Jain's eyes snapped open.
Not black, not possessed. But burning—silver, white hot, molten with purpose. The mark on his neck flared like a brand, resisting the darkness clawing at his soul. But Lyra's voice—you were worth saving—rang louder than the hunger, steadier than the chaos.
He stood
The world burned.
Jain stood alone before the Devourer, dust rising around him like ghosts. Valac'turr loomed—a shadow of rot and ruin, crowned in black, its eye blazing red like a dying sun.
Around them, the others fought to keep the possessed away from Jain's final stand.
"We hold this line!" Veyna shouted, face smeared with blood and earth sword glowing with molten light.
"We need to end this," Kael added, summoning a dozen silver spears and launching them into the horde.
Tardyn's weapons became a whirlwind of black steel, defending Jain as he rose again. Siera whispered a word—and the forest itself trembled, hundreds of revenant turned to dust in a single syllable.
Now Kael had fought for long. He was wounded, bleeding from his side but still forming barriers of living steel. Veyna cut a swath through revenants, Flame traveling her every move. Tardyn protected them all, shadows rising like walls.
Rian was on fire—literally—his blue flames forming a barrier no possessed dared cross. Siera collapsed to her Knees, voice spent but whispered one last word that flung a dozen enemies into the sky. The fight had to be won soon or else they would all be consumed by the possessed.
Then—
The ground cracked beneath Jain's feet. The mark on his neck pulsed violently—half corruption, half light. Lyra's death still echoed in his bones, but her voice echoed louder.
"You were worth saving."
Valac'turr struck first.
A tendril, thick as a tree trunk, came down like a guillotine. Jain vanished in a blink. Time bent around him—reality stuttered. he reappeared midair, flipped forward, and slammed both fists into the tendril. Air compressed. Bone shattering shockwaves tore through the clearing. The tendrils cracked, black ichor spilling like oil.
The beast reeled, but not for long. It screamed—a thousand voices in reverse—and a swarm of tendrils exploded outward.
Jain raised a hand.
Time fractured, the tendrils froze midair.
He walked through them—each step deliberate, each breath a war cry. As time caught up, he snapped his fingers—and they exploded, torn apart by their own momentum.
Valac'turr retaliated with a screech that split the sky. Lightning forked across the heavens, and the east lunged, swinging a jagged arm that sliced through trees like they were mist.
Jain caught it.
He grunted, Knees buckling—but held fast. Then with a roar, he twisted—flipping the beast over his shoulder and slamming it into the earth hard enough to crater the battlefield. Debris rained. The forest howled. Jain rose from the dust like vengeance made flesh.
Valc'turr surged from the pit, now burning with wrath. Its wings unfurled—twisted bone and shadow—and it launched into the air, pulling the sky down with it. The winds howled. The moon cracked.
It dove.
Jain leapt to meet it
Midair, they collided.
Not just fists and claws—power itselfcollided. Shockwaves blew away the clouds. Trees in a mile radius vaporized. Jain's fist glowed with compressed time and light, Valac'turr's claws bled void.
Punch for punch. Blow for blow. The others eyes could not keep up with the fight. "Never seen such fierce battle and speed," said Kael.
Jain was tossed like a ragdoll, slapped into a cliffside—stone shattered around him. But he rose, Coughing blood.
"I've leaved a thousand years before you, even before your ancestors."
Jain dashed forward, rewinding time to heal a broken rib mid stride. His speed blurred reality. He jabbed a fist the Devourer's core—the eye. Valac'turr shrieked as time froze within it, flickering violently.
It tried to flee—tendrils formin wings, clawing at the sky.
Jain grabbed it by the throat and dragged it down.
They smashed back to the earth in an eruption of dust and flame. Jain drove a blade of air through its shoulder. Then another. And another. Each pulse of the mark made him faster. Stronger, Unstable.
The corruption clawed at him—Lyra's light holding it back by threads.
Valac'turr twisted, sinking claws into Jain's side.
He sreamed—But held on. "you don't get to win."
Then he reached deep—into the mark, into the power meant to destroy him—and turned it inside out. Light exploded from his veins, channeling it all into his fist—burning white, time compressed to a single heartbeat—and punched Valac'turr through its core.
BOOM.
The eye shattered.
The sky turned white.
All the possessed fell.
The sound vanished.
When it cleared, Jain stood over a crater of molten earth. Valac'turr—gone. Nothing remained but ash and light. The mark on Jain's neck faded, steam rising from his back.
And he fell to his knees, exhausted, free, above him the clouds parted.
And yet...
He looked down at his hands, still faintly glowing, still shaking. Power hummed beneath his skin—quiet now, but wild, waiting. The mark on his neck had vanished, burned out in that final strike. But it had taken something with it. Something he wasn't sure he could name.
Lyra.
Her name passed through him like wind through shattered glass.
He could still feel her—on the edges of memory in the silence between heartbeats, she had given everything. And Jain had unmade the devourer to answer that sacrifice.
"Jain!"
The voice came from beyond the ring of broken stone. Veyna's—raw, desperate.
Figures burst through the treeline—Kael, limping, bloodied but alive. Rian carrying siera, her voice gone but her eyes burning. Tardyn, dragging a broken sword but standing tall.
They stopped at the edge of the crater, staring.
At him.
At the dawn breaking behind him.
It was Kael who moved first, sliding down the slope falling to his knees beside Jain. "You did it," he whispered. "Gods, you did it..."
Jain didn't respond. Just started at the horizon. His eyes weren't empty—they were full.
Full of fire, of grief, of silence, her touch was gentle, trembling. "Lyra?"
He didn't answer. He didn't have to.
Veyna's eyes welled up. She turned away.
Kael placed a hand over his heart. "She held the line. You broke the sky."
Rian looked up as the sun finally crested the treetops—warm, golden, soft.
No more darkness.
For now.
Jain rose slowly, limbs heavy, the crater groaning beneath him. He walked to the center, where a faint shimmer of scorched light still pulsed in the dust.
Lyra's blade.
All that remained.
He knelt, lifted it, and held it to the morning light. The sword gleamed faintly—like a memory refusing to fade.
No word were spoken.
None needed to be.
He turned to the others. His voice, when it came, was hoarse—but certain.
"It's over."
Then he looked to the sunrise, the sword in hand, and whispered—not to the others, but to the one who wasn't there.
"Thank you."
then he took a step taking with it time, the time turned back to the beginning of it all and then it went dark.