The northern wastes stretched before him, endless and cruel.

  Korrak ran.

  Not from fear. Not from the abyss.

  But toward Velros.

  The ruined temple of Helm’s Reach collapsed behind him, its stones cracking and crumbling into dust, swallowed by the horror that had awakened beneath it. The abyss was not chasing him. It didn’t need to.

  It was spreading.

  Korrak had seen it in the sky, the way the stars had begun to shift, dimming, retreating from the taint creeping across the world. The wind carried the scent of charred stone, of magic gone wrong, of something unnatural unraveling the fabric of existence itself.

  Velros had done this.

  And Velros would answer for it.

  The Gjallarbrand burned in his grip, whispering, calling, feeding him strength he should not have had. The voices of the old gods, the warriors of ages past, were screaming now, demanding blood, demanding fire.

  The final battle waited ahead.

  The last hunt.

  The ruins of Velros’s fortress were less than a day’s march from Helm’s Reach—a shattered citadel of black stone, its towers broken, its gates lined with bodies.

  Not just any bodies.

  The corpses of warlords, priests, warriors who had stood against Velros and lost.

  Not impaled. Not hung.

  Their bones had been twisted, reshaped, elongated like melted wax, their faces frozen in eternal screams. Flesh had been stretched too thin, peeled open like parchment, revealing muscles that still pulsed, eyes that still blinked despite their lifelessness. Some were nailed to the stone walls, their ribcages cracked open like the jaws of starving beasts. Others had been merged together, melted into grotesque pillars of fused bone and torn skin, their voices still echoing in the wind.

  A monument to Velros’s failures.

  Korrak stepped past them.

  He was not afraid.

  He had walked through fire, through curses, through things that should never have existed.

  And now, only one thing remained.

  The great hall of the ruined fortress was wrong.

  Not cold, not warm. Not anything.

  The air felt hollow, as if something had scooped the life from it, leaving behind only a faint, lingering echo of reality.

  Velros stood at the center of the ruin, beneath a gaping wound in the sky.

  The abyss was behind him.

  No longer a formless thing lurking beneath the world—now, it was awake, visible, pulsing in the heavens, shifting like an infection against the stars.

  Velros smiled.

  "You should have stayed dead, Korrak."

  The warlock was changed.

  He had always been tall, but now he seemed stretched, his frame thinner, his robes woven from something shifting, writhing. His eyes burned with violet fire, and his veins bulged black beneath his pale skin, pulsing with something not entirely human anymore.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  He had touched the abyss.

  He had become it.

  "You think you’ve come to kill me?" Velros asked, his voice calm, amused.

  Korrak said nothing.

  He had stopped speaking long ago.

  He just moved.

  The Gjallarbrand struck first.

  Korrak lunged, blade singing, burning white-hot as it arced through the air. The moment the steel met Velros’s flesh, there was a **shockwave—**a blast of heat, of force, of something ancient and angry.

  Velros staggered back.

  His expression flickered—for the first time, he looked surprised.

  Then he grinned.

  "Ah," he murmured. "So you did find it."

  Korrak didn’t give him time to speak further.

  He attacked again.

  Velros moved like a shadow cast by fire—fast, shifting, flickering from one point to another. Korrak’s blade carved through his robes, through the space where he should have been, but Velros was already gone.

  Then the warlock countered.

  A wave of pure abyssal force exploded outward, slamming into Korrak like a collapsing mountain. He skidded across the stone, his back colliding with the shattered remnants of a throne.

  Pain spiked through his ribs.

  But he had felt worse.

  He rose again.

  Velros watched him, intrigued.

  "You’re different now," he mused. "The blade has changed you."

  Korrak rolled his shoulders. "Not enough."

  Velros smiled.

  Then he raised a hand.

  The abyss answered.

  The sky ripped open.

  Tendrils of black fire, of living shadow, of something beyond reality itself, surged downward.

  Not reaching for Korrak.

  Not yet.

  It was devouring the world.

  Velros lifted his gaze to the abyss, his arms outstretched, his voice low, reverent.

  "The gods are gone," he whispered. "The old ways are fading. The only thing that remains is the end."

  His gaze lowered back to Korrak.

  "And I," Velros said, smiling, "will become it."

  The abyss poured into him.

  And Velros changed.

  His body twisted.

  Not simply growing—reshaping.

  His limbs lengthened. His fingers became claws, his spine curving, cracking, his bones snapping and reforming as abyssal energy poured through him.

  His face stretched, his eyes multiplying—not just two, but six, then ten, then too many to count, all of them burning violet, all of them locked onto Korrak.

  A new voice came from his throat, layered, something not fully human anymore.

  "You cannot kill me, barbarian."

  Korrak gripped the Gjallarbrand.

  "We’ll see."

  The battle was fire and ruin.

  Velros struck with the force of the abyss itself, his claws carving through the air, rifts of black magic tearing apart the stone floor beneath them.

  Korrak dodged left, then right, each movement calculated, the Gjallarbrand flashing in the dark.

  The blade met Velros’s flesh again.

  This time, the warlock screamed.

  The abyss reeled.

  And Korrak knew.

  The Gjallarbrand was not just steel.

  It was the last fire.

  The last remnant of the gods.

  The only thing that could sever the abyss from this world.

  And Velros felt it.

  His twisted form shuddered, his mouths opening in silent, agonized screams as the blade burned through him.

  Korrak drove the sword deeper.

  The fire erupted.

  The abyss shrieked.

  Velros’s form began to crack, splintering, unraveling into dust, into fading embers, into something less than nothing.

  And then—he was gone.

  And the abyss collapsed.

  The fortress crumbled.

  The sky shifted. The wound began to close.

  Korrak stood alone, the Gjallarbrand still burning in his grip.

  It was over.

  Finally.

  He turned toward the ruined gates.

  And Rylana was there.

  Still alive.

  Still watching.

  A slow, knowing smile on her lips.

  "You feel it, don’t you?" she murmured.

  Korrak didn’t answer.

  Because he did feel it.

  The hunt was over.

  But the hunger remained.

  He turned toward the frozen wastes.

  The world would always need a hunter.

  His grip on the Gjallarbrand tightened.

  And beneath the pale northern stars, Korrak disappeared into the wilds once more.

  The hunt would never end.