I stare at the Void Glass chalice, heart pounding against my ribs. My breath catches in my throat, and I can barely hear Lyra’s fading pleas through the roar of my own desperation. Every inch of me feels raw, torn between the Weeping Sage’s healing power and the dagger’s hungry promise. My voice cracks as I speak, half to myself, half to Lyra:

  “Lyra… I’m sorry, but I’m too weak. I can’t defeat him with the Weeping Sage’s power alone.”

  I clutch the dagger at my waist. It practically vibrates with glee, urging me toward the chalice. With a sudden flare of resolve—and dread—I toss aside my staff. It clatters across the stone floor, echoing in the empty expanse of the Citadel. My corrupted arm throbs, dark veins pulsing up my neck. There’s a horrible moment of finality as I press the dagger’s blade against the chalice.

  A seething black fluid oozes out, hissing and twisting in the air before merging with the shadows in my veins. The dagger dissolves into my skin, sinking into my flesh until my arm looks more like living darkness than flesh and bone. Agony ignites every nerve, and my vision fractures, the world splitting into shards of color and hunger. I see everything at once:

  Kael’s heartbeat, pulsing like a star of negative light—a mixture of burning ambition and old, unspoken regrets.

  The Citadel’s core, a massive swirl of tainted magic known as the Heart of the Cataclysm. It calls to me with a siren’s lullaby of infinite power.

  My own soul, flickering like a dying ember within the raging black tide that now courses through my veins.

  “It’s a shame it has to end this way, Eldrin.” Kael’s voice rings out from across the plaza, echoing off the monolithic walls. His tone is unexpectedly sad, his gaze laced with disappointment. “You truly are… a power-hungry monster. If only you’d listened to me, we might have saved this doomed plane.”

  He says the words as though mourning a lost friend, and for the briefest second, I see genuine sorrow in his expression. Then, his lips press into a tight line. “Not that you’ll understand now that you’re VoidBound.”

  A raw wave of euphoria surges through me—immense, intoxicating. My body feels limitless, a vessel overflowing with dark potential. The Silver Eye Pendant at my neck flares suddenly, searing against my chest like a molten brand. A scream rips from my throat, raw and instinctive, as the burning pain cuts through the ecstasy.

  Desperation overtakes me. My fingers claw at the chain, blistering against the white-hot metal. It resists, as if alive—clinging, anchoring me to something I can no longer bear. With a final, ragged cry, I tear it free. The pain is blinding, but I don’t hesitate. I hurl the pendant with all my strength, watching it arc high into the night, a silver ember swallowed by the abyss beyond the Citadel’s walls.

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  For a single, breathless moment, a terrible hollowness yawns inside me—like something vital has been ripped away. My pulse stutters. My mind wavers. Did I just cast away my last tether to who I was?

  Then the dagger’s hunger floods the void, howling in triumph. The hollowness collapses beneath its weight. A new truth rushes in—fierce, unshackled, irreversible.

  “Now I’m free!” I roar, flexing hands that glisten with inky darkness. “Free of my broken body, my shattered mind.” Turning toward Kael, I let a savage grin spread across my face. “Kael… let’s end this. Once and for all.”

  A surge of Void-born energy coalesces around my outstretched hand, swirling into a beam of swirling black and purple. I hurl it at him with a force that rattles the Citadel’s foundations. Broken stones and debris erupt into the air in a storm of destruction.

  Kael’s expression is grim but composed. With a flourish of his hand, he summons a carefully woven barrier, redirecting my spell in a precise arc. My unleashed magic blasts through an entire row of buildings behind him, carving a corridor of shattered stone. The air crackles with the aftershocks, and the ground smolders where the beam touched.

  “Truly powerful,” he admits, raising his chin. “You always were the more gifted of us. But raw talent means nothing when you’ve lost all control.”

  Magical sigils burst to life around him, concentric circles spinning in midair, crackling with arcane brilliance. Kael’s eyes flash in warning. “Remember the beginning!” he commands, unleashing a torrent of energy that floods the plaza in a cascade of shimmering light.

  My world tilts. For an instant, everything goes white. And then I see… us: Kael, younger and unscarred, standing tall and unburdened by the bitterness that now lines his face. He’s grinning, radiant with hope. Next to him, I catch sight of a scrawny figure with unruly hair—myself, but from an age of innocence, eyes full of dreams. We laugh together in a courtyard bathed in sunlight, the academy grounds a vibrant testament to a world unspoiled by the Cataclysm.

  A wrenching pain grips my chest, sharper than any blade. That can’t be real. Not now. Not after everything.

  “NO!” I scream, clutching my head as the illusion threatens to tear away my newfound power. “You’re just trying to confuse me—trying to twist my mind!”

  For a moment, the vision flickers, replaced by the sight of Kael in the here and now. He stands at the center of a vortex of magic circles, chanting under his breath. His face is alight with desperation as he tries to reinforce the spell, pulling me deeper into that bright memory.

  “Come back, Eldrin!” he yells, voice hoarse with urgency. “You need to remember!”

  The illusions swirl again. My chest tightens as I feel them pulling me back into the past, showing me a world I thought long dead—a life where Kael and I were more than rivals bent on each other’s destruction. The Citadel around us groans under the strain of our magic, fragments of reality fracturing with each contradictory force. And in the center of it all, I stand, raw power coursing through my veins, memories pressing in, threatening to crack my twisted new self wide open.

  My teeth clench, and I fight for breath, caught on the knife’s edge between unstoppable corruption and a past that refuses to be forgotten.