Chapter 10 - The Silver Surge
The clash at the northern border shook the very foundations of the permafrost.
The corrupted direwolves lunged with terrifying ferocity, their jaws snapping like steel traps, but the Silvercrest warriors fought with the desperate fury of a pack defending their newly crowned Luna. Kieran moved like a phantom through the chaos, his massive dark-gray form tearing through the ranks of the twisted beasts, protecting Alora’s flanks with absolute, unyielding devotion.
Keeper Vane stood on a high snow-drift, chanting frantically in a guttural, forgotten tongue, feeding dark energy into the corrupted creatures. As fast as the Silvercrest warriors struck the beasts down, the dark magic seemed to knit their torn flesh back together, pushing the pack back step by snowy step.
Alora watched, her mind sharp and hyper-focused. She realized that killing the physical manifestations was useless as long as Vane was acting as the magical anchor for the curse.
She began to walk forward, cutting straight through the center of the chaotic battlefield.
A massive, emerald-eyed beast lunged directly at her throat, its jaws wide and dripping with venom. Alora didn't draw a sword. She simply raised her palm, and a blinding wave of pure celestial silver energy erupted outward from her hand.
The impact was cataclysmic. The moment the moonlight touched the corrupted beast, the dark magic inside it instantly unraveled, turning the monster into harmless dust that scattered in the freezing wind.
Vane’s eyes widened in sheer horror. "No... that's impossible! That level of primordial light shouldn't exist in a mortal vessel!"
"You forgot one simple truth about the Moon Goddess," Alora called out, her voice cutting effortlessly through the howling wind as she closed the distance toward the snow-drift. "She doesn't just create life. She cleanses corruption."
Vane shrieked in rage, drawing a jagged obsidian dagger crackling with green lightning and hurling himself down the snow-drift directly at Alora.
Before he could reach her, a massive dark-gray blur intercepted him mid-air. Kieran slammed into Vane, driving the old man hard into the frozen earth. The obsidian dagger flew from Vane’s hand, burying itself deep into the ice.
Kieran pinned the old traitor to the ground with a heavy paw resting squarely on his chest, transforming back into his human form just enough to look down into Vane’s terrified eyes.
"It’s over, Vane," Kieran growled, his voice like grinding stones.
May you like
With a final, desperate gasp, Vane’s body spasmed, the dark magic leaving him in a plume of black smoke as the remaining corrupted wolves dissolved into harmless shadows across the snow.
Silence descended on the northern border, broken only by the heavy breathing of the exhausted Silvercrest warriors and the crackling of the melting ice where Alora’s light had touched the earth.
