Katrina struck true.

The blade in her hand came down in a swift, merciless arc and steel bit through flesh and sinew, severing Lukas' right arm in one clean motion. For years that arm had not truly been his; it had belonged to another, a being of ancient depths and writhing tendrils—his familiar and his constant companion.

Now, in one shattering instant, the Kraken was gone.

The world seemed to narrow in that moment.

Lukas gasped, the sound ragged, not from the physical pain—though the wound was grievous and blood poured freely from the stump—but from the emptiness that followed. The beans of Mount Ashendir still dulled the worst of the pain but nothing could shield him from the abyss that had opened up within him. His connection to the Kraken was not merely severed; it was ripped away, torn from the very fabric of his being. Lukas had grown used to the Kraken's presence, there had always been this strange comfort of knowing that even in loneliness he had never truly been alone. Now, his familiar's absence struck him harder than the blade had. It was not pain but hollowness, a pit in his gut that threatened to swallow him whole.

Blood spattered across the ground as Lukas clutched at his wound. The Kraken's tentacles spasmed weakly on the ground, as though still searching for him, still trying to cling to the connection that had bound the familiar to his master. With a sharp motion, Katrina kicked the severed appendage aside, sending the remains sprawling across the stone floor like a discarded carcass. The Cthulhu who had once been powerful, even monstrous, now lay pitifully at their feet.

Lukas did not scream. He clenched his jaw, forcing his breath to remain steady, denying Valkari the satisfaction she so clearly hungered for. His silence was but an act of stubborn defiance, because every part of him wanted to cry out but he would not give her that victory.

Valkari's gaze lingered on him, judging the wound Katrina had dealt him. Then, the Dragonborn of the Flames gave her a sharp nod.

Lukas met Katrina's eyes, and though he should have felt anger, there was none.

He could never hate her.

Because Katrina was simply doing what needed to be done.

Lukas' breath came heavy, his body swaying with weakness, but his mind was still clear enough to understand why Valkari had spared his life. Death would have been a mercy. Valkari wanted him alive. Her vengeance would be his prison and Lukas would be forced to watch as she unleashed her rage upon the world itself. She wanted him to see Hiraeth burn, to watch cities crumble and innocents perish, she wanted him to drown in the despair of knowing he was powerless to stop it.

Finally, they all saw it.

The ground trembled as torrents of rock and soil shifted under the command of the Earthborn. Dust clouds swirled in the air, the deep rumble of the world itself groaning as though Mount Ashendir resisted the intrusion. Yet the magic of the Divinity of the Earth was relentless, digging ever deeper, carving away layer upon layer of stone. Leading the Eartborn was Kaela Telaryon herself, granddaughter of the Dragon Lord of the Earth; her presence commanding and immovable as the mountain she shaped. With each gesture of her hand, the earth obeyed, tearing open a crater that widened and deepened until it reached the sacred heart of the peak.

And then, revealed at last, lay the Heart of Kaeryth.

Resting within the hollow carved by divine power, the Heart gleamed with an otherworldly brilliance. It was not the raw, bloodied organ of a mortal being but something far greater—an artifact that transcended the line between life and creation. Golden, crystalline and perfect in its form, it shimmered with veins of earthen stone threading through its surface as though the mountain itself had embraced it and protected it since its conception.

Each pulse sent a wave of radiance outward, the steady beat reverberating through the air like a living drum. It was beautiful and terrible all at once, for with every thrum came a surge of magical energy so vast it felt as though the world itself was breathing.

This was no mere relic.

This was the very heart of Kaeryth Telaryon, first of her name, one of the original Lords of Linemall. Her sacrifice had given the kingdom its shield, her heart of hearts transfigured into an eternal vessel that powered the Founder's Spell. This Heart had cloaked Linemall in secrecy, hidden from the eyes of humanity and all who might seek to hunt and destroy the draconic race. It was a promise carved in gold and magic that dragons would no longer suffer chains or slaughter, no longer be treated as beasts to be tamed.

Generations had lived and thrived beneath its protection.

Even in the darkest days of the Great War, when Linemall's armies fell and its people scattered, the Heart endured. It had stood as Linemall's last pillar, the final refuge for the draconic kind when the rest of the world had prayed for their downfall.

Now that sanctity stood on the edge of ruin.

Valkari Ishtar's gaze fell upon it not with reverence but with intensity of a thousand flames. Where others saw a treasure, she saw a chain to be broken. She did not wish to preserve the spell that sheltered Linemall; she wished to shatter it. To tear away the veil that had kept the kingdom safe for millennia. To expose every dragon—young and old, weak and strong—to the merciless fire of the outside world. Her vengeance was one born of all the sins that her captors had committed against her, every single second seared into her memory like a branding iron. By destroying the Heart, she would strip away the last defense of her people and cast them into the same war she sought to unleash upon Hiraeth.

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After today, Linemall would no longer be a sanctuary. It would become a battlefield.

