Chapter 154 What Becomes Of The Darkness

Chapter 154 What Becomes Of The Darkness

The sky churned darker still, impossible given the black it already wore, and the Murks shrieked in a frenzy as their shadow refused to yield the moon's light.

Then the storm broke.

The heavens opened and poured down without mercy — light and sound crashing together, deafening, blinding, sweeping across every reach of the Himalayas until the whole valley disappeared beneath it.

The Darkness scattered before it, the air itself cracking apart, chaos doubling where the flames had already been eating the land alive. The Murks weren't spared. One strike of lightning and they burned away entirely, ash and char raining down where they'd been.

When the storm finally settled, the thunder retreating into the distance, the terror it left behind lingered longer than the sound. Not a single Draugr, Leviathan, or Wraith remained. Wiped clean, without a trace.

What was left was an ocean of lava and a slow, boiling river cutting through the wreckage.

Yuna collapsed to her knees, coughing hard enough to fold her over, palms flat against the scorched ground.

"Are you all right?" Zuri crouched beside her, catching her arm.

He saw it clearly now, the cracks running along her arms and up her throat, deep amber light bleeding through the fractures like something trying to escape. She'd gone past whatever limit she'd been holding to.

"You did it." Her cough hadn't fully cleared. "You resurrected the Darkmoon."

"I made a promise." He held her steady. "I intend to keep every part of it." He paused, and the pause carried more weight than the words that followed. "Your body can't hold this. It's coming apart."

"It's fine." A weak laugh, the cough finally quieting. "It did its work, Zuri. I did my work, even though it was insignificant."

"What you did back there was the single most stalwart thing I've ever witnessed. Don't you dare call it insignificant." He gathered her into his arms. "Rest now. We'll take it from here."

"I won't stay in this form much longer." Her voice had gone quiet, sad in a way that put him instantly on edge.

"What does that mean?" He pulled back to search her face. Gold tears tracked down it, silent. "Yuna. What's wrong?"

"I'm tired, Zuri." The words came slow, like they cost her something to say. "I want to rest. I want to sleep. This war was never meant for me. I'm not a warrior, not a priestess, not a godhead. I never wanted to be any of it. I just want to be an ordinary Selkaharin again. Someone who stops to smell flowers. Who apologizes to the grass for stepping on it wrong." Her voice cracked. "Let me go."

"Yuna..."

"It's peaceful there," she pressed on. "The afterlife. My sisters are waiting for me. I should join them, if it means any comfort at all. Maybe I'd find Idara." She broke, tears falling freely now. "I want to keep her final wish for her, but with her, this time. Watch the sunset. Chase butterflies through a field. Steal honeycomb from wild bees and run before the bees catch up." She sniffed. "Please. Just let me..."

"Yuna." His voice came low, commanding, and he pulled her in closer. "We're tired. All of us are. I'd give anything to close my eyes and wake up somewhere this nightmare never happened. I still want to be an ordinary wolf — working fields, picking fights with bloodhounds down in the canyon for no good reason." He breathed out slow. "But that's not the reality we were given. It's unfair. Bitter. What we want and what we get are rarely the same thing." He kissed the crown of her head. "But listen to me, it gets better from here. I promise you that. Don't choose death as a way out. You are a goddess now. You're Trivia, and the whole of existence looks to you to set things right. We don't get to choose our fate. But we get to shape what we do with it."

Yuna let out a small, tired laugh, holding his arm tighter despite herself.

"I'm still going to die though, Zuri. My body..."

"Is not beyond the Darkmoon's power to restore." He cut her off gently. "You forget who you serve. And who loves you. Do you really think that little of me?"

She made a face, half embarrassment, half something warmer.

"Here. I believe I owe you something." Zuri swept his hand through the air. Light gathered, stretched, and took shape between his fingers.

"Zuri, is that..."

"Night-bringer." The scepter pulsed once in his grip, glinting like it had never been anything but whole. "Sorry about breaking the last one. This should serve you a good deal better."

