Chapter 527: Inevitable XII
The void itself convulsed, as if recoiling from what Glothar had become. His new form—raw, unbound, an inferno of hunger wrapped in a man’s frame—burned with a gravity so absolute that space bent like cloth around him. Every breath he drew was a tide of annihilation. Every pulse of his core was the end of another world.
His voice, stripped bare of chorus, rumbled with primal certainty:
"Do you know what it means... to fight the heart of hunger? It means every wound you carve... carves you in return."
The abyss surged outward in veins of shadow-fire, threading into Leon and his allies, pulling at their resonance, dragging their very wills toward silence. Naval’s arms buckled, veins bursting as his trident shook. Roselia clutched her chest, coughing blood as her fire guttered. Liliana’s threads frayed to dust in her fingers. Roman’s fists split, bones cracking under the weight of holding ground. Milim fell to one knee, her star-wings dimming to sparks.
And Leon—Leon staggered, fractures spreading like roots of lightning across his whole frame. His chest was a lantern of raw white fire, too bright, too violent, too unstable. Each breath was closer to collapse.
But his eyes stayed locked on Glothar.
"Then every cut I take..." Leon rasped, his voice burning, "...is just another fracture I’ll feed back into you."
The Fifth Pulse vibrated violently inside him, no longer just a rhythm of breaking—it was a heartbeat on the brink of erasure. The unstable constellation of his rings spun, crooked and wild, sparks of impossible resonance snapping between them.
Naval roared through the blood choking his throat. "Flamebreaker—don’t carry it alone! We’re still here!"
Roselia, trembling, thrust her cracked staff into the void. Her flame reignited, faint but steady, binding itself into Leon’s storm. "Take it—burn with me!"
Liliana staggered forward, threads spilling from her hands in a desperate weave, stitching his fractures tighter. "You won’t collapse—not while I can still sew!"
Roman forced his fists together, the impact ringing like a gong. His echo surged into Leon’s rhythm. "We’ll hold with you—one heartbeat longer!"
Milim pressed both hands into Leon’s back, her starfire pouring into his veins. Her teeth gnashed, tears streaking down her bloodied face. "Then finish it, Leon! Carve him open before he swallows us all!"
The Fifth Pulse screamed. It wasn’t Leon’s anymore—it was all of theirs, braided into a single storm.
And Leon raised his ruined hand, fractures blazing like dying stars. His grin split bloody across his face, voice breaking into a roar:
"Fifth Pulse—Heartshatter Requiem!"
The constellation of his rings aligned in one suicidal instant.
Resonance erupted outward—not as a strike, not as a collapse, but as a blade of fractures piercing straight into the Maw’s heart.
Glothar’s form convulsed. The abyss in his chest shrieked as the fracture storm speared into it, unraveling its infinite pull. The veins of hunger that stretched into the void snapped one by one, detonating in eruptions of impossible light.
The Maw’s heart bled silence.
Glothar staggered, shadow-flames whipping chaotically around him. His voice, guttural and broken, thundered through the rift:
"You... dare strike... the core..."
Leon’s body screamed, fractures exploding into blinding light as his allies held him together by sheer will.
"Not dare," he spat, eyes blazing white.
"Do."
And the storm pushed deeper, tearing at the very root of the Maw.
The abyss screamed.
The heart of hunger, pierced by fractures not meant for gods or men, convulsed like a wounded star. Space buckled outward, then inward, each pulse a shockwave that threatened to tear everything apart.
Glothar’s silhouette twisted, half-shadow, half-fire, his body unraveling into streams of void-flame. His voice, once endless and commanding, now stuttered like a beast choking on its own breath.
"Impossible... I am the source... I am the end... You cannot—"
The Fifth Pulse cut him off, not with sound, but with silence. Every fracture Leon unleashed carried back the echoes of his allies—Naval’s tides, Roselia’s fire, Liliana’s threads, Roman’s stone, Milim’s sun. Each resonance burrowed deeper into the hollow furnace of Glothar’s chest, splitting the hunger from within.
The veins of void stretching across the battlefield recoiled violently. One snapped near Roselia, sending a backlash of silence that nearly swallowed her whole. She screamed, flames bursting from her hair as she forced herself back into Leon’s rhythm.
Liliana’s threads broke again, her fingers bleeding raw, but she tied them tighter, even if they cut her palms to the bone. "Hold, damn it—hold!"
Roman slammed his fists again, bone shattering, but his roar drowned his pain. "Leon—don’t stop now!"
Naval’s trident shook with every pulse of the Maw’s collapse, his body breaking from the strain. "Sink him—sink the heart itself!"
And Milim—her starfire wings finally burned away, leaving her small, trembling, but still pressed to Leon’s back, still pouring everything she was into him. "Don’t you dare let go! Not now!"
Leon’s body cracked further, skin and bone flaring like glass under too much heat. His grin was more a snarl now, eyes empty of everything but blinding purpose.
"Glothar," he roared, voice like shattering bells, "you are not hunger. You are the hollow it left behind. And hollows—"
The Fifth Pulse flared, the unstable constellation locking in one final alignment.
"—exist to be broken!"
The fracture storm surged through Glothar’s chest. The Maw’s heart split down the center, lightless fire screaming outward in an eruption that silenced the void itself.
For the first time, the Sovereign of the Maw fell to one knee. His shadow-frame shook, fire spilling from every rent. His voice was raw, stripped to its final truth:
"No... I am... inevitability..."
Leon’s body finally gave way, his frame splitting apart into shards of blood and light—yet his allies held him upright, their anchors binding his failing shell together for one last instant.
And with that instant, the Fifth Pulse sang its final note.
The Maw’s heart shattered.
The abyss convulsed, folding in on itself in a collapse of impossible gravity. Every vein of hunger snapped back into nothing. The devoured thrones screamed once more—then went utterly still.
Glothar’s silhouette fractured, fire streaming away from him like a dying star’s last breath. His final roar bled through the collapsing void:
"Leon... you have not... slain me... you have only made me bleed—"
And then he was gone, consumed in the implosion of his own heart.
Silence fell.
The battlefield was nothing but fractures and fading embers. Leon slumped forward, his body on the brink of disintegration, his rings shattered, his chest still glowing faintly with the ruinous echo of the Fifth Pulse.
His allies, trembling, broken, bleeding, clung to him like anchors in a collapsing sea.
They had done it.
But none of them knew if Leon would survive the storm he had unleashed.