The shattered glyphs still glowed faintly, their fragments scattered across the cold stone floor like remnants of a broken faith. Kael stood silent, the remains of the divine seal smoldering at his feet.
Across from him, the girl—Lilith—stepped through the barrier, barefoot and unharmed. Her hair cascaded like a waterfall of midnight. Her eyes, once white with purity, were now stained with flickers of crimson shadow.
She was no ordinary child.
She was the second echo.
And she was smiling.
"You knelt," she said softly.
Kael said nothing.
The words were not a command. They were an observation. A test.
Lilith tilted her head. "Do you know why they kept me down here?"
Kael looked up. "They feared what you were becoming."
She giggled—a sound too sharp for a child. "Wrong. They feared what I would remember."
He narrowed his eyes. "Memories from a past life?"
She nodded slowly. "Pieces. Dreams. Screams. A sky made of ash. A god with burning wings. You."
Kael's expression didn't change, but his chest tightened.
"I saw you standing alone," Lilith said, voice distant. "Surrounded by corpses of gods. And then... I saw you fall."
He looked away.
"I thought it was just a nightmare," she continued, walking past him. Her bare feet left black marks on the white floor. "But now I know. It was prophecy."
Kael turned slowly. "Then you've awakened."
Lilith smiled again. But this time, it wasn't innocent.
It was terrifying.
---
Outside, bells began to ring.
Sanctum-wide alarms. Divine priests shouting through holy corridors. Glyphs activating. Walls glowing.
They knew.
Kael stepped forward. "We must leave. Now."
Lilith raised a hand. "Wait."
Her eyes locked onto the walls. She reached out—and the stone pulsed. Cracked. Shuddered.
A second later, the entire chamber collapsed outward, sending dust and holy rubble into the night.
Light priests stationed in the upper sanctum staggered back, blinded by the black energy erupting from below. One attempted to chant a purification hymn—his mouth filled with blood. Another raised a staff—it shattered.
Kael stood by the girl, unfazed.
She hadn't raised her voice.
She hadn't moved.
But death was spreading through the temple like wildfire.
Lilith turned to Kael. "I was born in chains. I will not leave this place until it burns."
He didn't argue.
Because part of him... wanted that too.
---
The High Sanctum shook. Golden towers cracked at the base. Statues of Aureon, the Radiant God, crumbled into dust. Clerics and crusaders ran through collapsing hallways, gripping divine relics that failed to respond.
In the center courtyard, High Priest Halvar raised his scepter, sweat pouring down his face.
"Summon the Seraph Guard! Now! She's not sealed—she's... she's corrupted!"
Behind him, four warriors descended from the air, wings made of pure light. Their faces were concealed by platinum helms. They radiated divine authority.
"The Reaper walks again," the High Priest muttered. "And he's brought the Abyss with him."
One of the Seraphs flared with golden fire. "We'll end them both."
But even as they said the words, the sky above the temple darkened.
Not from clouds.
But from wings.
Dozens. No—hundreds. Shadows.
Crows.
They swarmed the heavens, their cries drowning the priests' prayers.
Kael emerged from the ruins, black coat fluttering, eyes like broken moons. Lilith stood beside him, untouched by dust or debris.
One of the Seraphs dropped, landing before them. "You defy the divine, Death God."
Kael didn't reply.
"I serve Aureon," the Seraph declared. "Your sentence was eternal silence."
Kael's voice was calm. "And yet... here I am."
The Seraph charged, divine blade screaming through the air.
Lilith blinked.
A tendril of shadow erupted from her back, shaped like a whip, and wrapped around the Seraph's neck.
She pulled.
The Seraph's head detached in one clean motion. Its golden armor crumbled like ash.
Lilith tilted her head, curious. "They're weaker than I imagined."
Kael stepped forward, looking at the remaining three.
The courtyard went silent.
One of them trembled.
"We're not ready," he whispered.
But it was too late.
---
The Reaper moved.
Kael dashed forward like smoke, his palm crashing into the chest of the next Seraph.
Light exploded outward—only to be devoured by the black flame surrounding his hand.
The divine heart inside the Seraph's chest burst.
Two left.
They flew backward, trying to gain altitude. But Kael raised one hand—and the very concept of gravity twisted.
The sky bent downward.
The Seraphs slammed into the ground, wings broken.
Lilith walked slowly between them.
"You serve Aureon?" she asked the last one.
He coughed blood. "Yes... and he will... destroy you."
Lilith crouched, face inches from his.
