The Ashen King's shadow rose like a living wall.
It surged from the corrupted earth, thick darkness going toward Maria, coiling around her limbs with crushing force.
The magic was ancient and heavy with decay, forged to break wills and shatter hope.
But it did not hold her.
Silver light erupted from her core, violent and defiant.
The shadows screamed as they burned, unraveling under the Moon's fury.
Maria staggered but did not fall. Her claws dug into the cracked earth, muscles screaming, heart pounding with a singular truth.
She would not be stopped.
"You are too late," the Ashen King's voice echoed, deep and bone-cold, vibrating through the land itself.
"He belongs to me now."
Maria lifted her head slowly.
"No," she shouted. "He belongs to himself."
She lunged forward.
The corrupted ground split beneath her paws as she tore through the last line of necrotic guards.
Each strike was fueled by raw instinct, by the bond blazing between her and Kael like a second heartbeat.
Every chain of shadow that lashed at her shattered on impact with her silver fire.
At the altar, Kael convulsed as the chains tightened, dark runes crawling across his skin. Pain tore through him, but he refused to scream.
Through blurred vision, he felt her presence,he felt her strength cutting through the darkness.
"Maria".
She reached him in a burst of light.
With a roar that shook the corrupted lands, Maria slammed into the altar, her claws ripping into the shadow-forged chains.
They resisted, searing her flesh, draining her strength but she did not release him.
Moonlight surged violently.
One chain shattered.
Then another.
The Ashen King roared in fury, the sky darkening as his power descended.
"You dare defy me, Moon-blooded wretch?"
Maria placed herself between Kael and the darkness, her silver fur scorched, her body trembling,but her eyes burned brighter than ever.
"I defy you," she said, voice shaking but unbroken, "because love is stronger than your rot."
She pressed her forehead to Kael's.
The bond ignited.
Silver and shadow collided in a blinding explosion that rocked the corrupted lands to their core.
The altar cracked. The chains screamed as they dissolved into ash.
Kael collapsed into her arms, free,but not unscarred.
And as Maria lifted him, breathing hard, blood and light mixing beneath the dead sky, she knew one terrible truth.
The Ashen King had not lost.
He had merely been challenged.
And war had begun.