The strike landed. For the first time since creation had trembled at its name, the Sovereign bled.The blade of flame woven from Kael’s ember, Mira’s tether, and the countless voices of the First Embers slashed across its vast chest.The god’s molten crown flickered. Its radiance cracked. And from the wound poured fire not golden, but black, like oil igniting the void.The abyss screamed. The god reeled. Its roar was not laughter this time, but fury. “INSOLENT EMBER.”Its voice shattered Kael’s bones. His ears rang with pain. Yet his stance held, the blade steady in his hands, Mira’s tether burning white at his side.They had hurt it. Truly hurt it. Mira’s breath came ragged but exultant. “Kael… you struck a god.”He spat blood, teeth bared in a grin that was half defiance, half madness. “Then let’s strike it again.”The Sovereign moved. Not slow, not majestic, not godlike fast.Its hand lashed out, a continent sized palm ripping across the abyss. Kael and Mira dove aside, the air its

The chains burned like suns. Mira’s body convulsed as the Sovereign’s molten links crushed tighter around her throat. Her tether to Kael flickered erratically, light spiking then collapsing, on the verge of shattering entirely.Kael’s blade screamed against the chain, fire blasting from his lungs, every swing driven by panic and fury. The links cracked but refused to break, each one reforged by the Sovereign’s endless will.“MINE.” The god’s voice thundered through the void. “ALL MINE. YOU WERE BORN OF ME, YOU WILL DIE IN ME.”Kael’s knees buckled, rage colliding with despair. His fire flared brighter than ever, but still not enough. He could feel Mira slipping. He could feel himself splintering.Then the figure stepped closer. Through the Sovereign’s chest, through the storm of chains, through fire meant to erase everything. Its white gold flame did not falter.And when its hand touched Kael’s shoulder, the ember inside him convulsed as if recognizing itself. For the briefest heartbe

The shards did not fall. They hung in the void, jagged prisms suspended in an orbit of impossible symmetry.Each shard reflected Kael, Mira, the reflection, and the Sovereign yet none of the images matched the reality before them. Some showed Kael burning the world to ash.Some showed Mira lying dead at his feet. Others showed the Sovereign kneeling, broken, chains shattered into dust.And in one shard, Kael saw nothing. Not darkness. Not void. Nothing. The absence bled outward. From within that absence, a shape began to crawl.At first it was small a sliver of shadow, a ripple where form should not exist.But as the shards spun, the absence grew, consuming reflection after reflection until every shard showed only the same horror: a vast figure writhing out of the broken glass, its body stitched from silence, its face an unformed abyss.The Sovereign staggered, molten frame shuddering. Its laugh broke into a wheeze. “Yes… yes. Wake. Wake, my master.”Mira’s hand flew to Kael’s arm. He

The hand descended. Kael’s body convulsed as the pressure swallowed him. Mira screamed his name, her tether blazing like a sun, but even her light bent under the weight.The reflection hurled itself forward, flames flaring with suicidal fury, but the hand of unmaking did not slow. This was not the Sovereign. This was something deeper. A force that did not strike, it erased.The battlefield shuddered, fragments of broken realms collapsing into the mask’s approach. The god of unmaking pulled not only Kael, but all reality toward its hollow grasp.“KAEL GET UP!” Mira’s cry tore through the chaos. She shoved tether-light into him, strands wrapping his chest, his arms, his failing legs. The light steadied him, even as his ember cracked like shattered glass.Kael dragged himself upright, blood soaking his side, flames bleeding from every wound. His eyes blazed. He lifted both arms, fire screaming from his fists, and roared into the storm:“IF YOU WANT ME, COME AND BURN!”He unleashed everyt

The world around Kael fractured into mirrors. Each shard was a battlefield, each reflection a different Kael. Some bore chains that cut into their wrists, dragging them through fire.Others had eyes hollow and soulless, nothing but walking husks. Still others were wreathed in storm and flame, laughing as they burned everything in sight.And at the center two versions of him. One tethered to Mira’s hand, trembling but alive. The other blazing like a god, fire consuming his every step.They collided. The abyss screamed as the two Kaels slammed into one another, a clash of tether and fire.“YOU’RE WEAK!” the reflection bellowed, its molten fists crashing down. “You cling to others like a child! What happens when they’re gone? When she dies? When everyone dies?”Kael caught the blow, his arm shaking, flesh searing. His voice was hoarse but steady. “Then I’ll burn for them. I’ll carry them in the flame.”The reflection snarled. “Pathetic!”The battlefield erupted. Ash rained down in sheets