**Chapter 15: Moonlight on Harvest**
The moon hung like a spectral scythe above the ruins, its silver light bleeding over the carcass of a city that once pulsed with life. Marverick stood atop a skeletal clocktower, its hands frozen at the hour the world ended. Below, the streets were rivers of ash, choked with the rusted husks of cars and the brittle bones of those who hadn't fled fast enough. Yet here, in this graveyard of steel and memory, the air hummed with an almost sacred stillness—a fleeting truce in the war against oblivion.
He'd heard the story a thousand times.
*Moonlight on Harvest*—a tale spun by his great-grandfather, whispered over crackling campfires. A fable of a village cursed by a blood-red moon, where lovers traded their souls to save a withering crop, only to become the very blight they sought to cure. As a child, Marverick had imagined their ghosts still dancing in cornfields, their shadows stretching long under that fatal glow. Now, the allegory clawed at him, its truth venomous and vivid.
**"They're not just farming land, boy."**
Dave's voice slithered from the dark, his silhouette emerging like ink from parchment. He leaned against the crumbled railing, a moth-eaten scarf fluttering at his throat, his eyes reflecting the moon's chill. **"They're farming *souls*."**
Marverick's grip tightened on the Elysium shard at his neck—its warmth a counterpoint to the ice in his veins. "The demons," he said flatly.
**"And their patrons."** Dave flicked a rusted bolt into the abyss below. **"The Riggs, the seraphs, the Voidborn—all hungry for the same harvest. You think this war's about territory? Power? It's a *feeding frenzy*. And humanity's the crop."**
The wind carried echoes—not of the present, but the past. Laughter from shattered windows. The clatter of a child's bicycle. Marverick's throat tightened. "The story…the lovers. They thought they were saving something. But they *fed* the curse instead."
**"Sacrifice is a seed,"** Dave said, grim. **"Plant it in desperation, and it grows thorns. The Riggs learned that when they first tapped the Void. The angels, when they fell. And you…"** He eyed the shard. **"You're the sickle. The question is—who swings you?"**
A gust ripped through the tower, stirring ash into phantom shapes. For a heartbeat, Marverick saw them—the lovers from the tale, their forms woven from smoke and starlight, hands clasped as the moon devoured them.
**"Why show me this now?"** Marverick growled.
Dave's smile was a blade. **"Because the harvest is tonight."** He pointed to the horizon, where a crimson light festered—a moon rising, swollen and veined. **"The Riggs' new toy's ready. And they've sown your name in the soil."**
The shard flared, its pulse syncing with Marverick's heartbeat. Visions surged: cages of flickering souls, a Voidborn larva gorging on their light, his own blood fueling the ritual. *A sickle indeed.*
**"They want my blood to reap them,"** Marverick murmured.
**"And when they do,"** Dave said, **"that moon?"** He nodded to the bleeding orb. **"That's the last sunrise this world ever sees."**
Marverick turned to the ruins, the ash, the ghosts. Somewhere in the wastes, Ava and the others were fighting—not for kingdoms or glory, but for the right to *remain*. To be more than kindling for gods and monsters.
The shard's heat spread through him, not as pain, but purpose. **"Then we burn the fields,"** he said, fists glowing. **"Salt the earth. Let their harvest starve."**
Dave chuckled, low and dark. **"Spoken like a true Daveson."**
As they descended the tower, the cursed moon climbed higher, its light staining the ruins the color of old blood. Marverick's wings ignited—not gold, not green, but a searing white, the hue of a star's final cry.
The reapening had come.
And he would meet it with fire.