Chapter 160 Rebirth and Shattered tears 2

Chapter 160 Rebirth and Shattered tears 2
Ronan didn't hesitate. He gathered the bloody saliva in his mouth and spat right into the center of her pale face. "Never," he hissed, his eyes burning gold. "I would rather die a thousand times than be your dog."

The Pale Mother’s face went completely still. She wiped the spit from her cheek with one finger, her expression turning incredibly dark. "Oh, really? Is that what you choose? Then I guess I have no choice but to get rid of Elara right now, since she's completely useless to me anyway."

At that exact second, a memory flashed in Morrigan’s head. An old image of a dusty, forbidden text she had sneaked out of the ancestral vault months ago. It was a single paragraph about breaking the tether of a primordial parasite. Her eyes snapped over to Draven.

She ran up to him, grabbing his arm and pulling him close. "Draven," she whispered in a low, frantic voice. "The deity came into this realm through you. You were the original door. You have to be the one to break the link between her and this world, or the severance ritual Elara started is going to be completely for nothing."

Draven didn't even flinch. "How do I do it? Tell me."

"You have to use the crown of frozen tears," Morrigan said, her grip tightening on his arm. "You have to stab yourself with it. As long as that deity touched your soul—even if it was just for a second—you two are linked. And in your case, she didn't just touch you, Draven. She lived inside your head for months. Your life force is tied to her physical anchor."

Draven stared at her. For a second, his survival instinct wanted to refuse, wanted to run away. But then he looked up at Elara hanging limply in the air, her gray skin showing her ribs through her torn clothes. He thought about his father, thought about the massacres, and realized this was the only appropriate end for him. It was the only way to pay for everything he had ruined.

He nodded at Morrigan, his jaw tightening. "Let's do it."

Morrigan didn't waste another second. She sprinted across the sand toward Ronan, who was trying to stand up. "Your majesty! You need to remove the crown from Elara’s head right now!"

"What?!" Ronan barked, his mind spinning.

"We don't have time for questions, your majesty! Just get the crown off her! Now!"

Ronan didn't ask again. He let out a primal, desperate roar, threw his head back, and let the shift take over completely. But this time, it wasn't just his normal Lycan form. In these dying minutes of the battle, he poured every single ounce of his faith, his love, and his desperation into a prayer to the sky.

And for the first time since the sky turned ash, the Moon Goddess answered.

A soft, silver light suddenly cut through the dead, gray gloom of the Spire. It didn't come from above; it exploded right out of the gritty sand on the cavern floor. Thousands of glowing, silver moon flowers burst from the cracks in the stone, blooming in a split second. The sweet, heavy scent of nocturnal petals instantly wiped out the smell of blood and copper. The silver vines shot upward like ropes, wrapping around Elara's floating body, fighting against the Pale Mother’s dark telepathy and gently lowering her toward the ground.

Ronan lunged into the silver light, his claws extending. He reached up, his fingers brushing against the cold, sharp points of the frozen crown resting on Elara’s head. With a fierce yank, he tore the crown off her silver hair.

Elara choked out a dry, strangled gasp as her back arched off the ground at an impossible, painful angle. Right before their eyes, the faint, milky-white veins of the Pale Mother’s corruption—which had been spider-webbing across her neck and cheeks—literally began to ripple and tear themselves out of her pores. The parasitic lines snapped underneath her skin with tiny, sickening pops, leaving behind raw, bleeding track marks across her face. Her skin blistered and flayed open wherever the deity's presence had rooted deepest, shedding the corrupted layer in a messy, painful purge. She collapsed back down, vomiting a dark, thick wave of stagnant blood as her body shuddered violently from the shock of the sudden eviction.

Ronan's heart shattered at the sight, the thorns of the crown cutting deep into his own palms as he gripped it tight. He spun around and tossed the crown across the room straight to Draven.

Draven caught it out of the air, the cold metal instantly biting into his bare hands. He looked down at the steps, where Ronan was now cradling Elara’s limp body in his arms again.

Draven met Elara’s dull, heavy gaze. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice shaking as a lone tear ran down his face. "In the next life... I'll try to be a better brother to you."

Elara weakly shook her head against Ronan's chest, her lips moving without a sound before she managed a tiny, faint whisper. "No... don't..."

Draven didn't listen. He took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling, and whispered, "Please help me beg our father for forgiveness. And... tell Rylan I'm sorry too."

With a loud grunt, Draven reversed his grip on the crown and drove the sharpest, longest frozen thorn straight into the center of his own chest.

The sound of the metal puncturing his flesh was loud in the quiet cave.

It was only in that exact microsecond that the Pale Mother realized what was happening. Her eyes went wide, the glowing runes on her skin flickering wildly. "No!" she shrieked, a high, panicked scream that sounded like tearing metal.

She turned and darted across the room like a lightning bolt, throwing her hands out in a desperate attempt to stop him from driving it deeper, to stop him from killing himself and breaking her anchor.

But she was too late.

The crown of frozen thorns had already gone straight through Draven's breastbone, piercing his heart. The dark, magical ice inside the thorns instantly reacted to his blood, expanding in a flash. Within a second, a thick layer of blue, glittering frost shot out from the wound, covering his chest, his neck, and his face. His entire body turned solid, freezing over until he was nothing but a pale, cold frozen statue standing on the steps.

By the time the Pale Mother’s hands actually touched the metal, her fingers brushed against the ice-covered crown in Draven's frozen grip.

The magical connection snapped. With a loud, deafening CRACK, Draven’s frozen form completely shattered into thousands of tiny, glittering ice shards that rained down across the stone steps in a sharp shower.

Elara saw the shards hit the ground. A sudden, violent surge of raw emotion hit her dying core. She let out a loud, piercing shriek of pure rage, her voice rattling the cavern walls. The sudden emotional break caused her remaining powers to go completely unstable, and a wild, blinding wave of red and silver light exploded out from her body, knocking everyone back.