Chapter 81

Kael’s blade hovered inches from Aria’s chest.It was not shaking.That was the worst part.The air screamed.Not audibly—not in any way a human ear could register—but reality itself shrieked as if the universe recognized the shape of the decision forming and hated it.Aria stared at the blade, then slowly lifted her eyes to Kael’s face.There was no fear there.Only grief.“You won’t be able to take it back,” she said quietly.Kael swallowed. His jaw tightened until it ached. “Neither will you if you let it finish.”Above them, the lattice of the sky pulsed, its geometry tightening, aligning. Each pulse dragged at Aria’s bones, her blood, the marrow of her soul. She could feel the Gate inside her—no longer dormant, no longer restrained—unfolding like a second spine.The Second God stepped forward.“Do it,” it said softly, almost kindly. “Strike her down. Prove that mortals still believe destruction is the same as salvation.”Kael didn’t look away from Aria. “If I do this,” he said, “

Last Updated : 2026-01-06

Chapter 82

I felt it before I understood it.The shift.Not the throne—us.The void pulsed, responding to the fracture Kael and I had created simply by refusing to let go of each other. The Throne—no, the twin thrones—hovered before us, unfinished, their forms bleeding light and shadow into one another like a wound that refused to close.I could feel Kael’s pain as if it were my own.Not empathy.Not imagination.Occupation.His breath stuttered against my neck. His weight sagged into me, and I caught him instinctively, my arms locking around him as if my body remembered this shape, this need, long before my mind ever did.“Kael,” I whispered. Saying his name felt dangerous now—like invoking a spell that could tilt the balance either way. “Stay with me.”He laughed weakly. “I don’t think… I’m allowed to leave anymore.”The Second God circled us, its presence warping the void with every step. It no longer needed a face. Its form rippled—too many angles, too many shadows, like a thought that had l

Last Updated : 2026-01-06

Chapter 83

I woke to silence that didn’t belong anywhere.Not the hush of dawn. Not the stillness after battle.This was the kind of quiet that followed extinction.My lungs burned as I dragged air into them, each breath scraping like glass. Stone pressed cold and uneven beneath my palms. When I tried to move, pain answered—bright, immediate, anchoring me to a body that still existed. That alone felt like a miracle.The sky above me was wrong.It wasn’t black, or blue, or storm-torn. It was fractured—layered like broken glass, each shard holding a different shade of reality. Through one裂 I saw stars frozen mid-collapse. Through another, a bleeding red dawn that didn’t belong to any world I knew.The Gate hadn’t closed.It had broken its teeth on us.“Kael,” I whispered.My voice echoed too many times, rebounding from directions that shouldn’t have existed. Panic surged as I pushed myself upright, ignoring the protest of my muscles.He lay a few feet away.Alive.That truth hit me so hard my knee

Last Updated : 2026-01-07

Chapter 84

The figure did not hurry.That was the first thing I noticed—the calm. Not arrogance, not confidence, but something older and heavier, like gravity choosing its direction. The fractured remnants that had chased us recoiled the moment the figure stepped fully into the clearing, scattering as if the light itself had teeth.Kael’s hand slipped from mine.Not by choice.By force.He staggered back a step, breath tearing from his lungs as if something inside him had been yanked hard on an invisible chain. I turned sharply, panic flaring, and caught his arm before he fell.“Kael,” I said. “Look at me.”His eyes were unfocused, jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. Beneath his skin, the dim sigils flared—once, twice—responding to a rhythm that did not belong to him.The figure watched us with open fascination.“Ah,” they murmured. Their voice carried no echo, no distortion. It was painfully clear. Mortal-clear. “So the tether remains.”I placed myself between Kael and the st

Last Updated : 2026-01-07

Chapter 85

I didn’t think.Thinking was a luxury for people who had time.I moved.The fracture was already narrowing, light folding inward like a wound trying to seal itself shut. Kael’s fingers scraped uselessly against the edge as the force dragging him pulled harder, deeper—toward a place that hummed with the same wrongness I’d felt since waking.Since losing part of myself.I ran.The ground split beneath my feet, stone becoming light, light becoming absence. I threw myself forward just as the fracture collapsed another inch, pain screaming through my shoulder as the edge burned like ice and fire combined.For a split second, I was nowhere.Then—Impact.I crashed through and hit something solid, skidding across a surface that felt neither stone nor air, my momentum ripping the breath from my lungs. The world snapped back into existence in violent fragments—sound first, then color, then weight.I rolled onto my side, gasping.“Kael!”He lay a few feet away, curled on his side, shaking. I cr

Last Updated : 2026-01-09

Chapter 86

The smile should not have been possible.Whatever coiled within the rift was too vast for expressions meant for faces, too old for the reflexes of anything born into flesh. And yet—there it was, curved and knowing, a distortion in the shadow that understood us far too well.The Gate recoiled.I felt it—not fear exactly, but something close enough to dread that the distinction no longer mattered. The luminous veins beneath our feet flickered erratically, light stuttering as if the structure itself were struggling to remember its own purpose.The figure who had claimed the throne-half stepped fully into the chamber, unhurried, their presence compressing the air until every breath felt earned.“You’re early,” they said mildly, addressing the shadow behind them.A sound answered.Not a voice.A pressure.It pressed into my skull, into my chest, into the place where my heart and power had learned to beat together. Images flared behind my eyes—worlds bending, stars dimming, civilizations kn