The battlefield lay silent, but only for a breath.
Blood mingled with ash, painting the ground in colors too grim to name. The moonlight fractured against broken blades and shattered bones, and above it all stood Kael, motionless, his shadow stretching like a beast set free.
The seal on his chest glowed faintly—a dying ember trying to remember the sun.
Then, the whisper returned.
> "Do you still believe they deserved saving?"
Kael's lips parted, a bitter laugh caught in his throat. The memory of their faces—the ones he fought for—rushed back, drowned by screams and fire. His hands were drenched in the blood of both enemy and friend.
"No," he whispered, voice hollow as an empty cathedral.
The seal pulsed violently. Chains of black steel cracked and snapped like brittle twigs. The ground shuddered as the Ashen Crown—a halo of molten obsidian thorns—manifested above his head.
Heat roared through the field. The corpses ignited. Shadows bent toward him like worshippers at an unholy altar.
> "Good… Then take what was always yours."
The air warped. Space fractured. Kael stepped forward, and every living creature within a hundred steps fell to their knees without knowing why. Their bones screamed. Their hearts convulsed in terror.
He raised his blade—Eclipsera—and it drank the starlight whole.
This was no longer about saving anyone.
This was about rewriting fate with fire, blood, and dominion.
From the darkness at the horizon, a voice bellowed—colossal, ancient:
"Finally… the true King walks again."