The white fire of the Altar did not bring the expected peace of a finished ritual. Instead, it brought a violent, agonizing rupture in the very fabric of reality. As Kaelen's silver bloodseeped into the porous quartz, the mountain didn't just vibrate; it groaned like a living creature being flayed alive.
The purification was working, but it was a celestial sandpaper, stripping the thick, oily Necromancy from Lucien's marrow while simultaneously consuming the life force Kaelen had so desperately laid upon the stone.
Gwen stood at the epicenter of the storm, her bone-white hair whipped into a frenzy of silver and gold by the unnatural gale. She watched, her heart breaking in a way the laboratory had never been able to achieve, as Kaelen's body began to fade.
