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CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE: The Shattered Vanguard

Author: Skye Wilder
last update Last Updated: 2025-08-21 16:36:43

The ground trembled long before the gate gave way.

I could feel it, like a heartbeat too loud for a single chest, echoing through the marrow of the earth. Every step, every gasp of wind carried its rhythm: the Hollow was coming. Or perhaps, it had already arrived.

Then the sky split.

The star-door at the edge of the Vale tore itself apart in a soundless shatter, lightless, endless. Night spilled through it like a tide, swallowing half the battlefield in shadow. It was not darkness, not absence of light, but a thick, breathing void that devoured the shape of things. Soldiers screamed as they vanished, their armor clanging one last time before the night chewed them whole.

The war began with silence, and then it began with screams.

“Hold!” Ruby’s voice tore across the battlefield.

She stood at the front, her body wrapped in black flame that licked around her like wings. The Ashen Crown glowed upon her brow—gold and shadow twined, Kael’s ember flickering faintly inside its core. For a mom
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  • Beast Billionaire Claim    CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE: The Door Of Silence

    Some promises break your heart just by being kept.The battlefield smelled of iron and ash, smoke curling from shattered wards and broken sigils. The Hollow loomed ahead, its black stone arch rising like the mouth of a god that had never once known mercy. Behind me, Ruby’s breathing was ragged, half a sob, half a growl.“Don’t you dare,” she hissed. Her fingers clutched my sleeve, trembling. “Zara, don’t even think it. There has to be another way.”Her fear cut deeper than the claws that had raked across my ribs minutes ago. Ruby, who had walked with me through fire and betrayal, who had stood between me and Victor’s schemes, was breaking in front of me.“Elira knows,” I said softly, though my throat burned. “She always did.”Ruby’s eyes flashed, wet and furious. “Then let her be wrong for once. Let her carry the curse, let Maxim—let anyone else—but not you. Not you, Zara.”But Elira was already moving.She stood before the Door, silver hair wild in the wind, her palms slick with bloo

  • Beast Billionaire Claim    CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT: The Beast's Vow

    The battlefield had gone eerily still, as if the Hollow itself were holding its breath. Ruby’s declaration still hung in the air like smoke—“If I must be queen of the Hollow, then let me be its last.” Her voice was the sound of ash and fire colliding, and it left a scar on everything it touched.Maxim staggered in the silence that followed. His claws sank into the fractured stone, each movement gouging fresh scars into the cavern floor. Shadows rippled across his skin, surging and receding like tides that threatened to swallow him whole. His beast form loomed, too large, too jagged, a thing torn from ancient prophecy and nightmare. He wasn’t just a wolf anymore. He was something born of curse and crown, a creature meant to end kingdoms with a single roar.“Zara,” he rasped, her name ripped from between fangs that barely fit his mouth. The sound was half-growl, half-plea. “You shouldn’t—”“I already did.” She cut him off with fire in her eyes. Her chin lifted, her pulse wild but unbrok

  • Beast Billionaire Claim    CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN: The Hollow Queen

    Zara’s final whisper lingered in the smoke-thick air, fragile as a thread stretched too tight. Her silver weave burned across the battlefield, anchoring memories where silence would have swallowed them whole.And beyond her light, Ruby screamed.It wasn’t the scream of pain, nor of fear—it was fury, raw and terrible, as the Ashen Crown scorched down her brow. Fire burst from her in wild rings, not just the flame she had inherited from Kael, but something darker, heavier. The Hollow’s hunger surged through her veins, turning her fire to shadow-flame.The battlefield recoiled. Men who had fought without pause for hours now staggered back, shields raised in trembling hands. Some cried out, others dropped their weapons altogether. To their eyes, Ruby Vale—the woman who had carried them through endless nights of blood and smoke—was gone. What stood in her place was crowned in silence and hunger, more monster than queen.“Elira,” Maxim growled, his beast-voice fraying through his throat, cl

  • Beast Billionaire Claim    CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX: The Keeper Of Memory

    The battlefield did not quiet. It never did. Even in the brief pauses between charges, the air was thick with the hiss of Hollow-born shadows, the wet rattle of broken men trying to breathe, the roar of Maxim’s half-caged Beast. Fire still burned in trenches where Elira had split the earth itself, and beyond it the Hollow’s gate pulsed—an endless wound in the sky, promising only hunger.Zara stood in the middle of it all, still as a needle poised above cloth. Her eyes weren’t on the battlefield anymore; they were turned inward, to the place where her threads reached.“Elira,” she said softly, almost as if she hadn’t meant to speak aloud.I turned, my hands still seared from the last spell I had unleashed. She was pale—more than pale. The glow that usually shimmered under her skin was dull, like starlight dimmed by smoke.“Don’t.” My voice cracked with the warning I hadn’t yet formed. “Don’t you dare.”She smiled faintly. It wasn’t the smile of victory. It was the kind you give when yo

  • Beast Billionaire Claim    CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE: The Broken Oaths

    The battlefield was breaking.It wasn’t just the Hollow ripping through the front lines, or the endless tide of smoke and claw swallowing the earth—it was the sound of men and women screaming not at the enemy, but at each other.I had thought nothing could sound worse than the Hollow’s shriek, but betrayal had its own pitch, and it cut deeper than shadow.“Cowards!” Ruby’s voice cracked above the clash. She stood high on a ridge, the Ashen Crown a black sun bleeding light into the storm. She pointed her blade at the scattering banners across the east. “They run while we bleed! They would rather save their walls than their world!”Her voice carried with the edge of Kael’s flame, but even that wasn’t enough to halt the retreat.I turned in time to see the sapphire standards of the Dawnspire falter, the golden wings of the Solari fold against the wind, the scarlet bands of the Drakemarch pulling back in tight, disciplined lines. Their leaders weren’t broken. They weren’t conquered. They

  • Beast Billionaire Claim    CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR: The Silent Gate

    The battlefield had not gone quiet—not truly—but in the space after Maxim’s roar, after the earth-shaking fracture of his Beast straining against itself, the world seemed to hold its breath. Fire guttered low in my chest, every spark dimming until only embers ached beneath my skin. My hands trembled from exhaustion, blistered and cracked from channeling too much magic. The mud pulled at my knees as if it wanted to drag me down, to swallow me whole.Around us, the Hollow pressed on without pause. Shadows clashed against steel. Banners once bright with color were reduced to tattered ribbons of flame. Men and women screamed, their cries breaking against the unending tide. The Hollow did not relent. They devoured. They surged. They wanted everything.And then—I saw it.From the heart of the smoke, slipping free of the chaos as if it had always been there, my dusk-shadow.It moved like ink spilled through water—fluid, dark, edged with a faint shimmer that caught the firelight. Its body was

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