Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 71: UNEXPECTED SALVATION

Chapter 71: UNEXPECTED SALVATION

The air within the ritual chamber crystallized with power. Reed’s transformed body had become a nexus of impossible energies—a living conduit for forces that existed before the world had form. The six artifacts pulsed in synchronized rhythm as they orbited his levitating form, their ancient surfaces crawling with eldritch script that burned the eyes of any who looked too closely.

Blood—goblin blood, evolved and ancient—spiraled upward from the five points of the pentagram, forming a crimson cyclone that merged with the golden-red light erupting from Reed’s flesh. His body contorted beyond natural limits, bones cracking and reforming as the artifacts’ power reshaped him into something that could, however briefly, contain their full potential.

Lord Vexior stood at the edge of the ritual circle, his necromantic senses overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of energies unleashed. "It’s working," he breathed, skeletal fingers clutching his staff for support. "The corruption is being drawn into him."

Indeed, throughout the camp, the sickly violet tendrils of Vrashtor’kaal’s influence were retreating, pulled inexorably toward the ritual’s center like water down a drain. Corrupted creatures shrieked in agony as portions of their transformed flesh were forcibly extracted, leaving them to collapse into piles of ordinary decaying matter.

Yet Shia saw what the others could not.

Behind Reed’s tortured expression, something else was emerging—a presence ancient beyond comprehension. The whispered warning Reed had given her moments before the ritual began echoed in her mind: "There is another entity. The artifacts don’t seal Vrashtor’kaal—they release the Unmaker. The goblin blood isn’t a seal; it’s the final key."

She watched in growing horror as the pattern of energies shifted subtly. The artifacts weren’t channeling corruption away; they were concentrating it, compressing it into something more refined, more purposeful. Reed wasn’t becoming a vessel for banishment—he was becoming a gateway.

"Stop!" Shia commanded, drawing her sword in one fluid motion. "The ritual is corrupted!"

The assembled lords and commanders turned to her in confusion, their faces bathed in the otherworldly light of the ritual.

"What madness is this?" Commander Talon demanded. "The corruption retreats! The ritual succeeds!"

"It’s a deception," Shia replied, advancing toward the ritual circle. "Reed warned me—the artifacts were never meant to seal anything away. They’re a key, designed to release something far worse than Vrashtor’kaal."

Lord Vexior’s eyes narrowed with sudden understanding. "The Convergence... not a barrier but a doorway."

Before anyone could move to stop her, Shia stepped into the ritual circle, her enchanted blade slicing through the arcane patterns inscribed on the ground. Immediately, searing pain engulfed her as the disrupted energies lashed out, seeking a new equilibrium. Her armor—inscribed with protective runes—began to glow white-hot against her skin.

"Shia, no!" Reed’s voice emerged from his transformed body, momentarily lucid through the pain. "The energies will consume you!"

But Shia did not retreat. Instead, she advanced further, her blade cutting through the swirling blood-vortex, disrupting its perfect symmetry. With each step, her body absorbed more of the chaotic energies that should have destroyed her instantly.

"What is happening?" Lady Elyriana gasped, watching as Shia’s form began to shimmer with the same golden-red light that suffused Reed. "She should be annihilated by those energies!"

Reed’s transformed face registered shock, then dawning recognition. "Your bloodline," he rasped through vocal cords no longer fully human. "The same alteration... how did I not see it?"

For centuries, the noble houses had prided themselves on their pure human lineage, untainted by "lesser races." Yet in that moment of perfect clarity, as the ritual energies illuminated truths long hidden, Reed saw what generations of careful breeding had concealed—Shia’s ancestral line contained traces of evolved goblin blood, diluted but never fully erased.

"My great-grandmother’s secret shame," Shia admitted through gritted teeth as she fought against the pain. "A goblin raid that wasn’t quite what the history books recorded."

With a final effort, she reached Reed’s floating form. The artifacts’ orbit widened to accommodate her presence, their energies recalibrating. Where there had been painful, chaotic discharge moments before, now a new pattern emerged—more stable, more controlled.