The ground trembled beneath their feet, the crater yawning wider as Kaela Telaryon and the Earthborn continued to unearth the Heart from where it had been buried. What had been dug up from the mountain's depths—the soil, the stone, the very marrow of Ashendir itself—no longer lay scattered all around them. Instead, it hung suspended in the air, weightless under their command. The fragments shifted and reshaped as if clay in the hands of unseen sculptors, stretching into jagged spires of hardened rock, each one glistening with an edge sharp enough to pierce the Heart to its very core.

One by one, they formed into monstrous spears, until hundreds hovered above the crater. Each of them pointed downward, aimed at the golden crystalline Heart of Kaeryth.

All that remained was for Valkari to give them the order.

The Dragonborn of the Flames stood tall, her aura of fire burning hotter with every second, the Crown blazing on her brow like a brand of sovereignty and wrath. Her lips curved in something between triumph and disdain as she raised her hand high into the air. The entire world seemed to hold its breath and when her hand came down, it was like a judge's gavel sealing the fate of Linemall with its verdict.

But nothing happened.

The silence deepened, heavy and unnatural.

Then, with a thunderous crack, one of the great stone spikes shot downward—but not toward the Heart.

Instead the spear drove itself into the earth where Valkari herself had stood just a split second ago. She moved with inhuman speed, avoiding the spear narrowly as it tore into the mountain with devastating force. The ground splintered beneath the impact, sending fragments flying in every direction. Had she faltered even for the smallest instant, her body would have been impaled, mutilated beyond recognition.

Her Crown flared wildly and Valkari's rage ignited the battlefield with scorching intensity. Her voice rose in a furious roar that seemed to shake the mountain itself. "Are you out of your bloodydamn minds?!" Her words cracked like a whip across Kaela and the Earthborn, but none of them answered. They did not flinch, nor did their eyes betray any recognition of her fury. They stood rigid, their movements mechanical, their expressions blank. Their hands still pulsed with the flow of their Divinities, but their wills were no longer their own.

For all of Valkari's mastery, for all her wielding of the Crown to dominate the minds of others and bend them to her will, these Dragonborn did not serve her now. Their bodies were puppets, their strings pulled by a hand stronger than hers.

A shadow loomed over them all, vast and terrible, and Lukas felt the corners of his mouth curl into a grin.

From behind them, out of the veil of awe and terror, came the last living Cthulhu—the Kraken himself.

He emerged in his full horror, no longer bound to Lukas' severed arm, no longer stuck in a seemingly eternal state of slumber.

Tentacles writhed and coiled as he latched onto the side of Mount Ashendir, his massive form blotting out the sun itself as he rose to his full height. The sheer enormity of him sent vibrations through the mountain and the Kraken was a truly a sight to behold; he was muscle and shadow, a being dredged from the oldest nightmares of Hiraeth.

By all the gods of Hiraeth and beyond did the Kraken look as terrifying as the first time Lukas had ever laid eyes on him.

For years, the Kraken had remained in that state of drifting between consciousness and slumber, quietly gathering the remnants of his magical energy and storing it within his own Pool of Mana. Every breath and every silent moment of stillness had been for this singular purpose—to rise again in his original form.

And rise the Kraken did.

His Divinity stretched outward like a net cast across the battlefield. Lukas could feel it, a pressure against the mind, a presence that seeped into the very crevices of the minds of the Earthborn. Where Valkari's Crown had forced minds into submission, the Kraken's Divinity obliterated their defenses entirely. They were his now, mind and soul, and no Legacy of Valkari's could hope to rival the ancient magic of the Cthulhu race.

Valkari's shock was a rare thing and Lukas drank it in like water. But he did not simply allow the opportunity to pass him by.

Lukas rose from where he had knelt, blood still dripping from his severed arm, his body battered but his spirit still alive and it was ready to fight. His fist clenched, and with every ounce of strength left in him, he drove a massive left hook into the side of Valkari's face. The impact was brutal and she reeled backward, her body sprawling to the ground under the force of the blow.

At the same instant, Katrina moved with decisive speed. She seized Rosalia, pulling the princess out of Valkari's reach. No longer could the Dragonborn of the Flames hold her hostage, no longer could she wield the princess as a weapon against Lukas' will.

With that single motion, Katrina severed Valkari's last shield, stripping her of leverage.

In an instant, the tables had turned on Valkari Ishtar.

After everything, the Dragonborn of the Flames now found herself on the ground, her fire sputtering with the sting of humiliation. The Earthborn stood vacant, their wills shackled by the chains borne of the Kraken's Divinity. And above it all loomed the Cthulhu himself, his tentacles sprawling across the mountainside like a living storm, his presence suffocating and immense.

Lukas stood over Valkari, his chest heaving, watching her as she struggled to rise. His eyes burned with an intensity even greater than the conviction the Dragonborn of the Flames carried in her own.

Because in Lukas' eyes contained the will of the Seas and its vast depths. That was something no fire could ever hope to match.

His voice was steady, each word weighted with the promise of retribution.

"I swore that you would die if you put my people in danger again." Lukas whispered but it was more than loud enough for her to hear his every word. "And I mean to keep that promise, Valkari. Your time here within the Land of the Living has come to an end."

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