The ground beneath Elena's feet convulsed as if the Veil itself recoiled in agony. Shadows that once slithered like smoke now writhed like serpents, coiling and snapping in every direction. Above, the sky fractured into jagged lines of crimson light, bleeding into the endless dark.
The Entity was waking.
Anna stood at the center of it all—her figure haloed in sickly violet light, her hair tossed by winds that weren't real, her eyes twin lanterns of corruption. She looked both impossibly fragile and terrifyingly powerful, her body trembling as though she was a vessel that could barely contain the force within her.
"Elena…" Anna's voice trembled, but it was not her alone. It was layered—her tone beneath the deeper resonance of the Entity, the two voices bleeding into one another. "Why… did you leave me?"
The words sliced through Elena sharper than any blade.
"I didn't leave you!" Elena shouted, her voice raw as she pushed against the shrieking winds. "I fought to find you! I came into this cursed place because you're my best friend, Anna! Don't let it take that from you!"
Anna flinched—but the Entity coiled around her like living armor, shadows rising up her arms and spine until her body jerked in its control. She raised a hand, and a blade of pure shadow formed, crackling with unnatural energy.
Kael leapt forward before the strike could fall, his dual blades of shadow clashing with Anna's conjured weapon in a storm of sparks. The impact rattled the air, the shockwave throwing Elena back a step.
"Elena, stay back!" Kael growled, his voice strained.
But Elena saw it—the tremor in his movements, the wild darkness radiating off him, not like before but heavier, rawer, as if the fight itself was tearing something inside him loose. His veins glowed faintly with dark energy, his eyes burning brighter than the shadows themselves.
Kael was losing control.
The Entity laughed through Anna's lips—a hollow, echoing sound that chilled Elena's blood.
"Warden of Shadows… you think you can deny what you are? You are mine as much as she is."
Kael's snarl tore through the battlefield. He slammed Anna back with a furious strike, but the effort left his chest heaving. The shadows around him surged unnaturally, almost eager to consume.
"Kael…" Elena whispered, realization dawning like a blade to the gut. This was the secret he had tried to bury—the forbidden truth of his power. He wasn't just wielding the shadows. He was bound to them.
But there was no time.
Anna lunged, her corrupted blade aiming not at Kael this time but at Elena. The Entity's hunger burned in that strike—a desire to snuff out the light before it could grow.
Elena raised her hands instinctively, summoning her golden light. It burst forth, colliding with the shadow weapon midair. The clash of their magics ignited the battlefield in brilliance and darkness, an explosion of opposite forces. Elena cried out as the impact tore through her arms, but she held on, her light refusing to break.
"Anna! Listen to me!" she screamed, her voice piercing through the roar of clashing magic. "You're stronger than this thing! You're more than its puppet!"
For an instant—just an instant—Anna's eyes flickered. The violet glow faltered, revealing the soft brown Elena had known since childhood.
"El…ena…?"
Elena's chest seized with hope. "Yes! It's me! Please, come back to me!"
But then the Entity surged like a storm, reclaiming its vessel. Anna's head jerked back, and her scream shook the battlefield. Shadows burst outward in a tidal wave, knocking Elena flat on her back and forcing Kael to his knees.
"You cannot save her," the Entity thundered. "You cannot save anyone."
Kael rose with a guttural roar, but his body betrayed him. The shadows around his arms twisted unnaturally, crawling over his skin like living chains. His face contorted with pain as if the power itself were consuming him.
Elena staggered to her feet, her eyes wide. "Kael—stop! It's taking you too!"
"I can hold it," Kael spat, though blood streaked the corner of his lips. "I have to."
Elena shook her head violently, her heart aching. "Not if it costs you everything! Not if it makes you what we're fighting against!"
Kael didn't answer—because he couldn't. The shadows erupted from his back in jagged wings, a terrifying, beautiful manifestation of the curse that had chained him for years. He hurled himself at the Entity's growing form, meeting Anna's blade again in a clash that shook the earth.
The Veil screamed with them. The rift above widened, and through it, something massive stirred. A hand of pure shadow, fingers longer than towers, pushed against the tear in the sky.
The Entity wasn't just awakening. It was trying to step through.
Elena's light flared instinctively, her magic rising in defiance. The force of her will pushed back against the encroaching shadows, casting a sphere of golden brilliance around her. But it was fragile, trembling against the weight of the Entity's power.
"Elena…" Anna's voice came again, buried beneath the corruption but faintly alive. "Help me… it hurts…"
Elena's tears spilled freely. "I will! I swear I will, Anna! Just hold on!"
But the Entity wasn't done. It spoke through Anna's mouth, its resonance rattling every bone in Elena's body.
"Then break yourself trying. Let her pain be the dagger that ends you."
Anna raised her hand, and a dozen shadow spears formed in the air, each one aimed at Elena's heart.
Kael saw it, but he was trapped in combat, barely holding back the Entity's massive surge.
"Elena!" he shouted.
Elena's breath caught in her throat. There was no running. No escape. Only choice.
She clenched her fists, light burning so brightly it scorched her skin.
"If I fall, I'll fall protecting her."
And with a cry that shook the Veil itself, she charged into the storm of spears.
