The corrupted sky screamed.
Dark clouds tore apart as silver light descended, sharp and un forgiving splitting the battlefield in two.
The ground beneath them cracked, ash lifting into the air as if the land itself recoiled.
The Ashen King staggered.
For the first time, fear cracked through his gaze.
"You cannot end me," he snarled, bone crown blazing with necrotic fire. "I am what remains when gods abandon the world."
Maria stepped forward.
She did not shift. She did not raise her claws.
She raised her will.
Moonlight poured through her veins, not wild, not reckless but absolute.
The sigils burned into the earth responded instantly, flaring silver as the Moon answered her call.
"You were never abandoned," Maria said, her voice calm, terrifying in its certainty.
"You were judged."
Kael moved beside her, pain tearing through his chest as the Ashen King's mark burned beneath his skin.
Shadows screamed inside him, demanding submission.
He refused.
With a roar that shook the ridge, Kael tore the darkness free from his own soul.
The mark shattered, fragments of shadow dissolving into silver ash as Maria caught him in a blaze of lunar fire.
The Ashen King howled.
Chains of moonlight erupted from the ground, wrapping around his skeletal form, ripping corruption from bone and spirit alike. His crown cracked, fissures spiderwebbing across it.
"No he roared. "I was eternal!"
"You were stolen power," Maria replied, eyes blazing. "And stolen things are always reclaimed."
The Moon descended.
Not as wrath.
As judgment.
Silver light speared through the Ashen King's chest, piercing bone, shadow, and centuries of stolen fear.
His scream echoed once,then broke into ash.
The crown shattered.
The corruption unraveled.
The Ashen King collapsed inward, his form dissolving into dust that scattered on the wind, carried away like a memory the world refused to keep.
Silence fell.
The land exhaled.
Blackened soil cracked open as green life pushed through.
The air cleared. The oppressive weight vanished, replaced by something fragile and new.
Maria fell to her knees.
Kael caught her, breathless laughter breaking through tears. "It's over," he whispered.
She rested her forehead against his. "Yes," she said softly. "He's gone."
Above them, the Moon glowed quiet, watchful.
The Ashen King was no more.
But the world he scarred still remained.
And the Moon was already choosing what would rise next.