Sold to the Alpha Tyrant: The Last Moonblood

The first cannon volley cracked the night like the ribcage of a dying titan, shards of rune-forged iron shrieking through the storm and slamming into Valemont Manor's northern rampart. Sickly green detonations bloomed, painting shattered towers in hues of pestilence. Damon felt each impact reverberate through the foundations as though the house were a living beast whose spine had been struck by hammers of spite. Yet the manor's wards held, sigils flaring white, swallowing toxic fire before it could crawl deeper.

The Ironsworn hadn't come to bargain—they came to carve trophies from the Tyrant and the Moonblood. Through a high window slit, Damon watched ranks of armored wolves below, rain soaking their iron-oak sigils. Siege totems pulsed across the mud, tethered to sacrificial altars bleeding into channels that fed black-flame lanterns. At the center stood Arch-Priestess Kaelis Ironsworn—antler-helmed, robed in stitched dragon hide—chanting in Old Lupine, spinning a cyclone of steel needles over her forces.

Inside the manor's grand foyer, Dahlia traced a glowing finger along her summoned spear, silver flames licking its length like it was alive. The Moonblood mark pulsed beneath her collarbone, syncing with thunder, rippling power up her spine until the chandeliers flickered. She tasted the war-priests' blood chants in the air—metallic, violent—but there was no fear, only a steady, swelling exhilaration as the oath-bond between her and Damon deepened. She pushed the spear's tip into the marble just enough to hear it hiss, then turned toward the stairs. The shadowcrafted sentinels awaited—twelve figures of living dusk wielding crescent blades. Vael knelt at their front, scorched armor steaming, eyes fierce.

Damon descended, cloak torn from earlier skirmishes, but presence unbowed. He gave no orders—only promises: hold the wings, flood the breach, choke their totems with their own bile. Vael bowed. The sentinels vanished to war posts. Damon's gaze met Dahlia's. No words needed. The plan was clear: draw Kaelis inside, away from her siege strength, sever her war-tether, and let Dahlia's inner storm answer the one raging outside.

Together, they moved through hidden rune-glass passages to a high balcony. Below, Ironsworn battle-chanters hammered their shields. Kaelis's gesture sent the cyclone of steel needles hurtling forward, shredding the rain into vapor. Dahlia lifted her spear—no, it lifted itself, guided by something old. With one motion, she hurled it. White fire streaked through darkness and punched into the cyclone's heart. Silver-white detonation tore it apart, needles scattering like meteor dust. Kaelis shrieked and raised her arms; green lightning leapt from the totems to her gauntlets, forming a storm sphere she hurled at the balcony. Damon stepped in front of Dahlia, crossed his blades, absorbed the sphere. His swords flared molten, then redirected the energy sideways—it vaporized a siege tower.

Kaelis's war-rune voice boomed a challenge. Damon vaulted over the balcony, blades whirling, carving Ironsworn vanguards in arcs of sparks and blood. Dahlia followed—boots slamming into mud, moonfire wrapped around her fists. Her strikes echoed with star-song. She toppled siege totems with single gestures, their energies imploding like dying suns. Kaelis advanced, antler crown crackling, summoning a spectral basilisk. Damon shifted into wolf-form and met it, jaws crushing its iron throat. Dahlia clashed with Kaelis—silver spear against antlered staff. The priestess chanted a hex of submission. Dahlia answered with a lullaby born from marrow—twisted the spell and sent it back. Kaelis gagged, choking on her own magic. The storms collided—Moonblood versus Ironsworn. Towers collapsed. Wards screamed. At chaos's center, Damon and Dahlia moved as one. Dahlia drove her spear through Kaelis's chest. Silver fire erupted, severing the priestess's godsteel tether. Damon beheaded her helm. Kaelis fell.

But from the treeline, a horn sounded. The Hollow Order had arrived—shadow-warlocks riding nightmares of bone. Damon hoisted Dahlia onto a ruined wagon for vantage. Together they saw the unholy alliance—Ironsworn remnants merging with Hollow mages. Dahlia's chest flared. Only one option remained. She gripped Damon's hand and whispered the phrase Kyris had shown her in dreams: "Blood calls Storm. Storm calls End." Their bond erupted—silver and shadow. A shockwave annihilated siege lines, dissolving priest and warlock alike into dust.

When the light faded, silence fell. Rain sizzled on molten craters. Dahlia wobbled but didn't fall. Damon's breathing slowed, steady. Vael limped from the rubble, confirming the Ironsworn were wiped, the manor intact. Yet Hollow flags still smoldered—a warning. Dahlia turned to Damon. His tired smile gave her strength. But the storm inside her hadn't peaked. Not yet.

