Celeste couldn’t pull her eyes away from Murasa’s corpse, no matter how she tried.

  She didn’t cry.

  Not at first.

  Barton and Haizen were there too. She knew that—and she knew that if they didn’t move, they would all meet the same fate as their leader.

  But none of that seemed to matter.

  No amount of rationalization could make her body move. Or theirs. Even Haizen—ever the level-headed knight, brash at times but deeply loyal—stood frozen. Barton as well—a kind man, though violence was never his forte, nor had he much stomach for it.

  And Celeste herself had never been particularly emotional. She was usually driven by logic, dedicated wholly to her craft—her magic.

  It was Murasa who had brought her head out of the clouds. Who grounded her. Who showed her the value of existence beyond even the most complex of spells. He taught her that life was something to cherish—something to enjoy beside those you could trust.

  Haizen, too, had learned much from their leader: that duty mattered, but so did love—and the bonds it could tether.

  Murasa had always had a soft spot for Barton. Though both pursued faith in their own ways, the righteous paladin did what he could to spare the kindly priest from violence, even as he encouraged Barton’s gift for healing.

  He was more than a leader.

  He was their friend.

  And when her tears finally came, despite the impending doom, Celeste’s mind slipped away—

  —to that day.

  The day she fell for him.

  * * *

  Sunlight through stained glass, fractured into bands of gold and red that painted the stone floor. Celeste remembered thinking how inefficient it was—such elaborate windows when simple ones would have sufficed. She’d been halfway through voicing that thought when Murasa laughed.

  Not mocked. Never that.

  Just… warm.

  He’d leaned back against one of the pews, arms crossed over his broad chest, maul resting nearby as if even here he refused to be entirely unarmed. “You see the world like a puzzle,” he’d said. “That’s not a flaw.”

  She’d bristled. Told him she didn’t need reassurance.

  He only smiled wider. “I know. But sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that beauty…doesn’t need to be perfect.”

  Later—much later—she would realize that was the moment she began falling. Not when he’d saved her life in battle. Not when he’d praised her magic. But when he’d sat beside her in quiet, content to let her be exactly as she was.

  And when he’d later reached for her hand, calloused fingers gentle despite their strength, she hadn’t pulled away.

  She’d let herself feel.

  Now, standing amid ruin and death, that warmth shattered.

  * * *

  Celeste sucked in a sharp breath, the memory tearing away as reality crashed back in. The smell of scorched stone. Fell corruption. Blood.

  Murasa lay where he’d fallen.

  Her chest hitched, sobs coming freely as her knees threatened to give out. Barton murmured a broken prayer beside her, hands trembling. Haizen’s jaw was clenched so tightly she thought it might crack, his twinblade still lowered—forgotten.

  Celeste wiped at her eyes with shaking fingers.

  The demon didn’t care about her grief, nor would it wait for it.

  As it leveled its weapon once more at what remained of the formation, Celeste didn’t even try to weave a spell. She was empty. She knew it. And she knew it wouldn’t matter.

  She closed her eyes.

  Tears carved clean lines through soot and ash as she felt the Fell energy swell—felt the same killing intent that had taken Murasa. Weaker, perhaps. Maybe even the demon had limits. Or maybe it knew none of them were as strong as that lone paladin.

  The atmosphere tore open as the beam fired.

  She braced for death.

  Instead—

  A sound like a collapsing star split the world apart.

  Reality cracked.

  Celeste’s eyes flew open.

  White and black radiance tore through the beam’s heart, warping it, breaking it—stopping it. A lone figure stood in the path of annihilation, not dodging, not deflecting, but holding.

  “Murasa…?” she whispered, more plea than question.

  No.

  This energy was different.

  …It was him.

  That peculiar ranger.

  A silhouette of opposing light.

  Her breath caught as the beam fractured and tore away, finally detonating against the far side of the ruins in a cataclysmic blast that sent shockwaves across the ground.

  Silence followed.

  He had done it.

  Against all reason—

  He had saved them.

  The demon lifted one clawed hand.

  Space twisted.

  Three more Fell sorcerers warped into existence, boots grinding against scorched stone as they took form around him—robes whispering, eyes already glowing with corruption.

  He had called his generals.

  My jaw tightened as I stepped forward.

  So be it.

  He might have brought reinforcements—but I had champions of my own.

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  I turned back to my party.

  “Selene,” I said, my voice steady despite the ringing still echoing in my skull. “Your injury?”

  She straightened as much as she could, one hand still pressed faintly to her side. “It’s closed,” she said. “For now. The priest reached me in time.”

  Good enough.

  I nodded once. “I’ll need you.”

  Her brow furrowed—not in doubt, but focus.

  “Organize the attack,” I continued. “Stay out of direct combat if you can. Lead them. You see openings the rest of us don’t—make sure they don’t miss them.”

  She met my gaze, then nodded sharply. “Understood.”

  My eyes shifted.

  “Bront. Kaela. Lyria.”

  They were already watching me.

  “Follow Selene’s orders,” I said. “Coordinate with the others. Take down the sorcerers before they can support the demon.”

  Kaela snorted, wiping blood from her lip, that familiar crooked grin forcing its way through the exhaustion. “Who died and made you king?”

  I smirked back at her. “You can complain after we win.”

  Bront didn’t speak—he simply nodded, shoulders squaring, resolve settling into him like bedrock.

  Lyria tied her hair back with her last blue ribbon, fingers trembling just slightly as she blinked away the moisture clinging to her lashes. Then she nodded too.

  That was enough.

  I turned and walked toward the other survivors.

  Celeste. Haizen. Barton. Jango. Coles.

  As I approached, Celeste looked up at me—and froze.

  Her eyes widened, not in fear, but disbelief.

