The energy vortex throbbed with dark matter's violet-black ripples. Alyssa's silver ring levitated three millimeters above her sternum, its surface refracting three hundred lunar cycles. When Kane's arrow pierced the castle's ninth-layer shield, the "Mad King" brambles on its shaft awoke, entwined with Wolf Mother's genetic codes.
"Finally, the key." Layne's mechanical fingers plunged into the vortex, data cables extending toward the ring. "Know why you wore it? Seventy-three thousand tests proved—"
Moonflare shattered into hatchling remnants under the ring's suppression, until Kane's arrow breached the shield. The projectile's 0.3-second trajectory granted temporal displacement—Alyssa saw Kane five years futureward, sliding the bloodied ring onto her resurrected finger in torrential rain.
"Now!" She and her phantom self roared in sync.
Sonic waves from the shattering ring crystallized into black roses, petals severing Layne's cables. Kane's arrow detonated one centimeter shy of her heart, unleashing Wolf Mother's three-century-trapped voice: "Blood Pact Nullified—"
The castle's mechanical heart skipped two beats. Unleashed Moonflare phoenix's eyes revealed the contract brand in Layne's spine—not vampire immortality runes, but Wolf Mother's womb-forged slave mark.
"You're the collared one." She snapped her silver necklace, chains reforming wolf-head shackles in the vortex. "Time to free the pet."
Layne's kaleidoscope pupils projected multiverse kill-feeds. His heart ejected twelve emergency conduits, wax-melting in vortex energy. "You think this..."
Kane's second arrow arrived. This shaft bore Alyssa's blood-written countdown, its arrowhead mutating into a lunar receiver upon vortex contact. When "Mad King" sigils overlapped her eclipse patterns, ring fragments spun counterclockwise, burning a temporal rift.
Alyssa's retina captured dual realities—present Layne's tentacles choking Kane, future resurrected self aiming moonlight arrows at the same throat across dimensions.
"Gifts delivered thus!" She bit through backup neural cords, Moonflare charging through the rift. The future arrow traversed dimensions via present energy channels, shattering Layne's spinal armor.
The princess's scream detonated from planetary core. Castle gears reversed, azurite pipes spewing aged blood mist. Alyssa gripped Kane's arrowtail mid-chaos, finding fresh engravings matching her three-day-old blood sigils.
"Cycle trigger." She snapped the arrow, revealing pocket watch components identical to Layne's. "You knew all along..."
Layne's heart-core overloaded, shockwaves blasting ring shards into the rift. Falling, Alyssa saw countless cloned selves swarming from the void—each wearing different era's rings. Kane's hand breached dimensions gripping her wrist, his future ring burning:
"Next meeting, change the token."
As the vortex collapsed into singularity, the last vanishing image was Layne's ocular data stream—displaying Alyssa's infantile first cry, its sonic wave perfectly matching the "Mad King" crest.