The courtyard smoked as embers flickered like dying stars. But deeper beneath her boots, Dahlia felt something shift—magic threading through the fractures the battle had ripped open. Rain calmed into a mist that clung to torn banners and collapsed gargoyles. At the ruined fountain's dry basin, they stood together, watching shadowguard haul Ironsworn corpses to a pyre. But peace didn't come. From the manor's east wing, stone clattered—wards unraveling, books coughing ashen pages into hollow halls. Damon growled. The manor's core wards were buckling from channeling the oath-surge. If they didn't bleed pressure, the entire estate might implode.

Damon gave quick orders: redirect residual energy into catacomb batteries, siphon storm echoes into the subcellar prism, seal ruptured wings with iron salt. Sentinels vanished to execute. Dahlia fed spectral embers from corpses into a hovering sigil. The manor calmed. Damon healed a crimson sentinel pierced by a broken spear, sealing the wound with moonfire. The sentinel rose without a word—only duty.

Night thickened. In the hills, Ironsworn funeral fires glowed dim. But eastward, in the city skyline, a pulse of vermilion throbbed against clouds—Hollow magic. Damon saw it too. "They'll rally in the lower crypt markets. If they raise the dragon heart, no ward will hold." Dahlia's mark flared. She proposed a strike—now. Silent. Brutal. Stop the confluence nexus before dawn. Damon hesitated—the manor was fragile. But Dahlia's spear ignited. "The manor can be rebuilt. A resurrected dragon god won't negotiate." Damon's grin was pure wolf. "Then we hunt."

Preparations were ruthless. Dahlia donned a moonsteel bodysuit, light as silk, tough as myth. Damon strapped on twin blades laced with anti-drake venom from the Crying Caverns. Vael provided intel: Hollow agents were channeling dragon heart ichor beneath Ossuary Eighteen, under the Basilisk Cathedral. Four hours until full activation. Dahlia mapped the infiltration route: storm sewers, plague tunnels, bypass the Bone Choir, breach the dais, sever the conduits, and extract if possible. Damon approved. Contingency—if extraction failed, they'd detonate it.

They departed before midnight, mounted on shadow steeds woven by sentinel craft. The manor vanished behind them like a wounded beast vanishing into fog. Moorlands passed in silence. The crimson moon hung overhead like a blood coin. Dahlia's muscles thrummed with bond-surge. Damon led, silhouette blade-sharp.

City limits loomed—rusted spires, stained-glass mausoleums, gutters slick with ghost rain. They hid the steeds and slipped into sewers reeking of rot and alchemical discharge. Damon's eyes cut through blackness. Dahlia's mark provided ghostlight. Iron rungs descended into moss-covered arches. Chanting echoed in HollowTongue. They waded knee-deep for half a mile before reaching a stone stair slick with algae.

At its base: plague tunnels from forgotten epochs, bones mortared into walls. Damon halted—guardian ahead. Dahlia felt it. A Bone Choir sentinel, built from fused skulls and ribcages, its song a drug. She summoned a soundless blade of moonlight. Two steps. Slice. The hymn cut. Sentinel lights died. Damon collected its gem. "Good kill."

They reached Ossuary Eighteen—cathedral-wide, walls stacked with bone boxes labeled in blood ink. At its heart, a dais where Hollow priests chanted over a dragon heart suspended in brine, ichor siphoning into glyph-riddled veins. Warlocks stood like statues. Dahlia and Damon nodded. Then attacked.

She burst the chamber with silver flare. Damon hit the shadows—blades slashing tubes. A priest screamed. Lines burst. Brine splashed glyphs. Dahlia speared the conduit. Electricity arced. Priests ignited. Warlocks retaliated—void bolts flying. Damon parried, redirected into bellows. Explosion. Chaos.

The sarcophagus cracked. Heart tissue pulsed—ancient, hungry. Dahlia felt its call—flame, wings, a storm trying to bond. She resisted, chanting lullabies buried in her blood. Damon pried the lid free, drove his anti-drake dagger into the heart. The dragon screamed through time. The chamber shook. Glyphs shattered. Ossuary boxes crashed.

With the heart pierced, the ritual died. Surviving priests ran. Dahlia wrapped what remained in a stasis net of moon-threads. Damon signaled retreat. They fled collapsing halls, leaping debris.

Outside, rain pounded. Sentinels signaled extraction. But at the bridge—Ironsworn survivors and Hollow deserters blocked the path. No way out but through. Dahlia's palms burned. Damon's blades dripped heartblood. One look. One nod. Then they charged.

Battle exploded—two against dozens. Lightning framed them like gods. Dahlia wielded the dragon heart like a storm lantern, pulses cracking bones, toppling enemies. Damon danced through carnage—faster, deadlier than before. Rain turned red.

At last, the enemy broke. Dawn bled across the sky. Dahlia collapsed, the heart flickering in its net. Damon cradled her, breath steady. They'd won a heartbeat of peace.

But far above, in the Iron Curtain peaks, Sareth felt the heart die—and smiled. Because now she had what she needed. The blood cadence of the Storm-Bride was mapped. The final ritual could begin.