The spears of shadow screamed through the air like a rain of death. They tore through the space between Elena and Anna, their sharp edges dripping with the Entity's corruption.
Elena's light burst from her chest in a blinding wave, golden arcs crackling across her arms as she thrust her hands forward.
"Anna! You are not my enemy!"
The first spear met her light with a thunderous explosion, fragments scattering into nothing. The second struck her shield, shattering it into sparks but dimming in the process. The third tore across her arm, drawing blood—but the light mended the wound as fast as it came.
Elena screamed, not from pain but from determination. One by one, she shattered the spears, every impact shaking her bones. By the time the last one dissolved in a burst of brilliance, her knees nearly buckled beneath her.
Yet she still stood.
Across from her, Anna staggered, her corrupted eyes widening. Her hand trembled, the shadows writhing around her like serpents that sensed weakness.
"El…ena…" Anna's voice surfaced again, fragile, muffled beneath the Entity's grip. Her lips quivered as tears cut through the grime of corruption on her cheeks.
Elena's breath hitched. That was her Anna—the girl she had grown up with, the one who laughed under the summer sun and held her hand through grief.
"Yes, it's me," Elena whispered, her voice cracking. "I'm right here. Come back to me."
For a moment, the shadows hesitated. But then the sky itself split with a deafening roar. The massive hand pressing through the rift clawed deeper, its sheer size dwarfing them all. Black lightning streaked through the Veil as the Entity's laughter echoed like thunder.
"You are mine!" it boomed, forcing Anna to her knees. She screamed as the corruption surged back through her veins, violet light flaring in her eyes once more.
Elena rushed forward, but Kael was already moving—too fast, too desperate. His wings of shadow flared wide, carrying him across the battlefield in a storm of blades. His shadows weren't just weapons anymore; they were alive, writhing like beasts unleashed from a cage.
He slammed into Anna, forcing her back, his twin blades locking hers in a clash that shook the ground. But his face twisted in pain, his body convulsing with every surge of the Entity's power.
"Kael!" Elena cried, panic seizing her heart.
He glanced back at her—and she saw it clearly now. His pupils glowed with the same violet light. The same corruption.
Not all of the shadows he wielded were his. Some belonged to the Entity.
Kael snarled, driving Anna back with a furious strike, but his voice cracked.
"I… can't hold it much longer… Elena, you have to—"
His words broke off in a choked gasp as the shadows lashed out against him, wrapping around his arms, his chest, his throat. His body jerked as if the Entity were trying to claim him, to make him its second vessel.
"No!" Elena screamed, her heart splintering. "You're not its puppet, Kael!"
The Entity's laughter rumbled through the sky.
"He already is. He was born of my shadow. He carries my curse. He is mine."
Kael roared in defiance, shattering the shadows binding him, but his power came at a cost. Blood streamed from his nose, his lips, his eyes. Every strike he unleashed seemed to tear more of his humanity away.
Elena's chest ached. If she lost Anna, she would lose herself. If she lost Kael, she would lose her heart. And now the Entity was pulling at both.
"No more," she whispered, her hands trembling as she clasped them together.
Golden light flared, brighter than ever before. It burst from her in a wave, pushing back the shadows around Kael and Anna. For the first time, the Entity hissed in pain, its massive hand recoiling from the rift with a thunderous screech.
Elena's power lit the battlefield like a second sun, her tears falling freely as she shouted, "I won't let you take them! Not her, not him—never!"
The Veil trembled, light and shadow clashing in a cataclysm that felt like the end of worlds.
Anna's scream split the air as the Entity tried to tighten its hold. But Elena's light reached her. It pierced the corruption, searing through the darkness cocooned around her heart.
Anna collapsed to the ground, clutching her chest, her corrupted blade dissolving into ash. Her body shook violently, caught between the Entity's chains and Elena's warmth.
"Elena…" she whispered, her eyes flickering brown for a heartbeat. "Don't… let go…"
"I won't!" Elena cried, rushing to her side. She knelt, cradling her friend against her chest as golden light poured into her. "You're not alone, Anna. You've never been alone!"
But as Elena held her, the world erupted with a roar.
The Entity had had enough.
The rift above tore wider, and this time not just a hand emerged but the beginnings of a massive, horned head. Its eyes burned like suns of darkness, and its voice shook the Veil:
"Then all of you will break together."
The ground shattered, fissures racing out in every direction. Kael fell to one knee, his body trembling as shadows clawed at his flesh. Elena held Anna tighter, shielding her with her light, but her own body screamed with exhaustion.
They were losing.
Unless…
Elena's gaze flicked to Kael. He was still fighting, still bleeding, his wings of shadow trembling but defiant. His eyes met hers, and in them she saw both terror and resolve.
"Together," he rasped, his voice breaking.
Elena nodded, her tears gleaming in the light of her power. "Together."
They rose—Kael with his shadow blades, Elena with her radiant light, Anna clinging weakly between them.
Light and shadow surged, intertwining, fusing into a force neither the Entity nor the Veil had ever witnessed. For the first time, the massive being above recoiled, its half-formed body straining against the rift as if the very balance of creation resisted its entry.
But even as the Entity howled, even as the battlefield quaked with their defiance, Elena knew this was not victory. Not yet.
It was only the beginning.