"Oh, Zuri." She took it from him, turning it over, tracing the design with something close to reverence.

The moment her fingers closed around it, light poured into her body, threading through the cracks in her skin, sealing them closed one by one, restoring her.

She rose to her feet, form pulsing bright again, and lifted the scepter skyward. The heavens answered with a flash of light.

"Forgive the interruption. I don't mean to spoil a tender reunion." Seth climbed the ravine, stepping neatly around a river of lava like it was a puddle. "You did this, didn't you, Hekate? Turned the whole valley into a volcanic apocalypse."

"You're welcome, Seth." Yuna's smile came easy, recognition warming her voice. "Your manners never change. It's good to see you again." She turned, taking in the ranks of the Darkmoon army spreading around them. "All of you. After everything, I feared the worst."

"And your artwork, Trivia, your eye for destruction is still worth admiring." Tawaret closed the distance and folded her into an inescapable embrace. "Aww. I've dreamed of this for eons. Trivia, three faces of beauty, wearing the body of Ammit. We've always wanted to fight beside the other half of the Darkmoon."

"Thank you, Tawaret." Yuna's smile widened. "And I'm sorry about the land. It was the only way I could keep the army of Darkness from reaching you while you slept."

"For that, we're grateful, truly." Tawaret smiled back, unbothered. "The flames and the lava are a small price. We don't mind."

"Well, I mind." Seth cut in. "I'm a little jealous, if I'm honest. Even at my strongest, I couldn't manage this level of annihilation. You're a menace, Trivia."

"That's enough, Seth." Ra's voice carried a warning edge. "Be grateful you woke at all. You'd have stayed in that iron coffin if not for our Lord's mercy."

Seth made a sound of disgust but said nothing more.

"Army of the Darkmoon, hear me." Zuri's voice rose above them all, and the ranks fell silent instantly. "This is it. The last stand. We are, unfortunately, all that remains of the entire pantheon of the godheads. Our own pantheon falls even as I speak, but that ends here. The Darkmoon will stand, and the Darkmoon will win."

He paused, meeting eyes across the crowd, one face at a time, and nodded, satisfied by what he found in each of them.

"The Darkness holds half of existence in its grip, under Erebus's command. Dawn went with it. Its hands have corrupted the threads of reality itself, and everything is coming apart at the seams. That ends today. Today, the Darkmoon makes its final stand. We will be the only thing standing between the Darkness and everything left worth saving. We'll blind it with our light, and darkness cannot survive what it can't look at. Let the Darkmoon shine again, with menace and might, and save what's left of reality."

The crowd roared as one voice, loud enough that it felt like it should reach whatever remained of the heavens.

"What is your order, my Lord?" Ra stepped forward, body shimmering like the sun given form. "We're ready."

An involuntary smile crossed Zuri's face. Their confidence had become his. He could feel it settle solid into his chest.

The Darkmoon would prevail.

"Erebus's eyes are already on us. I can feel him watching, already moving pieces into place. So we spread out. The Darkness will throw more of itself at the mortals to split our attention — let it. We can afford that trade. Our numbers speak for themselves, and no minion of the Primordial Darkness matches a godhead standing here. This will be no harder than swatting a stubborn gnat. Lay waste to the army of Darkness. Show it no mercy. Save the mortals wherever you find them." He turned, meeting Yuna's eyes. "Erebus is mine to handle. Trivia and I will travel to the Still Point — where the Darkness runs deepest, where the storm rages hardest, and undo what's been done there. With luck, we reach it before the damage becomes permanent."

"If I may, my Lord." Horus stepped forward.

"Go ahead."

"You mean to face Erebus at the Still Point, alone but for Trivia. But my Lord, Erebus is only the Primordial Darkness's commander, its hand, not its source. Suppose you succeed. Suppose Erebus falls." His voice dropped, careful, deliberate. "What becomes of the Darkness he commands?"