The Black Fang banners, fang wrapped in flame, rose over a thousand marching soldiers. The sky burned with smoke from cities already taken. Villages turned to ash in Kael Draven’s shadow.Everywhere his name was spoken, it was followed by one of two words, Savior or Monster.“Raise the standard!” Kael’s voice cut through the wind. His armor, blackened by divine fire, gleamed with lines of crimson energy that pulsed like veins.The soldiers lifted the great banner higher.The army roared as one.Behind him, Aelira rode her white-scaled mount, eyes scanning the horizon. Her glow was softer now, colder, as though her divinity warred silently with the corruption that surrounded Kael.“Three cities in seven days,” she murmured. “You promised liberation, not ruin.”Kael didn’t glance back. “Freedom doesn’t come from begging. It comes from burning chains.”“And the innocents caught in those flames?”“They chose the gods,” Kael said flatly. “Now they’ll see the truth.”The army advanced towa

The sky had not stopped burning.Light still bled through the cracks Kael had torn into the heavens. It wasn’t day or night, just a pulsing glow that turned everything gold and red.Kael stood at the center of the shattered square, breathing hard, one hand pressed to his chest where the marks still burned, the sigil of vengeance and the sigil of divinity, locked together like chains.Aelira ran to him again, her voice raw. “Kael! You have to stop!”He didn’t move. His pupils flickered between gold and crimson, his voice low, rasping.“They’re… fighting inside me.”“Then let go!” she shouted. “You’re not meant to hold divine essence, no mortal is!”Kael’s laugh was hoarse. “I stopped being mortal the moment they made me a weapon.”He stumbled forward, his body twisting, bones cracking as the essence surged. Divine veins pulsed across his arms, glowing beneath his skin like molten gold.Mira and the soldiers kept their distance. Every step Kael took scorched the ground.“Hold your posi

The dawn that followed was not like any other. The air itself trembled. Over Dravengard’s smoking horizon, the clouds were torn apart by streaks of golden fire. They didn’t burn like normal flames, they sang, their sound sharp enough to split stone. Every disciple who looked up fell to their knees, clutching their ears as the light descended in slow, terrible majesty. Kael Draven stood at the highest balcony of the Black Fang Palace, the Godslayer Blade resting across his back. The blade pulsed faintly, reacting to the divine presence. He didn’t flinch. Below, the people screamed prayers, curses, and names of gods that no longer listened. The light gathered in the center of the plaza, right before the throne gates. When it faded, five figures stood where the beam had struck. They were tall, faceless beneath their halos, their wings half-feather and half-flame. Each step they took left a ripple of golden light in the air. Their voices blended as one, like a choir made of thunder

The silence after the firestorm was worse than the screaming.Ash fell like snow. The sky had stopped burning, but it still glowed faintly red, like Heaven hadn’t decided if it was done yet.Kael stood amid the ruins of Dravengard. His empire’s heart was nothing but smoke and broken stone.Every breath hurt. His skin was scorched, his seal cracked and pulsing weakly under the torn armor. The Godslayer Blade hummed faintly at his side, feeding on the aftermath of divine power like a beast licking blood off the floor.Aelira stood a few paces away, clutching her side. “It’s over,” she whispered. “For now.”Kael didn’t answer. His gaze stayed fixed on the sky.He could still feel it, someone watching.The air rippled.A voice, low and steady, broke the quiet.“You never learn, do you, Kael Draven?”Kael froze. That voice, smooth, mocking, too familiar.Aelira looked up sharply. “No… not again…”Light folded in front of them, forming a human shape too tall, too bright. The ground itself

The throne room was rebuilt from ruin, but the air still smelled of smoke and fear.Kael sat on his obsidian throne, a jagged thing carved from what was once the heart of the divine temple he’d burned down. Behind him, the banner of the Black Fang rippled in the heat, fangs around a bleeding sun.One by one, his high disciples entered. Cloaked, scarred, weary.Men and women who had followed him from the ashes of rebellion to the birth of an empire.Now they knelt, their eyes a mixture of awe and unease.Kael’s gaze swept across them. “You’ve seen what Heaven did to our world while I was gone. Temples on every hill, mortals kneeling to false gods. That ends now.”His voice echoed like thunder.No one spoke, until Elder Ren, his war strategist, stepped forward. His armor was cracked, his face marked with old burns.“My lord,” Ren began carefully, “our armies are stretched thin. We control half the continent, but supply lines are bleeding. The southern provinces resist our banners, and H