Chapter 5 - chapter 5:Shards Reunited

Southward plunged the Shadowwood Labyrinth, realms drowned in eternal predatory night where no stars pierced thick canopy. Illusions spawned psychological horrors: village dead rose accusatory—"Murderer!"—claws rending air. Thorne succumbed fully, axe swinging wildly at phantom children; Lirael's wards of glowing ghost-fungi barely held madness at bay. Fractured by guilt, they pressed through mimic-trees devouring stragglers alive; the final shard pulsed in a thorn-wreathed heart guarded by carnivorous roots.Elias embraced his hybrid curse fully—man and boar in lethal harmony—tusks piercing the beast's core as Lirael severed vines. Reconciliation mended their souls; Thorne clasped both tearfully: "Family endures." Tamed griffons, bargained with gold and promises, bore them half a world upward to the Celestial Spire—storm-wracked peaks lancing thunderous skies.Lightning wyrms assailed mid-flight, plasma bolts shattering stone. Elias's boar-rage prevailed, hybrid form cleaving wings. At snow-lashed apex, five shards fused in radiant horns; Maltherak manifested colossal once more. "You've conquered beast and self. Worthy." The curse shattered like flawed crystal, boar-shadow banished eternally.They returned heroes to rebuild Eldridge from ashes. Thorne farmed richer lands; Elias forged legend-blades. Lirael bore their child under new hearths, love eternal legend. No god could curse such unbreakable bonds.