The wind screamed like a banshee.
All around Mira, the earth cracked, bleeding smoke and embers. Thunder rolled like the growl of ancient beasts. The sky above Elaros split in a jagged wound of red lightning, casting the city ruins in a hellish glow.
And at the center of it all stood Venra—reborn, radiant, ruinous.
Beside her, the High Judge raised his arms. In one hand, the Black Shard pulsed with a heartbeat that did not belong to any living thing.
Mira stood unmoving, her sword clenched, her breath shallow. The energy between her and the Queen was magnetic—two opposite poles, destined to collide.
"You look like her," Venra said, voice soft as silk yet laced with venom. "Like I once was."
"And you look like everything I swore I'd destroy," Mira hissed.
Venra smiled. "Then come try."
The moment shattered.
They charged.
The blast that followed cracked the sky.
Steel met shadow.
Mira's blade clanged against invisible magic as Venra blocked her strike with a swirl of dark mist. The reborn Queen didn't even flinch—her feet hovered inches above the ground, her gown billowing like smoke.
"You fight well for someone clinging to her humanity," Venra said, laughing.
"I still have mine. Do you even remember what yours felt like?"
Venra's golden eyes flickered. "Humanity is a cage. Power is freedom."
With a flick of her fingers, Mira was thrown backward, crashing into a stone pillar. Pain bloomed down her spine, but she forced herself to stand.
"Still alive?" Venra taunted.
"I'm just getting started."
From the outskirts of the ruins, Serya watched in horror.
The battle was more than swords and spells—it was a war of blood and memory. The ground pulsed with ancient magic, as if the earth itself were mourning.
Behind her, the resistance fighters huddled. The survivors. The last flame of hope.
"Serya," whispered a young girl, voice trembling. "Can she win?"
Serya didn't answer.
Because she didn't know.
Inside the palace ruins, Mira and Venra circled each other like twin stars, pulling the world into their orbit.
"You were supposed to be my vessel," Venra said, her voice echoing like a choir of shadows. "You were supposed to die screaming."
"I broke your curse."
"You paused it."
Venra pointed to the sky, where the eclipse had begun again—blood-red and perfect.
"You see? Time folds for me. History is a script I rewrite."
"No," Mira growled. "You just steal what you can't create."
And with that, she reached inside herself—and pulled the darkness out.
Serya had once warned her: If you use the black fire again, you might not return.
But Mira didn't care.
The moment the fire touched her skin, it crawled like a second soul, coating her arms in obsidian veins. Her eyes turned silver. Her heart stopped—and restarted.
She was no longer just Mira.
She was what Venra had feared most: a soul unafraid of damnation.
"Your throne is mine," Mira whispered.
Then she leapt, blade first.
The clash exploded like a dying star.
Serya cried out as the shockwave knocked her to her knees. The palace trembled. Statues cracked. The ground beneath Elaros shifted, revealing the old bones of the kingdom buried below.
It was not a battle of life versus death.
It was rebirth versus ruin.
Venra screamed—not in pain, but in fury—as Mira's blade cut through her glamour. Beneath it, her true form writhed: blackened skin stitched together by magic, a heart no longer beating, a mouth too wide to belong to any human.
"You dare?" Venra roared, shadows lashing out.
Mira's body trembled, blood leaking from her ears, her vision doubled—but she stood her ground.
"I am not your heir," she snarled. "I am your end."
The High Judge, watching from his obsidian altar, began his final chant.
His voice grew louder, ancient syllables curling around the ruins like a storm. He raised the Black Shard, and the earth split further.
From beneath the palace, they emerged.
Wraiths. Hundreds of them.
Eyes like coals. Skin like smoke. Children of the Blood Moon.
"Kill them all," he commanded.
The shadows obeyed.
Serya rose, sword drawn, face pale but fierce.
"To arms!" she cried to the resistance. "Defend the Queen!"
For the first time, she used the title willingly.
The fighters surged forward.
Steel met smoke.
Blood met fire.
Mira barely noticed the war around her.
She was locked in dance with Venra, spell for spell, scream for scream.
But the Queen was unraveling.
"I offered you eternity," Venra spat. "You choose mortality?"
"I choose truth."
Mira drove her blade through Venra's chest.
But it wasn't enough.
Venra laughed, grabbing the sword and melting it with a whisper.
"You can't kill me," she hissed. "Not while she still lives."
Mira froze.
"Who?"
Venra smiled.
"The child."
Flashback.
Kaelin. The girl who had become Venra's vessel.
But she wasn't fully consumed.
Not yet.
Somewhere inside the darkness, the real Kaelin still screamed.
And if she lived—so did Venra.
"I don't have to kill you," Mira whispered. "I just have to free her."
Venra's smile vanished.
"You wouldn't."
Mira stepped back.
And plunged her hand into the ground—calling the ancient roots of magic that lived beneath the soil.
The original binding circle.
It responded.
A ring of flame erupted around her. Symbols lit beneath her feet. The spell—the one the ancients had used to trap the Queen the first time—formed again.
Venra lunged.
But she was too late.
In the heart of the battle, Kaelin fell to her knees.
The shadows shrieked from her lungs.
The Queen screamed.
And Mira, bloodied and broken, whispered the final word.
"Return."
The Black Shard shattered.
The High Judge's mouth opened in horror—but no sound came.
Venra's body began to break apart, her glamour stripped, her power dissolving like mist in the sun.
"No!" she screamed. "I am eternal!"
"You were a curse," Mira whispered. "And curses are broken."
With one final scream, Venra exploded into ash.
The wraiths vanished.
The sky cleared.
The eclipse ended.
And Mira collapsed.
When she woke, she was in Serya's arms.
"You did it," Serya said softly. "She's gone."
"No," Mira whispered. "She's not."
Serya tensed. "What do you mean?"
Mira turned her head.
Toward Kaelin—alive, breathing, but her eyes still flickering with faint golden fire.
"She left a piece," Mira murmured. "A seed."
Serya looked around at the ruined city. "What now?"
Mira sat up, pain etched into every bone.
"Now we rebuild. And we prepare. Because seeds grow."
That night, in the temple ruins, Mira lit a single candle.
She placed it on the altar, where once blood had been spilled.
"I won't become her," she whispered. "Even if the darkness calls."
But in her reflection, the Queen still smiled.