The roots splintered.
Mara's cage shattered, branches flying in every direction like knives. The goddess emerged in a slow, effortless float, her skin now radiant with necrotic light. Her movements were liquid decay—terrible and graceful, each gesture splitting the earth beneath her.
"Hold!" Khoryv shouted. "We cannot let her reach the river's heart!"
He rushed forward, summoning spectral chains of black and green—Death and Life, his dual blessing. As Mara raised her hand to cast another beam of void, Khoryv struck first, binding her arm with coils of translucent energy.
From above, a familiar screech echoed through the trees.
The House on Chicken Legs descended with impossible speed.
Landing with a thunderous boom, Baba Yaha leapt from its door, her staff of bone and fire spinning in hand.
"I knew you'd wake up ugly," she muttered, conjuring skeletal wolves from the dirt. "Time for your medicine."
Mara hissed, her voice twisting the wind.
From her arms she conjured black ribbons of death, curling like serpent tongues. With a wave, she sent them flying. One struck Khoryv, sending him to the ground with a gasp. Another flew toward Lybid, crackling with decay—
—but Maksym intercepted it.
The blade of rot struck him in the chest. He gasped, blood bubbling at his lips.
"I'm too old for this," he muttered, smiling at Lybid. "Live long..."
He collapsed.
Lybid screamed, rage and grief fueling her as she struck the earth again, vines rising to catch Mara's ankles.
Meanwhile, Kyi dropped to his knees, eyes wet with pain.
"Dana, hear me!" he shouted. "Goddess of the Rivers! Aid your child, your blessed!"
The ground pulsed.
From the edge of the clearing, the river surged—glowing with holy light, divine blood still in power. Yurko stared at it, something in his eyes sharpening.
"I have them," he whispered.
He reached into the air, and from the light came spirits—all those creatures purified by Methodius before. Their souls swirled around Yurko's wounded body, converging in his crossbow. Hundreds or cursed, evil, twisted spirits.
It loaded them into a single arrow—pure spirit, sorrow, rage.
Yurko's wolf roared. He took aim.
The crossbow shattered as he pulled the trigger—its metal shrieking, wood bursting. The recoil tore Yurko's right arm clean off, metak pieces seeping into his right shoulder.
But the arrow flew.
From the side Kyi stretched his hands in the direction of the illusory arrow. He enveloped it into water.
The arrowhead caught fire with holy water and divine blessing.
It screamed through the battlefield, trailing light and ghostly flame.
Mara turned, freeing herself from the roots of Lybid and Khoryv. Too slow.
The arrow struck her directly in the heart.
There was a flash—
Then a scream that shook the soul of the land.