The ground quaked as the monstrous abomination burst through the treeline, splintering ancient trunks like twigs. It stood twice as tall as a house, its body an unholy mass of rotting sinew and bone, its skull-like head glowing with sickly blue runes. In its chest, a gaping maw of darkness pulsed, as though the void itself was alive inside it.
Behind it surged its army—the dead. Thousands of corpses, some skeletal, others bloated with decay, shuffled and raced across the scorched ground. Some dragged rusted swords and axes, others scuttled on all fours like beasts, jaws hanging loose. Red light blazed in their hollow eyes as they shrieked in voices scraped raw by death.
Slyvia stepped forward, wiping tears from her cheeks, her expression hardening into pure wrath. She clenched her staff, and blue lightning crackled up its length. Her hair billowed, shimmering like spun silver, as if the universe itself was breathing around her.
"For humanity!" she roared.
She slammed her hands into the ground. A ring of light exploded outward, flattening the nearest wave of corpses. Runes flared into the air, swirling in constellations, each symbol blazing like a star.
Slyvia lifted her arms. Her voice dropped into a chilling chant, an ancient tongue that vibrated through the bones of everyone nearby:
"Lux Caelorum… Ignis aeternum… Concede mihi potestatem stellarum!"
Bolts of cosmic fire tore from the sky. Meteoric spheres blazed into the ranks of the undead, detonating in bursts of violet flames. Each blast ripped craters in the earth, scattering limbs and skulls like straw.
Ava dashed forward, eyes ablaze with golden fury. As a goddess, she moved faster than mortal eyes could track. She spun, cleaving through a wall of corpses with twin curved blades. Each slash severed rotting limbs and heads, spraying dark blood that hissed like acid on the ground.
One of the undead lunged at her throat—a creature whose face was half bone, half rotting flesh. Ava seized its skull and crushed it between her palms, shards of bone flying.
But for every creature they struck down, ten more surged forward. The dead climbed over each other, shrieking, clawing, their numbers endless.
Slyvia's spell intensified. She pulled energy from the stars above, her eyes turning pools of white light. Her hair lifted as though weightless, pure power flooding from her core.
She extended her staff toward the abomination and screamed:
"Vinculum universi… fractum est!"
A searing beam of silver and blue energy erupted from the staff's tip, slamming into the abomination's chest. The colossal creature staggered, a hole burning through its ribcage, cosmic fire blazing inside its dark core.
The beast fell onto one knee, howling. Its bellow rattled every tree for miles.
But then… its eyes, made of pure ice, flickered open.
With a chilling crack, ice spread out from its gaze. Slyvia froze mid-spell, crystal shards forming over her arms, neck, and face, locking her in place like a statue.
"Ava!" Emily screamed from behind a wall of flame.
Ava launched herself toward Slyvia, but the horde of undead crashed into her like a black wave. Dozens clawed at her armor, teeth sinking into her flesh. Their nails raked bloody furrows along her arms and thighs. Flesh tore away in chunks as Ava roared in agony.
"You will NOT take her!" Ava shrieked, blood dripping from her mouth.
She slammed her palms together, summoning a dome of radiant gold light that blasted her attackers backward. But more poured in, climbing over each other, jaws snapping, eager to consume living flesh.
Slyvia stood frozen, eyes wide in terror as frost crept higher across her skin.
Suddenly, a sound split the sky—a shriek so loud the trees bowed beneath it.
Above the battlefield, a massive shape soared through smoke and sparks. A dragon, scales glimmering like molten metal, swooped down. Its wings churned the air into hurricane winds.
Atop its back stood Rose, hair whipping around her face, eyes blazing with ruby light. Her voice rose above the chaos:
"Draconis ardentis! Flamma universa… consume hostes nostros!"
The dragon inhaled. Its throat glowed white-hot. Then it unleashed a torrent of hellish fire, pouring liquid flame onto the dead below.
The inferno swept across the battlefield, devouring corpses by the thousands. Undead soldiers burst like overripe fruit, bones blackening to ash. The smell of burning flesh choked the air.
Ava raised her blood-slick arms and screamed, summoning a golden shield over herself and Slyvia. Flames battered against the barrier, roaring around them like a blazing ocean.
Inside the shield, the ice on Slyvia cracked and fell away. She collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath, eyes burning with new fury.
She lifted her hands once more, voice raw but powerful.
"Astra… ultimum fulgor… et ruina!"
A ring of pure cosmic light exploded from her body, expanding outward in a deadly sphere. Every corpse within its reach dissolved into nothingness, leaving only dust swirling in the scorched wind.
Above them, Rose guided the dragon in swooping arcs, incinerating wave after wave of the dead. But amidst the inferno, the abomination slowly rose again, its body still ablaze, molten flesh dripping from its chest cavity.
Its ice-blue eyes glowed brighter than before, full of cold malice. It let out a bellow that split the sky.
And far away, flashes of light and screams rose from Golden Gate, where Asher and the witches fought a battle of their own against another horde of the undead.
The world was on fire.