcerers, and forgotten gods—who battered against the creature.
The titan roared, the force staggering it backward.
For a moment, just a heartbeat, Liora saw a flash of fear in its burning gaze.
She could win.
If she survived.
The masked soldier had recovered now, limping toward her with his weapon drawn. But he wasn't looking at Liora anymore.
He was looking at the titan.
And in an act that Liora never would have expected from one of the Circle—he knelt beside her.
"This thing isn't one of ours," he growled, voice low and rough. "We seal it together, or we all die."
Liora's laugh was short and sharp.
"Seal it?" she spat. "I woke it up. I'll put it down."
Their uneasy alliance was struck without another word.
The battle was chaos incarnate.
Liora wove the remnants of the Heartstone's magic into her ancestral rites, burning through her life force with reckless abandon. The masked soldier fought like a demon unleashed, his weapon a blur of steel and storm magic.
The titan bled darkness, each wound tearing open rents in reality itself.
Hours seemed to pass in seconds. Every strike brought them closer to death. Every breath was a battle.
But Liora wouldn't stop.
She couldn't.
This wasn't just survival anymore.
This was retribution for every life the White Circle had destroyed.
For Nyssa. For her mother. For herself.
And when the final blow came—when she drove a soul-forged blade into the creature's heart and unleashed a blast of pure, untamed Veilborn energy—the titan's scream shattered the very sky.
It collapsed into itself, imploding in a whirl of violet mist and bone shards.
Silence fell.
The world was broken, the battlefield a graveyard.
And standing amidst the ruins, Liora knew something fundamental had changed.
Not just in the world.
In her.
The masked soldier dropped his weapon and stumbled toward her.
"You've doomed us all," he whispered, staring at her with something like awe—and terror.
Liora, swaying on her feet, only smiled grimly.
"No," she murmured. "I've only just begun."