The silence that followed the massacre was anything but peaceful. It was heavy, sticky—woven with blood and still-living nightmares. Before them stood the monstrous Vorm, its grotesque body still dripping with the blood of its victims. Its mangled neck and reattached limbs pulsed with raw hatred. Around it, the last survivors formed a broken circle—shaking, wounded, but burning with a fire that nothing could extinguish: the will to bring this abomination down for good.
Naelys stepped forward, her blade streaked with dried blood, her gaze unwavering. "It's slowing down. The regeneration is weakening. It can't keep healing forever… we have to suffocate it, overwhelm it before it recovers." She glanced at Kael and Declan. Declan sheathed one of his blades to grip the other tighter, eyes locked onto the beast with icy focus. Nyra and Syla flanked them, their fan-blades gleaming, while Selia, limping but determined, notched another arrow behind them.
The Vorm let out a deep, guttural laugh, a mocking rumble that grated like rusted metal. Its many eyes gleamed with malice as it spoke again, voice thick with contempt. It called them insects, claimed the end had come, that this childish game was over. But this time, its arrogance stirred no fear—only fury. And in the center of the circle, Kael felt something ignite deep inside him. A power he had never unleashed. Not until now.
Naelys' battle cry split the air. That was the signal. They charged. Declan moved like a blur, dodging a flurry of tentacles and slicing clean through one of the beast's glowing eyes. Kael lunged forward, his spear spinning like a comet, slamming into the creature's throat and forcing it to stagger. Nyra and Syla tore through its flanks in synchronized strikes, while Selia's arrows pierced vulnerable joints with precision honed by pain.
The Vorm roared in anger. It retaliated violently. Tentacles shot out like whips, one nearly taking Syla's head. It caught Nyra in its grip, lifting her like a ragdoll, but Kael hurled himself forward, embedding his axe into the beast's limb with a savage roar. The limb tore away with a hideous snap. Blood poured, thick and black. But for the first time, it wasn't theirs.
Kael didn't let up. He moved as if possessed, as though something ancient had taken root inside him. His spear tore through the air, piercing the creature's body again and again. It bled now. Truly bled. Each strike was a scream for vengeance. A scream for every death, every cry unheard, every moment of helplessness.
The Vorm, enraged, unleashed a storm. It slammed its limbs into the ground, sending shockwaves that hurled fighters aside like leaves in a hurricane. Selia was thrown into a crumbling pillar, collapsing in silence. Eron's shield shattered, his arm breaking under the impact. Selia tried to shield herself from the rain of debris, her cries drowned by the chaos.
In the blur of destruction, Kael stood firm. As the Vorm moved to impale Declan from behind, Kael leapt in front of him, raising his spear in a desperate block. The blow landed with the force of a meteor. Bones cracked—Kael's arm snapped—but he did not fall. His eyes, burning crimson, locked with the beast's.
Something snapped inside him.
His scream tore through the sky. Red light burst from his eyes, his veins, every part of his body. Energy pulsed through him in waves of wrath. He raised his spear, which now shimmered with a crimson aura. And with a strength that shattered sound, he launched forward—straight toward the monster's exposed neck.
The impact was cataclysmic.
Kael's spear slashed through flesh, sinew, and bone. The Vorm's head exploded from its shoulders in a spray of black ichor, soaring into the blood-stained sky. A crimson blast followed, shaking the heavens. Kael landed in the dust, chest heaving, drenched in blood—but still standing.
But it wasn't over.
In a trance of rage, eyes glowing like dying stars, Kael advanced on the twitching corpse. He plunged his spear into it again and again, ripping through what remained. He carved through its chest, its limbs, until nothing was left but ruined, unrecognizable meat. His breathing was ragged, every strike a scream for everything the Vorm had taken from them.
The others watched, frozen. Even Declan, the ever-cold warrior, took a step back. Naelys finally stepped in, gently resting a hand on Kael's shoulder. "It's over," she whispered.
Kael didn't answer.
He raised his spear one final time and unleashed a strike that split the carcass clean in two—a final blow that seemed to echo through time itself. "Scarlet Resonance," he murmured. His voice cracked from exhaustion… and release.
Silence fell. Not peaceful, but absolute.
The monster was dead. Truly dead.
The dust began to settle, revealing shattered ruins, bleeding comrades, and exhausted survivors. Yet in that silence, one truth remained undeniable—they had survived. Together. Against the impossible.
But the scars would never fade.