Chapter 17
Legends whispered of a woman who could weave illusions so perfect they did not merely fool the mind — they rewrote reality. Her victims bled from imagined wounds, suffocated in imagined waters, and never woke again.
The gods feared her.
So they came together, struck her down, and sealed her in an eternal sleep within a forest between worlds. But her power did not rest. Without her conscious will, it leaked and spread, twisting the forest into a living maze of shifting truths.
This was where Kael had come.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the mist thickened. Roots closed behind them, sealing the way out.
Astrili frowned. "This isn't just magic. It's alive."
Myros gripped his weapon. "Alive… and watching."
Then — the world shattered.
The four of them were gone.
Not gone, exactly… but separated.
Kael's Reality
He opened his eyes to stone walls. Familiar stone walls. The air was damp. The smell — blood and iron.
He knew this place.
It was the memory he despised most: the moment he had been betrayed and pushed into the abyss. The betrayal that had set him on the path to the Dead World.
And there they were — the faces of those who had done it, grinning down at him.
"Still think you're a hero?" one of them mocked.
"Still think you matter?"
Kael's hands trembled. His heart pounded, not from fear, but from something far darker. The old wound tore open, and rage spilled out like molten steel.
"You're not real," he whispered — but his voice was low, dangerous. "And that means I can kill you without restraint."
The air around him warped. Space cracked like glass, revealing fragments of his dimensional world — frozen shards of time pressing into reality. The illusions lunged, weapons raised… and Kael erased them.
Not struck, not cut — erased, as though they had never existed.
Elsewhere…
Astrili found herself in a grand palace, crowned queen over a world of adoring followers. She knew it wasn't real — and yet part of her wanted to believe it.
Nyx awoke in a reality where she had already killed Kael and taken his throne. She laughed, amused at her own mind's tricks, but couldn't shake the faint itch that maybe… just maybe… she liked this world better.
Myros stood in a graveyard of his own making, every face one he had failed to save. His scythe felt heavier with each step.
Breaking the Spell
Kael's dimensional power surged outward. Reality around him rippled, the false stone walls peeling away to reveal threads of illusion. He followed them, tearing them apart one by one, his rage burning hotter than the Illusionist's enchantment.
"Enough," he growled. "You've played in my head long enough."
The forest trembled. Trees warped into shadow, then splintered under the crushing force of Kael's will. With a final push, he shattered the heart of the spell — and the illusions collapsed.
The others reappeared around him, gasping as if waking from a nightmare.
In the center of the clearing lay a woman, her body bound in chains of light. Her hair fell in dark waves, her eyes closed in deep slumber. But even in sleep, the air around her shimmered with unstable images — worlds half-formed, dreams half-born.
Nyx's grin returned. "Well… looks like we've found the gods' favorite mistake."
Kael knelt beside her, studying the runes on her chains. "She's not the forest's prisoner," he said quietly. "The forest is her prison."
Then, without hesitation, he placed his hand on the seal.
The light shattered.
Her eyes opened.
And the forest took a deep, shuddering breath