Chapter 374: _Let's Go Home

Amara’s POV

*****

This shouldn’t be happening.

None of it should’ve happened.

She saw every possible future through that Stormborn princess’ divination. Her victory was meant to be stamped into fate itself! Especially after all her plotting and backup plans.

The great Amara Redthorn thought about all this with regret and unbridled fury as she crawled to her feet. Moments after her consciousness was expelled from the Divine Crystal, she’d used a quick spell to replace Morwen with her body.

Which meant the fallen witch councillor was back in Arcadia, waiting for her command in case she needed her again.

But what was the point now?

“No,” she gnashed her teeth, heaving through the smoke and soot that now covered the desert. “He… he couldn’t have…”

A pained grunt caught her attention.

Getting on his feet was her stubborn wretch of a spawn.

Her eyes darkened instantly.

She lunged without making a sound, using the smoke to hide herself. A poisoned, tipped blade materialised in her grip.

If she failed in anything else, the least she could do was erase this fool with the same hands she used in welcoming him into life.

Kyren turned to her a second too late.

“ENOUGH!”

An ancient, powerful voice roared through the desert, dispelling the smoke.

Amara gasped.

The blade had just been a few precious centimetres away from gouging Kyren’s eyeball. Now she was left frozen in place by an overwhelmingly familiar yet invisible force.

This wasn’t magic.

It was—

“Divinity.” Colour flushed out of her face as she swivelled her head to the place the Divine Crystal and the moon blessed had last been before the explosion. “Impossible…”

Levitating over the crimson sand was a figure bathed in silver light, arms spread like a god descending amongst mortals.

The High Matron shook her head. “What… what have you done?”

She’d watered the idea of the moon-blessed bringing the end of Evaros. When he refused that path, she took things into her own hands, willing to absorb him and the crystal.

But this?

Elian’s hollow eyes blinked once before travelling to her. That single, pointed look was enough to send chills down to her very soul.

Those weren’t the eyes of an Omega. They weren’t the eyes of a Lycan or a separated piece of divinity.

“You’ve… become her.” The terror slowly twisted to awe, a crazed grin curving her lips. She cackled, ignoring the way her own son stared at her like she’d gone insane. “Ah, my creation. You’ve exceeded every previous calculation I—”

SNAP!

Her neck snapped violently to the side as her body flew through the air away from Kyren. Air left her lungs, her eyes widening as she floated before a now irritated Elian.

“Creation?” He repeated, voice echoing in a cacophony of two layered voices.

Amara’s eyes lit up.

Yes.

Of course!

She’d feared the Omega retained his memories as Elian Ashford after becoming one with the moon goddess’s essence.

Hmph.

Looks like she overestimated his will.

This was essentially a clean canvas for her to manipulate. She just needed the right words and push.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I’m… your mother. Thousands of years ago I separated enough divinity from the Divine Crystal to… create… your soul…”

Her brows knitted.

With each new word she let out, her throat constricted harder until she felt her windpipe cave under the heightened pressure.

The moon blessed’s lips lifted in a knowing smirk. “You must think I was born yesterday.” He raised a hand, leaving it just a few inches shy of touching her forehead. “You didn’t create me, Amara. No, that has never been it.”

Curses!

He was still in there.

“I did, you fool!” She snarled, her transcendent Core flaring. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t exist. None of this would be happening!”

Elian’s smile fell into a cold line.

Agonising pain exploded in the witch’s chest, making her rasp. Her eyes sparked sporadically with dark purple light. Then… that light drained out of her mouth in a mist.

All of it condensed into a small ball of pure dark mana which floated above the moon blessed palm.

Amara’s limbs went numb.

She could no longer feel her Core. Her magic…

… Because it was now in the hands of the god whom she quickly realised held the strings to her fate.

“Your Council members should know what to do with this,” the moon blessed regarded the Transcendent Core with the same countenance of an emperor observing a copper coin. Then those silver orbs dragged to her again. “You were right about one thing, though…”

The hand he left a few inches away from her forehead began moving again.

“… If it weren’t for you, none of this would’ve been happening.” His smile returned. “But I’ve not been your creation for a long time.”

His fingers were surprisingly cold when they touched her forehead.

That was enough.

There were no screams or pain as Amara Redthorn began disintegrating from the feet up. In her final moments, her eyes flitted to Kyren.

He stared at his mother and what was happening to her in a mix of astonishment and something else. Something that reminded him of the ten-year-old boy she abandoned on the harsh dunes of the Dark Lands.

When the disintegration got to her neck, one last image settled in her head.

That same young boy laughing when he performed his first spell under her direction, his father watching from the doorway.

“Oh, Garrick,” her eyes fluttered shut with quiet acceptance. “I’m coming…”

.

.

Elian’s POV

*****

“Elian!”

“Little flame!”

He didn’t know how to feel when what was left of Amara faded into the wind as specks of silver light. For one, he was glad the psychotic hag was dead and gone.

But… at what cost?

‘System?’ He called, half expecting translucent holographic screens to pop up around him.

Nothing.

There was only silence inside a brain that hadn’t known that word for months.

It really was gone.

The system had always been a ‘gift’ from a version of the moon goddess created by Amara. So essentially it was just an extension of himself.

One that could no longer exist once he embraced the Crystal’s divinity.

‘I’ll miss you, buddy.’

Leisurely, he lowered himself to the earth, the silver light enveloping his body peeling off to reveal his unblemished naked skin underneath.

His hair was now completely silver and reached his shoulders in perfect waves.

“Gods, must every divine rebirth strip me?”

Lucian and Kyren barreled into him before the question finished forming. He stiffened—then hugged them back, a heavy breath leaving him.

“Oh, my gods.” Lucian pulled away. “I mean… oh, my YOU. That was… the Crystal…”

“Is it inside you?” Kyren queried, genuinely curious. “What even happened? Amara… Is she really gone? For good this time? We should—”

“Guys!” Elian burst out laughing, squeezing them tighter between his arms. “Can we slow down with the questions and just bask in the moment a bit? Oh, and also pretend like I’m not naked.”

The Alpha King reached for his ass almost instantly, bringing a blush to the new god’s cheeks.

“I said PRETEND.”

“You know that’s practically impossible, sweet buns.”

Elian rolled his eyes.

He brought his gaze to what lay above.

The Dark Land’s crimson sky and perpetually ashen clouds were beginning to give way to a clear night sky unlike what it had seen in millennia.

The large crack on the moon’s surface had sealed up, like the omen behind it never existed to begin with.

His hands subconsciously lowered to both their hands, clutching like he was just getting to love them.

“Let’s go home.”