The sky answered them.
Golden light surged—then warped.
Elyndra and Alric drifted apart in the air, no longer advancing together. The storm around them pulled inward, as if the heavens themselves were holding their breath.
Then the **Apostles changed**.
Radiance poured from Elyndra's back in violent pulses. Her wings—once two—**split**, then split again. Feathers of pure light unraveled and reforged themselves, layering outward until **six vast wings** unfurled behind her, each inscribed with burning script that shifted and rewrote itself endlessly. Her armor dissolved into luminous sigils that bound directly to her flesh, her body becoming less mortal, more vessel. A faint, choir-like hum echoed with every movement.
Her eyes were no longer eyes.
They were **stars**.
Alric roared as lightning detonated through his body. The air around him fractured as his frame expanded, muscle and armor fusing into a single, sanctified warform. From his shoulders tore forth **four wings of storm**, jagged and crackling, formed not of feathers but compressed thunderclouds threaded with blinding arcs of electricity. Runes burned themselves into his skin, glowing white-hot, feeding power directly into his hammer as it reshaped—larger, heavier, its surface crawling with divine lightning.
They were no longer merely champions.
They were **avatars**.
Elyndra raised her blade, now stretched into a long, radiant edge that hummed with unbearable pressure.
> "By the will of the Radiant Mother," she intoned, her voice layered—hers and something vast beneath it,
> "we assume full manifestation."
Alric slammed his hammer against his chest once.
The sound rang like a cathedral bell struck by a god.
> "Vampire King," he thundered, storm-light spilling from his mouth with the words,
> "your path ends here."
Kaelen hovered opposite them, blood dripping freely from his wounds, crimson mana rolling off him in unstable waves. He looked… smaller by comparison.
But he did not retreat.
He did not flinch.
Instead, he laughed.
Low.
Hoarse.
Broken.
"…So," Kaelen said, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes burning as they fixed on the two transformed Apostles,
"you finally stopped pretending."
Crimson mana surged harder—darker, less controlled, more **feral**. The air around him warped, bending inward, as if reality itself recoiled from his presence. His wounds knit partially—not cleanly, but violently—flesh tearing and reforging again and again.
His gaze flicked downward once more—toward the trench, toward where his son still knelt beside his wife's body.
Something inside him snapped completely.
He looked back at the Apostles.
> "You're not facing a king anymore."
The crimson storm around him condensed, spiraling tight, forming something vast and ancient behind him—an outline in blood and shadow that dwarfed even the Apostles' wings.
> "You're facing a **father** who has nothing left."
The clouds ruptured.
Thunder and blood screamed together.
And the clash that followed would no longer be a battle—
It would be **a reckoning**.
Kaelen moved.
Not in rage.
Not in haste.
But with **deliberate finality**.
He raised one hand slowly, palm upward.
The blood in the air responded.
Every droplet spilled across the battlefield—every lingering mist from shattered spears, every spray from torn flesh, every crimson trace soaked into the forest below—**tore free**. It screamed upward, converging into his grasp, compressing, twisting, folding in on itself.
The Apostles felt it immediately.
Elyndra's wings flared, runes flickering erratically.
Alric's hammer screamed as lightning lashed wildly, his storm faltering for a single, dangerous heartbeat.
In Kaelen's hand, the blood finished condensing.
A **heart**.
Perfect.
Whole.
Beating.
Not symbolic.
Not conjured.
**Real.**
Each pulse sent a low, subsonic thrum through the sky, like a war drum struck by the world itself.
Elira—far below—felt her breath seize as her staff nearly slipped from her hands.
"That's—" her voice broke. "That's a **Pure-Blood Core**…"
Kaelen's eyes never left the Apostles.
> "As a pure-blood vampire," he said quietly, almost conversationally,
> "my heart is not a weakness."
The heart pulsed again.
> "It is my **freedom**."
He turned his gaze inward.
Without hesitation—without even a flicker of pain—Kaelen swung his hand and **drove it into his own chest**.
The sound was wet. Final. Absolute.
His fingers vanished into his body as his ribs parted like mist. He placed the heart back where it belonged.
Then he withdrew his hand.
The wound **sealed instantly**, flesh knitting together as if it had never been pierced.
For a single breath—
Silence.
Then—
**BOOM.**
A horrifying, suffocating **wave of crimson mana detonated outward**, thicker than any before. The sky didn't just glow red—
It was **drowned** in it.
Clouds were torn apart, vaporized into blood-tinted vapor. The sun vanished behind a ceiling of scarlet. The air became heavy, oppressive, each breath feeling like drawing in liquid iron.
Below, knights collapsed to one knee.
Some screamed.
Some vomited.
Some simply stopped moving, crushed under the weight of his presence.
Elyndra staggered, six wings beating violently just to remain aloft.
Alric planted his feet midair, lightning erupting wildly as he fought not to be forced down.
Kaelen hovered at the center of it all.
No longer merely a figure in the sky—
But a **calamity given shape**.
His eyes burned brighter, pupils bleeding outward into endless crimson.
> "My heart is back where it belongs," he said, voice carrying through the sky without effort.
> "And so is my strength."
The crimson aura thickened further, coiling around him like a living thing, forming jagged silhouettes—claws, wings, fangs—shifting endlessly.
He looked at the Apostles.
> "Now," Kaelen said softly,
> "try to stop me."
The sky answered with a scream as the true battle began.
Kaelen's voice rolled across the blood-drowned sky.
Not shouted.
Not screamed.
**Pronounced.**
> "**Puppets of a god,**" he said, crimson mana boiling with each word.
> "And the bastards who dared lay hands on my family."
The pressure **spiked**.
Elyndra's radiant wings shuddered, light flickering as the divine script across them distorted. Alric gritted his teeth, lightning screaming around his armor as he forced himself to remain upright in the air.
Kaelen's gaze burned through them—through the sky—through the world itself.
> "I am done showing mercy."
His aura expanded again, thick and crushing, like a tidal wave made of blood and wrath.
> "Every knight who swung a blade."
> "Every priest who raised a prayer."
The forest below **buckled**, earth cracking under the weight of his killing intent alone.
> "I will kill them."
The word *kill* landed like a final bell.
> "Every last soul of your empire."
Golden lightning flared violently around Elyndra as she tried to speak—tried to invoke authority, judgment, divinity—
But Kaelen wasn't finished.
His eyes lifted higher, beyond the clouds, beyond the heavens.
Toward **her**.
> "And when I am done with your armies…"
> "When your cities are silent and your empire rots in ash…"
His crimson mana twisted upward, forming a massive, clawed silhouette that reached toward the sky itself.
> "I will come for the goddess who sent you."
The Apostles felt it then.
Not defiance.
Not arrogance.
**Intent.**
Cold. Absolute. Unwavering.
This was not a threat made in rage.
This was a **vow**.
Kaelen's voice dropped, quieter now—but far more terrifying.
> "I will drag her down from her throne."
> "And I will make her watch before sending her along."
The sky trembled.
Even the divine light hesitated.
And for the first time since their ascension—
The Apostles understood something was terribly, irrevocably wrong.
They were no longer fighting a monster.
They were facing a **reckoning** that would not stop until the heavens themselves bled.