Ascendant Beasts : The Voidcrest Prophecy

### **The Crown's Descent**

The sky cracked like porcelain as the Devourer's crown descended, its jagged teeth gnashing at the air. Each rotation sent shockwaves through the valley, glaciers shattering into diamond dust. The ground beneath Thalia's feet writhed, alive with fissures that pulsed like open veins.

"It's reshaping the world," Lira muttered, her void-rotted eye reflecting the chaos. "Turning it into a bridge for its true form."

Zane staggered, shadows coiling around his wrists like manacles. The Heart's voice slithered through his mind, darker, hungrier. *"You feel it, don't you? The crown calls to me. To* us."

Thalia gripped her brother's relic shard, its glow dimming. "We need to move. Now."

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### **The Fractured Mind**

In the temple's ruins, Zane collapsed against a mural of the First Pact. The Heart's laughter echoed as his vision fractured—a nightmare of Grimhollow's mines, his mother's skeletal hand reaching from the shadows.

*"You could have saved her,"* the Heart whispered. *"Just like you could save them now. Let me in."*

Zane's shadow-blade materialized, its edge trembling. "I'm done listening to you."

*"Then watch them die."*

The vision shifted: Thalia, impaled on the crown's teeth. Vyrthax, howling as his starry fur dissolved. Zane roared, slashing at the illusion—but the blade passed through nothing.

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### **Thalia's Awakening**

Thalia's violet eyes burned as she touched the temple's central altar. The relic shard flared, its light merging with the murals' fading starlight. A voice, ancient and resonant, filled her skull.

**"Veilwalker. You tread where mortals fear."**

The temple dissolved. Thalia stood in a realm of shifting auroras, facing a Primal entity—a stag with antlers of liquid void, its eyes twin galaxies.

**"The Devourer is but a shadow of the true enemy,"** it intoned. **"The one who shattered the First Pact. To stop it, you must reclaim what was stolen."**

"How?" Thalia demanded.

The stag bowed, its antlers brushing her palm. **"Break the crown. Shatter the chain."**

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### **Lysandra's Gambit**

Lysandra emerged from the wreckage, her uniform singed, hair matted with ash. In her hands glowed a fractured Covenant shard, its edges crackling with unstable energy.

"You're a fool if you think that'll work," Jarek spat.

"And you're a corpse if you stand in my way," she retorted, thrusting the shard into Zane's chest.

He screamed as raw Primal energy surged through him, the Heart's shadows recoiling.

"What did you do?!" Thalia lunged, thorns at Lysandra's throat.

"What you couldn't," Lysandra hissed. "I turned him into a weapon."

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### **The Hollow Alliance**

The truce shattered with the first tremor. Cultists turned on Elite, blades clashing as the crown's teeth rained down. Vyrthax tore through the chaos, his howls drowned by the Devourer's roar.

Lira grabbed Thalia's arm. "The crown's anchor is beneath the temple! Destroy it, and the fissures close!"

"And the Devourer?"

Lira's gaze faltered. "It'll take everything."

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### **The Final Charge**

Zane stood at the valley's edge, the Heart's power and Lysandra's shard warring in his veins. The crown loomed above, its maw widening.

Thalia joined him, her eyes blazing violet. "Together?"

He nodded. "Always."

They charged, Vyrthax at their heels. The crown's teeth descended.

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### **Cliffhanger: The Shattering**

Thalia's relic shard pierced the crown's core. Light erupted, tearing the sky.

Zane's shadows surged, the Heart's final scream merging with the Devourer's.

Then—silence.

The crown shattered. The fissures sealed.

But as the dust cleared, Zane lay lifeless, the Heart's shadow coiled around his still heart.

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