The battlefield no longer resembled earth — it was a graveyard of fire and light. The sky burned with the remnants of divine fury, and the ground glowed faintly from molten stone. Every breath tasted of smoke and starlight.
Lyra stumbled through the wreckage, calling out hoarsely. "Rian! Where are you?!"
Ash fell like snow, coating her hair and cloak. The silence pressed against her ears until she heard it — a low, steady heartbeat echoing through the ruin.
She followed the sound.
At the center of a crater stood Rian. His body was scorched, his armor shattered, yet he still stood — motionless, his gaze fixed on the sky. Around him, a faint golden mist drifted, curling through the air like living light.
Lyra's voice trembled. "You shouldn't even be able to stand…"
Rian turned his head slightly. His eyes were no longer gold — they were pure white, glowing like twin stars.
"I'm not standing," he murmured. "Something else is."
Before Lyra could speak, the air around him rippled. Symbols of ancient light spread from beneath his feet — not human, not beast, but older than both. The same marks the gods used, yet twisted, inverted… alive.
Eryndor, still kneeling among the ruins, stared in disbelief. "That power— it cannot be!"
Rian looked at him, his voice calm but hollow. "You call yourselves gods. But your light was born from the same stars that birthed me."
The ground cracked open as tendrils of light burst outward, spiraling like constellations made flesh.
Rian raised his hand, and the broken moon above began to stir — its fragments shifting, aligning.
Lyra shielded her face as the light grew unbearable. "Rian! Stop — your body can't take it!"
He smiled faintly. "It's not my body anymore."
The glow around him intensified. Behind his back, a colossal phantom emerged — the Star Wolf, vast and shimmering, its form made of pure energy. Its eyes mirrored Rian's own, endless and fierce.
Eryndor roared, summoning his chains once more. "Abomination! You defy creation itself!"
Rian's voice echoed through heaven and earth.
"No. I am what creation forgot."
The Star Wolf howled — a sound that tore through the clouds, shaking the heavens. The rift above quivered, and the host of gods trembled as the divine storm reversed, drawn inward toward Rian's light.
Lyra fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face. "Rian… what have you become?"
He looked at her one last time, eyes soft amid the storm.
"What I was meant to be."
The chains of Eryndor shattered. The divine sky fractured. And from the heart of the chaos, a single star burned brighter than all others — the heart of the Star Wolf, reborn in mortal form.