  I grew conscious of it then—the way Grahamut’s reforging had changed me. The exposed skin along my arms and neck bore a lattice of new scars, hexagonal patterns like shattered honeycomb etched into flesh that hadn’t been mine for long.

  Barton stared openly.

  Jango swallowed.

  Haizen’s helm hid his expression, but I could feel his attention like a blade’s edge.

  “I’m sorry,” I said simply.

  The words felt too small. But they were honest.

  “You didn’t just lose a leader,” I continued, my voice lower now. “You lost a friend.”

  Celeste’s lips trembled. Her hands clenched at her sides.

  “I know my words might mean nothing to you,” I went on. “I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye.”

  My gaze moved—Haizen, then Barton, then Jango.

  “And I know some of you don’t trust me.”

  Silence stretched.

  The Fell sorcerers began to chant behind us.

  “But right now,” I said, stepping forward, “I only have one goal.”

  I lifted my gaze toward the demon.

  “We kill that damned thing,” I said coldly. “We avenge Murasa. And we all leave these black woods alive.”

  Something shifted.

  Barton straightened, knuckles whitening around his staff. Haizen’s twinblade rose—slow, deliberate. Celeste wiped at her eyes, then nodded once, sharp and resolute.

  “Ranger,” she said hoarsely. “Don’t you dare die… Not after giving us hope.”

  I gave her a small, crooked smile.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  I turned away before the weight of it could settle any deeper.

  As I stepped forward, power answered.

  Lunae’s icy blue light bloomed behind one eye—cold, precise, unwavering.

  Tenebrae’s crimson fire ignited in the other—violent, eager, alive.

  With Grahamut’s reforging and his continued supply of energy, the strain didn’t tear me apart.

  The scars along my body burned—not in pain, but alignment.

  For now…

  I could wield their power freely.

  I spoke once more before going to meet the monster, borrowing the very words that Murasa had once said to me.

  —

  “Now go, fight with everything you have—and leave the demon to me.”

  —

  I took one final step—and the ground beneath my boots cracked.

  * * *

  Grahamut was already charging when I made it to his flank, each stride propelling me forward further than what should have been possible.

  “Grahamut—! We need to separate the demon!” I shouted over the roar of fracturing earth and the shriek of twisting vines.

  He answered with action.

  With a guttural rumble that vibrated through my bones, the forest god skidded to a halt and slammed both fists into the ground. The impact rippled outward like a living shockwave, the earth convulsing as if struck by a meteor.

  Three towering walls of stone and packed soil erupted upward, surging around the demon in a brutal attempt to entomb him.

  The demon barely spared them a glance.

  With a casual sweep of his bident, the walls detonated—stone splintering, pulverizing into shrapnel that scattered across the ruins.

  That was fine.

  It bought me exactly what I needed.

  Black and white power tore through my veins as I launched myself forward, body blurring into a streak of opposing light. I came down hard, arcing my blade in a vertical slash as I crashed into the demon’s vicinity.

  He raised his weapon just in time.

  Twisted steel met Fell-forged metal with a shriek that split the air, the impact fracturing the ground beneath his feet. He laughed—deep, delighted—then released one hand from the haft and thrust it toward me.

  The world folded.

  An invisible force smashed into my chest, sending me skidding across the ground. I tore through broken stone and rubble before slamming into a pillar hard enough to shatter it completely.

  The demon leapt after me, shadows clinging to his form as he descended, eager to finish it.

  He didn’t make it.

  Grahamut surged between us.

  A wall of living wood and ancient trees erupted from the earth, branches interlocking into a towering shield just as the demon struck. The impact thundered through the forest, and the wood didn’t just endure—it answered, vines and roots lashing out, growing and coiling wildly in an attempt to bind the intruder.

  Beyond us, the battlefield had split cleanly.

  The three Fell sorcerers remained near the base of the stepped pyramid—isolated, cut off from their master.

  Job done.

  The remaining adventurers surged forward.

  They broke into small units of two or three—splitting toward each sorcerer with practiced precision.

  Kaela, Bront, Barton.

  Celeste, Jango.

  Coles, Haizen, Lyria.

  Selene moved between them like a streak of lightning, shouting orders, intercepting spells mid-flight, her blade flashing as she carved openings through the storm of Fell magic.

  A smile cracked through pain and blood, Lun and Ten’s aura flaring around me—empowering me, healing me.

  I’d never felt this much energy before. This much raw power. The mark on my chest swirled hungrily as I forced myself upright once more, just as the demon incinerated the reaching vines. Its bright red eyes locked onto me, and in that same instant, the sword of twin metals began to buzz.

  I lifted the blade.

  Radiance blacker than night coated the darker metal, crackling with red lightning. The silver half, conversely, glimmered with pale, icy-blue light—both energies twisting together, humming in resonance.

  Hoisting it over my head and clasping the handle in both hands, I felt its weight. Without their strength, lifting the blade would have been like holding up the sky. Even the ground beneath me strained, unable to fully support the sheer density of it.

  Somehow—without instruction—I knew what to do.

  The demon lifted its bident, assuming a defensive stance as the energy it had drawn from the shard swelled in response.

  Without hesitation, I let the blade fall, slashing forward with all my might.

  Unleashed from the sword in a screaming arc, a blinding surge of pale blue and black-crimson—merged into something almost violet—tore forward, ripping everything apart in its path.

  The demon answered with its own beam of hellfire, now tinged red with the shard’s power. But my strike broke through it, crashing into the demon in an explosion of colliding light and force.

  For a moment, I could only stand there—panting—feeling sweat evaporate from my skin before it could fall.

  Grahamut stepped beside me, silent, but I knew he was thinking the same thing I was.

  As the dust slowly began to settle, only one question remained—

  Had that been enough?