The three seconds of silence stretched into an eternity. The razorclaw stood frozen, a gargantuan statue of smoldering decay, its entire nervous system seized by the catastrophic energy backlash Finn had unwittingly unleashed. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and burnt ichor. Erik saw the opening, a perfect, unmissable window of opportunity paid for with his friend's sacrifice. The grief and fury over Finn's fall, added to the roaring fire of his Berserker's Rage, coalesced into a singular point of incandescent, white-hot purpose. This was it. The one chance.
He poured every ounce of his being into his legs, his charge a thunderous, earth-shaking blur of motion. He was not just running; he was a projectile, an avalanche of vengeful steel. He raised Erythrael high, the runes on the axe blazing with a furious crimson light, and with a guttural roar that was less a war cry and more a promise of annihilation, he activated his most devastating skill. Power Strike.
The axe descended. It was not a swing; it was a judgment. It was the weight of a falling mountain.
The impact was a cataclysmic event that shook the very foundations of the dell. There was a sound like a giant snapping the trunk of an ancient oak, a sound of catastrophic failure that was felt as much as it was heard. The axe, empowered by a rage that defied mortal limits, did not just cut. It shattered, tore, and unmade.
It slammed into the creature's already ruined shoulder and did not stop. Chitin plates, harder than any steel, exploded into jagged shards. The thick, muscle-like vines that composed its internal structure were sheared apart. The axe blade, humming with a terrible, hungry energy, carved a brutal path downward, severing the creature's primary scythe-arm completely. It tore through the massive shoulder joint, ripped through the corrupted ribcage, and exited through the creature's side, taking a huge, steaming chunk of its torso with it.
The force of the blow was so immense that the ground beneath the creature fractured. A tremor radiated outward, shaking the trees and causing loose stones to rain down from the ridge. A small earthquake, born of a single, hate-fueled strike. The razorclaw's severed arm crashed to the ground with a sickening, wet thud, dissolving into a pool of bubbling, black sludge.
The behemoth was critically wounded, a third of its body simply gone, but it did not fall. It staggered, its balance broken, and then it let out a shriek. It was a sound unlike any before, a sound of pure, apocalyptic fury, not of a beast in pain, but of a puppet whose strings had been violently jerked by an enraged master. Its red eyes, no longer burning with simple malice, now blazed with an incandescent, focused hatred. It was no longer just fighting; it was obsessed. It had recognized Erik and the ancient, conflicting power of Erythrael not just as a threat, but as an absolute anathema to its own existence, an enemy it had to erase from reality at all costs.
Ignoring the still-defiant Darius, ignoring the archer on the ridge, the razorclaw charged Erik, a twenty-foot-tall avalanche of pure, murderous intent. Its movements were now faster, more frantic, a berserk frenzy of destruction.
Erik, his own rage spent in that single, ultimate blow, was now on the defensive, his body screaming with the strain. He met the frenzied assault, but he was being driven back. The creature's remaining claw was a blur, each strike carrying the weight of its full, desperate power. Erik blocked, parried, dodged, his every defensive motion a testament to the brutal training he had endured, but it was not enough. A blow smashed into his tower shield, the impact sending a jarring shock through his bones and nearly dislocating his shoulder. He stumbled, catching himself, but another strike came, faster than the eye could follow, its sharpened tip gouging a deep furrow in his breastplate, the force knocking the wind from his lungs.
"Erik!" Darius roared, seeing his friend falter. The old knight charged forward, slamming his mangled shield into the creature's side, a desperate attempt to draw its attention, to give Erik a single second to recover. The razorclaw, in its obsessive fury, barely seemed to notice, swatting Darius aside with a contemptuous backhand from a secondary limb that sent the knight sprawling.
They were losing. They had wounded the beast, but in doing so, they had unleashed a far more terrifying, focused foe.
