The dragon blinked.
The woman who once bled beneath its claws now stood tall, shrouded in a dark, regal aura that churned with shadows and stars. Her red eyes glowed like dying suns. Her white hair flowed as though caught in a wind from beyond the mortal plane.
Lirien had changed.
No… evolved.
The pact with Kaen—the primordial darkness—had rewritten her very soul. She no longer stood as a hunter, nor even as a human.
She was void-wrought. Immortal.
Power surged around her in waves, warping the ground beneath her feet. Where Lirien stepped, the world shivered—not in fear, but in recognition. The void bent to her will. Her body had become the perfect vessel: her speed limitless, her strength immeasurable.
The dragon felt it. For the first time in centuries, it recoiled.
"You remember what it felt like, don't you?" she whispered, voice echoing in unnatural harmonies. "To stand before something greater than yourself."
It lunged, screeching, unleashing a crimson beam of draconic energy laced with divine fire.
Lirien didn't move.
Instead, the beam curved—twisted—and spiraled into nothingness before it could touch her. The void around her absorbed it, laughing silently.
With a thought, she vanished.
Then—slash.
A limb fell.
The dragon roared, but she was already above it—twisting midair, her rapier now a blackened blade of compressed void. She struck the beast's back, slicing through its scales like parchment.
Kaen watched from a distant ledge, arms crossed, a rare glimmer of amusement in his crimson eyes. "She adapted faster than I thought."
The dragon, wild with pain, unleashed a final attack—summoning a storm of blazing meteors.
Lirien raised a single hand.
The sky broke apart, and every falling flame turned to black dust.
She landed softly on the beast's snout. "You were once a god-slayer. Today, you die by my hand."
She plunged her blade downward—into its skull, into its soul. The void spiraled through the dragon's body, devouring every atom of its existence.
In moments, there was nothing left. No bones. No blood. Just… silence.
Lirien turned slowly, her crimson gaze finding Kaen.
"I suppose," she said softly, "this makes me your equal now."
Kaen smirked. "Closer."
As the wind carried away the last remnants of the ancient dragon, the mountain stood silent… bearing witness to the rise of a new god-tier being—Lirien, Third Pact-Holder of Darkness.