The battlefield had become something **inhuman**.
Kaelen no longer resembled a king of flesh and bone.
He was **blood given form**.
Crimson mana had replaced muscle entirely, veins glowing like molten rivers beneath skin that barely clung to existence. Light and lightning had scorched his face beyond recognition—cheekbones burned black, one side of his jaw split and raw, features half-melted by divine radiance.
And still—
He **did not stop**.
Every strike landed heavier than the last. Blood-forged limbs crashed into constructs of judgment and light, shattering spears, tearing wings, pulverizing radiant armor. When lightning tore through his torso, the wound simply filled—blood boiling inward, sealing the gap as if it had never existed. When his shoulder was severed, it reformed mid-motion, a jagged crimson mass hardening into a functional arm before the swing even completed.
The Apostles healed.
Again.
And again.
But their movements had changed.
Not slower.
**Heavier.**
More deliberate.
For the first time since descending, they were no longer advancing.
They were **containing**.
High above, Ivan hovered with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, golden eyes reflecting the carnage below. His expression wasn't tense.
It was… satisfied.
He sighed softly.
"Enough."
His gaze followed Kaelen as the Vampire King tore through another radiant construct, blood splashing across the sky like a storm. Kaelen roared—not in pain, not in rage, but in **defiance**, the sound warping the air itself.
Ivan shook his head faintly.
"It's already over," he said calmly. "If you could still regenerate properly… perhaps."
His smile thinned.
"But your heart is gone. Your true one. Blood magic can only lie for so long."
Below, a lightning spear punched through Kaelen's chest, detonating out his back. He staggered—just a fraction—before ripping it free and hurling it upward with enough force to rupture the clouds.
Ivan watched closely.
Then nodded.
"See?" he murmured. "You felt it too. Slower. Just a little."
The Apostles descended again, light and judgment converging. Their constructs grew larger, denser—less about damage now, more about **finality**.
Ivan turned away.
"There's no need to watch the end when the outcome was decided from the beginning."
Golden symbols flared beneath his feet as space began to fold. Before stepping through, he glanced back once more—at Kaelen, blood-soaked and unyielding, standing against gods and refusing to kneel.
Something unreadable crossed Ivan's face.
"…You were always like this," he said quietly. "Even when it was pointless."
Space **folded**—
—then **shattered**.
Kaelen was suddenly **there**, inches from him.
His blood-scorched face split into a wide, feral grin—too many teeth visible through ruined flesh.
"Where," Kaelen asked softly, voice grinding like stone, "do you think you're going?"
His hand snapped up and **closed around Ivan's head**.
The pressure was absolute.
Space screamed.
Ivan's skull **collapsed inward**, blood and light bursting outward in a halo as Kaelen crushed down.
"I told you," Kaelen said, low and delighted, "I'd erase you. And I'm doing exactly that."
He turned his head slightly, crimson eyes locking onto the Apostles.
"And you," he added almost conversationally. "Every last one of you."
Ivan's body staggered—
—and his head **regrew**.
Golden light stitched flesh and bone together as he laughed breathlessly. "Brother," he said, amused even now, "what are you talking about? You're barely still alive."
Kaelen didn't answer.
He just **smiled wider**.
His hand rose.
Blood magic **howled**.
Every remaining trace of crimson mana in existence responded—ripping itself free from air, earth, and Kaelen's own ruined body. It gathered into his palm, compressing, spiraling, screaming as it formed a pulsing, unstable core.
A **roaring star of blood**.
Ivan's eyes widened—for the first time.
"…Bastard," he hissed.
Kaelen drove the core **into his own chest**.
For a heartbeat—
Nothing.
Then—
**BOOM.**
A blinding eruption of blood and light detonated outward—not exploding, but **collapsing reality itself**. The sky cracked like glass. Space folded inward, then burst apart in concentric rings of annihilation. Forests miles away were erased—not burned, not flattened—
**Gone.**
Reduced to drifting red mist.
The Apostles were swallowed whole.
Light screamed.
Judgment shattered.
The shockwave tore through the heavens, punching a hole straight through the cloud layer and sending crimson storms spiraling into the upper sky. Airships miles away were hurled sideways, barriers screaming as they absorbed the blow.
Slowly—
Painfully—
The light faded.
And when the world stabilized, the airships were still there.
High above the ravaged battlefield, the **Lux Invicta** and her sister vessels drifted—scarred, cracked, hulls warped and blackened—but **intact**. Golden barriers flickered weakly around them, pushed to their absolute limit, spider-webbed with fractures yet refusing to break.
On the command decks, officers lay scattered across shattered floors. Consoles smoked. Windows were gone—nothing but jagged frames open to the sky. Sirens wailed weakly, half-dead.
But they were alive.
Theron stood amid the wreckage, one hand braced against a ruined console, golden eyes fixed on the colossal wound torn into the sky. His breathing was heavy—not from exertion, but from something far worse.
Below, the knights remained standing as well.
Barely.
Golden shields hovered around broken formations, their light dim and trembling like dying candles. Many knights were on their knees. Some had dropped their weapons. Others stared upward, pale and hollow-eyed, unable to comprehend what they had just survived.
The forest was **gone**.
Miles of land erased into a vast circular wasteland—glass-smooth stone fused with blood-red residue, steam rising where life had once existed. The air itself felt bruised. Wrong.
A priest whispered shakily,
"…We're alive."
No one answered.
Another knight laughed once—short, hysterical—then clamped a hand over his mouth.
They all understood.
That explosion hadn't been meant for them.
They had survived not because they were strong—
—but because someone **else** had decided they were irrelevant.
High above, the golden shields around the fleet stabilized just enough to hold. Theron straightened slowly, his expression unreadable.
"…Record everything," he said quietly. "Every rune. Every fluctuation. Every second."
An officer swallowed. "M-My lord… what was that?"
Theron didn't look away from the wound in the sky.
"That," he said, voice low, reverent, and shaken,
"was a demon deciding the world wasn't enough."
Far below, deep within the ruined remains of the forest, Draven slept—unaware that an armada, an empire's finest, and even gods had survived **only because Kaelen chose to burn alone**.