It was then, amidst the chaos and the metallic taste of her own blood, that Lyra stirred. She regained consciousness on the cold, damp ground, her head throbbing, her vision a blurry haze. She saw Darius being thrown aside like a broken doll. She saw Erik, her anchor, her protector, being relentlessly driven back by a monster of impossible power. And as she lay there, a memory, a feeling, a deep, forgotten truth surfaced from the depths of her soul. She was an orphan, yes, a child left on the Temple steps, a vessel for a gentle, healing light. But the matrons had always whispered that she was different. A touch of grace, they had said. A child of the Light. She had never understood what they meant. Until now.
Her hands, which had felt so empty and powerless, began to glow with a soft, silver light. Shimmering, elegant runes, like spun moonlight, traced their way up her forearms, visible only to her and, across the battlefield, to Erik, whose own Runic Sight caught the impossible, beautiful phenomenon even amidst the chaos of battle. The Light was not just something she channeled. It was a part of her. It was in her blood.
She got to her feet, her eyes no longer filled with fear, but with a profound, ancient calm. She saw not a monster, but a blasphemy. She saw not a battle, but an injustice that needed to be rectified. She raised her hands, not in a plea, but in a command.
"Heaven's Shackles," she whispered, her voice a low, intense prayer that held more authority than any shout.
Chains of pure, solidified golden light erupted from the ground around the charging razorclaw. They were not ethereal; they were tangible, solid things that wrapped around its legs, its body, its remaining arm, their surfaces etched with glowing, celestial runes. The beast roared and struggled, its immense strength straining against the divine bonds. The chains held, their golden light searing into its corrupted flesh, but Lyra cried out, the effort of maintaining such a powerful, complex spell immense. Blood trickled from her nose, and she swayed on her feet. The spell was too pure, too potent for her mortal frame to contain for long. She could only hold it for a few seconds.
From the ridge, the unseen archer had been waiting, her yew bow drawn so taut it seemed ready to snap. She had seen the shift in the battle, had seen the impossible power of Lyra's spell. This was the moment she had paid for with her patience. She took a breath, her focus absolute, her form a perfect, lethal statue. "Griphon's Talon," she whispered, her voice a promise of death on the wind. She loosed the heavy arrow. It was a silver streak of vengeance, fletched with the feathers of a griphon, its head a solid, armor-piercing bodkin forged to punch through dragon scale. It flew true, crossing the dell in the blink of an eye, and struck the struggling, bound creature in one of its glowing red eyes. The arrow punched through the socket with a sickening crunch, burying itself deep within the beast's brain.
The monster shuddered, its struggles weakening. The golden chains of light shattered as Lyra collapsed to her knees, her energy completely spent, her consciousness fading. Darius rushed to her side, his shield held ready.
The razorclaw, its eye a shattered ruin, its brain pierced by a silver-tipped shaft, took a stumbling step, then another. It swayed, its immense body beginning to topple. It should have been dead.
But it was not.
As it began to fall, its movements, which had been frantic and bestial, suddenly became stiff, jerky, unnatural. The red light in its eyes died, but its limbs kept moving, animated by a will that was not its own. Its head turned, its ruined eye socket fixing on Erik with a final, lingering promise of death. It was a puppet whose strings were being pulled from a vast, unseen distance.
With a final, desperate roar that was not its own, Erik charged. He leaped onto the creature's falling body, scrambled up its neck, and raised Erythrael high. He drove the axe down, plunging it through the empty, ruined eye socket, deep into the creature's skull.
There was a hideous, final sizzle as the potent, negating energy of the axe met the controlling, foreign will within the beast's mind. The razorclaw's head didn't just split; it melted. A gruesome, imploding cascade of black ichor, dissolving bone, and screaming, dissipating spirits erupted from the wound, Erythrael acting as a catalyst that unmade the very essence of the thing.
The behemoth crashed to the ground, finally, truly dead, its connection to its unseen master severed.
For a long, long moment, the only sound was the ragged, desperate gasping of the survivors and the soft, dripping of ichor onto the forest floor.