"A second vessel," Reed realized, his voice stronger as the pressure upon him lessened. "The artifacts can be balanced between two points."

He extended a transformed hand toward Shia. Without hesitation, she grasped it, completing the circuit.

Power exploded outward as their touch connected, knocking the assembled witnesses to the ground. Within the blinding light, Reed and Shia remained standing—two pillars now supporting the weight that would have crushed one alone.

"The ritual must be redirected," Reed instructed, his mind suddenly clear as their consciousnesses partially merged through the artifacts’ influence. "Not to seal, but to sever. Not to contain, but to expel."

Through their connected hands, Shia felt Reed’s intentions as clearly as if they were her own. The true nature of the artifacts became apparent—not tools of protection as the kingdoms believed, nor keys to release as Vrashtor’kaal had intended, but weapons of excision designed to cut away corruption at its root.

Together, they began to reshape the ritual, their minds working in perfect synchrony. The blood vortex stabilized, forming a sealed circuit between them. The artifacts’ orbit extended to encircle both vessels, their ancient power now divided between two conduits instead of burning through one.

"What are they doing?" Commander Talon demanded, shielding his eyes against the intensifying light.

Lord Vexior watched with scholarly fascination despite the danger. "They’re rewriting the ritual. Impossible... yet happening before our eyes."

Within the merged consciousness created by the artifacts, Reed and Shia engaged in silent communion. Their memories flowed together—her childhood in nobility’s rigid hierarchy, his in the evolving goblin warrens. Her training in ancient battle arts, his in survival against overwhelming odds. Different paths that had somehow led them to this singular moment of perfect understanding.

The true Unmaker stirs, Reed’s thoughts conveyed to her. It has waited millennia for this moment, manipulating Vrashtor’kaal like a puppet.

Then we deny it, Shia’s consciousness replied with unwavering conviction. We use its own tools against it.

Together, they forced the artifacts to reveal their deepest functions—capabilities hidden even from those who had wielded them for centuries. The Sphere of Dominion at Reed’s chest pulsed in counterpoint to the Crown of Ascension that had manifested upon Shia’s brow. The other artifacts arranged themselves around the pair, their purpose transformed through the dual-vessel connection.

Outside the ritual chamber, the battlefield fell silent as the corruption retreated entirely. The sky above cleared of its sickly violet hue, returning to natural blue. Corrupted creatures collapsed into inert matter, the animating force withdrawn. For a moment, it seemed victory had been achieved.

Then the earth began to shake.

Deep beneath the ritual site, something ancient stirred. The ground split open, revealing caverns that had never known sunlight. From these depths rose a column of absolute darkness—not the absence of light, but darkness as a physical force, heavy and malevolent.

"The true Unmaker awakens," Reed gasped, the strain of maintaining the ritual connection evident in his voice. "We’ve drawn it up from the depths where it waited."

Within the swirling void, a form began to take shape—a being of impossible geometries that hurt the mind to perceive. Where Vrashtor’kaal had been merely a corruption of natural life, this entity was the antithesis of existence itself—a cosmic negation given form.

"We can’t seal it," Shia realized, the knowledge flowing through their connection. "It’s too powerful."

"No," Reed agreed. "But we can sever its connection to this world."

Together, they redirected the artifacts’ power, no longer attempting to contain the corruption but to cut the Unmaker’s anchor points in reality. The ritual changed from a seal to an excision—surgical removal rather than containment.

The entity howled in rage as it felt its influence being severed—a sound that existed not in air but directly in the minds of all present. Blood flowed from the ears and eyes of the witnesses as the psychic assault battered their consciousness.

Reed and Shia stood unwavering within the storm, their dual-channeling creating a stability that allowed them to withstand forces that would have annihilated either alone. Through their joined hands flowed power that reshaped the very fabric of reality around the intrusion, isolating it from the world it sought to unmake.

"Now!" Reed commanded as the ritual reached its climax. "The final severance!"

In perfect unison, they activated the deepest function of the artifacts—not merely to channel power but to cut through the barriers between worlds. A blade of pure golden-red energy formed between them, impossibly sharp, capable of slicing through the very bonds that held reality together.

