LOGINHere is CHAPTER 43 — “THE PRICE OF POWER”(continuing directly from Chapter 42, raising stakes and setting up the next catastrophic twist)CHAPTER 43 — THE PRICE OF POWERThe void did not forgive.It remembered.As Rhett held Alina against his chest, white fire flickering around them, the realm trembled like a wounded animal deciding whether to die… or retaliate.Alina’s fingers clutched his shoulders.“Rhett… we need to go. It’s not over.”He knew.He felt it.The monster they’d torn apart hadn’t vanished.It had scattered.And something far worse was watching.The collapsing platform beneath them split open with a violent crack. A spiral of black wind erupted upward, circling them like a tightening noose.Livia’s voice faintly echoed through the distant rupture:“GET OUT NOW! THE REALM IS RESETTING!”Rhett tried to open a tear back to their world——but nothing responded.The void sealed itself.A low vibration rolled through the air.Not sound.Not movement.A presence.Alina stiffe
The void roared.Rhett soared through the fractured air, white fire trailing behind him like a comet born of rage and desperation. Every step tore the ground apart, every heartbeat shaking the realm to its very core. The monstrous entity loomed above Alina, wings of bone spread wide, shadow dripping from every limb, mouth opening impossibly long, lined with fangs that could devour galaxies.Alina struggled against her restraints, veins glowing with silver as her bond flared, a thin but defiant thread linking her to Rhett. Her voice barely reached him over the chaos:“Rhett… it’s—”A claw of shadow slammed into the platform, sending shards of moonstone flying.Rhett roared, shifting midair. His wolf form stretched impossibly tall, muscles glowing with white fire, fangs sharp enough to split reality. He collided with the creature, and the impact sent shockwaves that split the void further, revealing black rivers beneath, full of screaming, lost souls.The entity twisted, slamming him ba
The void swallowed Rhett whole.Not like a doorway.Not like falling.More like being devoured.His body stretched, bent, folded through dimensions he didn’t understand and wasn’t meant to survive. His bones split into light. His blood turned into sound. His heartbeat became a pulse felt across dead universes.And still—He pushed forward.Every step was agony, tearing him further apart.But he didn’t stop.Because somewhere ahead—Through endless screaming shadows—Alina was here.“Alina!”His voice echoed wrong, splitting into ten versions of itself.Some cried. Some growled. Some whispered.All of them were him.A twisted path formed beneath his feet—if it could be called a path. It writhed like a living serpent, shifting with each step, made of broken time, floating bones, and fragments of worlds that had died long before his existence.The air was cold.Not natural cold—A cold that ate memory.Each breath threatened to take something from him.His name.His past.Her face.Rhett
The shadow-being fully unfurled behind Alina, its form stretching across the broken void like a living eclipse. Faces twisted in and out of its mass—crying, laughing, screaming—never staying long enough to be called human.Rhett held Alina protectively, his arms tightening around her trembling body.“You can’t have her,” he growled, silver fire crackling along his skin.The entity chuckled, a sound like bones grinding together.“Boy… I already do.”Before Rhett could react, shadows shot forward.Not toward him—Toward Alina.A massive, pulsing tendril slammed into her chest.She convulsed violently, gasping as the ancient presence surged into her like a tidal wave.Her eyes rolled back.Her mouth opened—And she whispered, in a voice too soft and too broken:“Rhett…run.”The whisper wasn’t hers.It was forced out of her lungs like a puppet being yanked by invisible strings.Rhett’s head snapped toward her, panic cutting through him like a blade.“No, no, no—Alina—stay with me—”But h
The void did not open.It detonated.A shockwave of white fire ripped outward as the rupture split wide enough for something to crawl through—something shaped like Rhett, but not entirely him.Not anymore.Alina’s breath hitched.“Rhett…?”He stepped through the fractured void wall like a creature made of broken starlight.His body flickered—wolf, man, light, shadow—fighting itself with every movement.His bones glowed through torn flesh.His skin split in glowing cracks as if his spirit was too big for his body.His eyes…They weren’t silver.They were empty white.Burning.Drowning.Starved.The First Alpha recoiled.Recoiled.The creature who had possessed gods and slaughtered empires took a step back.“No,” the First Alpha whispered, voice trembling. “That is not possible. Your body cannot contain that power.”Rhett didn’t answer.His gaze was locked on one thing—one person—one anchor:Alina.Bound to the monolith.Bleeding.Barely conscious.The entity clawing inside her mind l
Rhett didn’t feel the ground when he hit it.Didn’t feel the blood soaking his shirt.Didn’t hear Livia screaming his name or Nolan shouting in terror.All he felt—all he heard—was Alina’s scream echoing across planes of existence.A scream no human throat should be able to make.A scream that tore something inside him clean in half.“ALINA!”He slammed his fists into the ground—The earth split.The darkness shuddered.The air twisted around him in silver spirals——but the void remained closed.Her scream cut out abruptly.And Rhett went still.Too still.His heart didn’t beat.His breath didn’t move.His eyes were frozen open, silver hollow and dead.Livia took a hesitant step forward.“Rhett…? Alpha…?”Nolan whispered, voice trembling, “Is he—did he—”Rhett inhaled.Once.Deep.But the breath wasn’t human.It rattled like dying stars.The air around him vibrated.Stone cracked.Walls crumbled.The fortress groaned as if something inside it was preparing to explode.Livia’s eyes w







