The God's killer

Blades Against Heaven

Chapter 33: Blades Against Heaven

The wind howled like a wounded titan across the shattered ridges of the Celestial Divide. Kael stood at the precipice of the ancient stairway known as the Skyward Veil, his white-gold armor gleaming with divine light. Lira stood beside him, her long silver hair caught in the updraft, her eyes glowing with sapphire clarity—unyielding, timeless. The weight of their journey pressed behind them, but ahead lay the heart of the gods’ dominion: the High Sanctum.

Once a bastion of celestial wisdom, the Sanctum now bristled with divine paranoia and hidden blades. The air above it shimmered with golden sigils, each one a ward of unimaginable power. It was no longer a sanctuary—it had become a fortress.

Lira turned her gaze to Kael. “Are you sure about this? The moment we step beyond this point, there’s no turning back.”

“I’ve never been more certain,” Kael replied. His voice rumbled like distant thunder, calm and absolute. “This ends where it all began.”

They descended.

The path was carved of living marble, veins of star-metal running through it. Each step they took resonated with ancient echoes. Kael’s aura pulsed, resonating with the divine wards woven into the stones. The gods were aware of his presence now. He made no attempt to hide.

And they responded.

A thousand wings tore through the clouds above—the sound like ripping silk on a cosmic scale. A dozen Seraphim descended, blades of radiant energy drawn, their faces obscured by visors of holy flame. Behind them, archons of judgment and fury assembled in concentric formations, their chants warping the air.

“Kael the Fallen,” boomed the voice of the High Seraph, its tone a piercing bell. “You dare set foot upon sacred ground. Turn back, or be unmade.”

Kael stepped forward, unsheathing Ashbringer, the blade forged in stars and shadow. Its edge pulsed with forgotten tongues, and the skies recoiled.

“I do not return as a supplicant,” Kael said. “I return as judgment.”

Lira lifted her hand. The runes along her forearms ignited, her aura flaring in celestial white. The ancient goddess within her—once sealed, now fully awakened—shone through her mortal form like the dawn breaking through storm clouds. She stepped forward with Kael, their power merging like twin stars aligning.

The first blow fell.

A spear of divine light hurtled toward them. Kael moved faster than thought, severing it mid-air. Then came a barrage—rays of holy fire, bindings of fate, curses spoken in the old tongue of angels. The air became a furnace of wrath.

But Kael and Lira moved as one.

Ashbringer met blade and banishment alike. Lira countered with waves of harmonic magic that unraveled divine constructs, her chants echoing with impossible resonance. Together, they carved a path through the divine ambush. Seraphim fell in twinned bursts of light. Reality trembled.

But the gods were not without strategy.

A trap lay hidden.

The moment Kael shattered the fourth Seraph’s aegis, the ground beneath them dissolved, revealing an abyss bound by golden chains. From its depths, something ancient rose: not a warrior, but a curse incarnate—Veyr, the Hollow Oath, a forsaken weapon forged by the gods to end divine rebellions.

His form was shrouded in armor made of celestial debt. His eyes—blacker than Kael’s abyssal irises—drank light and screamed promises of oblivion. He moved without sound, his strikes unseen until they struck. Ashbringer met him in a blast of silence.

Kael stumbled.

Veyr was not just strong—he was made to end him.

Lira stepped forward, but her spells slid from Veyr’s armor like water. She summoned a vortex of divine memory—ancestral truths given form—but Veyr deflected it with a single backhand strike that cracked the mountain wall.

Kael rose, blood glistening against his white armor. His eyes flared.

“You’re not of will. You’re of leash,” he growled. “And I break chains.”

He unleashed a surge—pure essence of the origin flame. The ground seethed. Light and shadow twisted around Ashbringer as Kael met Veyr again, each clash louder than the last heartbeat of a god.

As they battled, the perspective shifted.

---

In the High Sanctum’s throne chamber, the gods watched through mirrored flames. The fractured pantheon had divided: some watched with mounting dread, others with veiled anticipation.

“He should not have awakened so soon,” murmured Elarion, the Weaver of Realities. “The seals were meant to hold for an age.”

“And yet he shatters them like brittle glass,” said Seris, whose allegiance remained cloaked. “Perhaps the age is over.”

Vires, the God of Order, slammed his fist upon the celestial table. “We are the architects! We do not kneel before our creation!”

“No,” whispered Myrha, Goddess of the Moon’s Memory. “But perhaps we pay for our betrayal.”

A new silence fell.

Then a voice from the shadows: “If Kael wins, he will reshape eternity. If he falls… we’ll never survive what rises next.”

---

Back in the battlefield, Kael drove Veyr back, blow by blow, until a final arc of Ashbringer cleaved through divine bindings. Veyr screamed—not in pain, but release. His form shattered into silver dust, drifting into the void.

Kael fell to one knee, breathing hard.

Lira knelt beside him, touching his face. “You’re hurt.”

“I’ve been worse,” he whispered.

Their foreheads touched.

In that moment, time itself seemed to pause. Above them, the stars swirled into alignment—something older stirring in the heavens.

Together, they rose.

Ahead lay the inner sanctum of the gods, where truth would burn brighter than denial, and the final judgment would be made.