Page 161 of Walking in Darkness

A sonic boom.

Seismic.

It was a collision of light and darkness.

A wall of energy that clashed and clawed to overpower the other.

I braced against it, the power pulsing and pulsing from my hands as I pushed every drop from the well inside me.

All my strength.

All my will.

The will of every single Laven who stood as a fortress around me.

It was deafening.

Blinding.

A battle of flame and light.

Our bodies bowed as we poured out every last drop from our souls.

And the light suddenly burst.

Rupturing in a violent explosion. A streaking, tangible resonance that cut down everything in its path.

The wails and snarls of the Ghorl pierced the air. An agony that tore through the realms.

But my focus was on Ambrose.

I could see the flames behind his translucent skin. As if he were burning from the inside out while rage blistered through his features. “No.” It was a snarl of the otherworldly. “You have no power. You have no power. Little Valient. You must die.”

It was a shriek that was devoured when the flames licked higher, spreading out from within to consume his body.

A blaze that grew high as he was fully set afire. He writhed and thrashed within it, his wails barely penetrating the air: “No. Slut. Whore. Bitch. You will not win. I will find a way to—”

He suddenly combusted. Splitting apart on a thunderous boom that cracked through the heavens.

Ash the only thing that remained.

Ash that was caught in a cyclone that touched down from the storm that raged above and consumed the mass of Ghorl in front of us.

Devouring the wicked.

One second later, they were all swallowed by the crater above, the chaos sucked into the nothingness before the fracture closed, the clouds that had obscured everything taken with it.

And in an instant, it was silent.

Still.

Only the ragged panting of Laven gasping for breath filled the air.

Relief and torment raked from our lungs.

I must have been in shock, because the only thing I could do was turn around to look out at the aftermath of the battle that had besieged the town.

At the carnage and ruin.