With a single thought shared between two minds, they brought the blade down upon the Unmaker’s connection to their world.

The entity’s shriek transcended sound, becoming a fundamental wrongness that rippled across existence. For one terrible moment, the laws of nature suspended—gravity failed, light bent in impossible ways, time itself stuttered and skipped like a damaged record.

Then, with a thunderous implosion, the Unmaker was gone—severed from their reality, cast back into the void between worlds. The artifacts flared one final time, then fell inert around Reed and Shia’s still-joined forms.

Silence descended upon the ritual chamber. The assembled witnesses slowly recovered their senses, rising shakily to their feet to behold what their sacrifice had wrought.

Reed and Shia remained standing at the circle’s center, transformed beyond recognition yet still fundamentally themselves. Reed’s corruption had stabilized into something new—neither goblin nor monster but a hybrid form with carapace-like plates over vital areas and skin that shimmered with subdued golden-red light. Shia’s form had also changed, her noble human features now bearing subtle marks of her hidden goblin ancestry—slightly pointed ears, eyes with a faint luminescence, skin bearing intricate patterns that appeared and faded like living script.

"It is done," Reed said, his voice layered with harmonics impossible for a single throat to produce. "The Unmaker is severed from our world."

"Severed, but not destroyed," Shia added, her voice similarly transformed. "It will seek other ways to return."

Lord Vexior approached cautiously, his necromantic senses probing the aftermath of the ritual. "The corruption is gone, but... what have you two become?"

Reed and Shia looked at each other, their transformed eyes communicating volumes without words. The ritual had bound them together in ways that transcended physical understanding—two consciousnesses that would never again be fully separate.

"We are the Watchwards now," Shia answered simply. "Neither human nor goblin, but guardians against what waits beyond the veil."

"The price was high," Reed added, "but less than total sacrifice."

As the implications of their transformation settled over the assembly, a new tremor shook the ritual chamber—different from before, but no less concerning. This was not the awakening of some cosmic horror, but rather the response of a world rebalancing itself after near-catastrophe.

"What now?" Commander Talon asked, gripping his sword as dust fell from the ceiling.

Reed and Shia shared another silent communion before Reed spoke. "The severance created instability. This place will collapse soon. Everyone must evacuate immediately."

As the chamber began to crumble around them, the assembled lords and soldiers rushed for the exits. Yet Reed and Shia remained motionless in the center of the ritual circle, their transformed bodies unnaturally calm amid the destruction.

"Aren’t you coming?" Lady Elyriana called from the doorway.

Shia smiled—a expression both familiar and alien on her transformed face. "We will follow. There is one final task that must be completed."

Once the chamber had emptied of witnesses, Reed and Shia turned their attention to the artifacts that lay scattered around them. Though seemingly inert, both could sense the latent power still contained within the ancient objects.

"They cannot be allowed to remain in this world," Reed said. "Even dormant, they are too dangerous."

Shia nodded in agreement. "But simple destruction is impossible. They must be scattered across the void—far enough apart that no one being could ever reunite them."

They knelt together in the center of the crumbling chamber, hands still joined as they channeled the last reserves of the ritual’s power. The artifacts rose into the air around them, ancient symbols flaring to life one final time.

"Ready?" Reed asked, squeezing Shia’s hand.

She nodded, her transformed eyes meeting his with absolute resolve.

Together, they began the final banishment—opening six tiny rifts in reality, each leading to a different corner of the cosmos.

The first artifact disappeared through its designated portal when a new presence made itself known—a whisper of power so subtle it had escaped detection until this moment.

"Did you truly think I would be so easily defeated?" The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing not in the chamber but in their joined minds. "I am the Unmaker. I exist in all places where existence fails."

Reed and Shia froze, the remaining portals wavering as their concentration was disrupted. Through their mental link, a horrifying realization dawned—the ritual hadn’t severed the Unmaker completely.

It had left a fragment behind.

Hidden.

Waiting.

Inside one of them.