"Tell him to try."
She touched his chest.
The Seraph disintegrated into dust.
---
Kael turned toward the outer wall. The path was clear. The temple lay in ruin. But something pulsed in the air—danger, heavy and ancient.
A seal.
Lilith frowned. "Do you feel that?"
"Yes," Kael said. "He's coming."
Aureon?
No. Not yet.
Something else.
Kael's gaze snapped toward the mountain's edge.
A figure appeared there—tall, radiant, with chains trailing from its limbs. Not golden like the Seraphs. Not divine. Older.
The Warden of the Threshold.
A being created not by gods, but by the First Flame, the origin that even Aureon feared.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "They're desperate."
Lilith looked up at the creature, unafraid.
"What is it?" she asked.
Kael's voice was quiet. "Something that was never meant to wake again."
The Warden raised its chained arms. The air vibrated. The ground screamed.
It didn't speak.
It judged.
And Kael, once the Reaper of Balance, felt something unfamiliar grip his heart.
Dread.
The Warden's chains scraped against the cracked stone as it stepped forward, its body half-wrapped in molten armor, half-consumed by void. Its face was a mask—no eyes, no mouth—just a smooth, polished surface of obsidian reflecting Kael and Lilith like distorted phantoms.
Lilith stared at the creature in fascination. "That… isn't alive."
"No," Kael answered. "It's a prison given form."
A sudden gust of pressure slammed into them like a tidal wave, forcing the trees surrounding the shattered sanctum to bow and wither. The Warden's presence didn't burn like divine power—it smothered. Its aura didn't purify; it suppressed reality itself.
Kael gritted his teeth. "It's the last lock."
Lilith didn't blink. "You mean it's not here to destroy us."
Kael gave a slow nod. "It's here to stop us from leaving."
---
Lightning rippled through the sky—black, twisted. The heavens above the mountain darkened as if the stars themselves recoiled. The Warden raised one chained arm and pointed it at Kael.
A symbol blazed in the air—a sigil of eternal imprisonment.
It burned itself into the earth below them, forming a glowing prison circle that shrieked with celestial runes. The earth cracked. The shadows writhed. Lilith floated slightly above the ground as the sigil activated beneath her.
Kael's boots sank into the glowing runes.
"A divine anchor," he said coldly.
The Warden's chains clinked as it began to descend the stairs carved into the cliff's edge, each step weighing more than thunder.
Kael took a breath and closed his eyes.
The Reaper's seal inside him—the forbidden core that had once defied the Creator himself—began to pulse again. Slowly. Reluctantly.
But it responded.
To his will.
Lilith's voice cut through the pressure. "I can break the seal. Give me a moment."
Kael opened one eye. "You have thirty seconds."
---
The Warden moved, impossibly fast for something so large. It dashed forward, arm raised. A chained fist smashed down toward Kael, cracking the ground like a meteor.
Kael caught it.
His hand lit with black fire.
Chains sizzled, but didn't break.
He was pushed back—one step. Two.
But he didn't fall.
The Warden's chains twisted around his wrist, attempting to bind him again, just like they had in the Abyss. Kael snarled and pulled with unnatural strength, ripping the links taut.
"You think I'll kneel again?" he said, voice low.
The Warden didn't answer.
It had no will of its own. It only enforced.
Kael slammed his fist into the creature's gut. Shadows burst outward like a black sun exploding. The Warden staggered for the first time in eons.
But it didn't fall.
Instead, the air around it shimmered—and three more chains burst from its back like spears, targeting Lilith.
Kael's eyes widened. "Lilith—!"
She was ready.
The chains stopped mid-air, caught in a swirling cocoon of pitch-black petals.
Her body hovered, engulfed in an aura of void and memory.
"I remember now," she whispered. "I wasn't born in this era."
Kael narrowed his eyes, still grappling with the Warden. "What do you mean?"
"I died… the same day you were sealed," she said. "I remember watching it happen. You refused to kill Aureon… because of me."
The Warden let out a scream—not sound, but force. The mountain trembled.
Kael didn't speak.
Lilith's eyes were wet now. "I begged you to run. You refused. You sacrificed your power to save me. But I died anyway."
Kael felt the fire in his chest burn hotter.
"I was reborn… again and again. Every time, I forgot you. But my soul remembered the pain." She opened her hands. "And now I remember everything."
Dark feathers exploded around her. Her dress became a flowing mantle of shadows, her eyes glowing deep red.
The spell beneath her shattered.
Kael broke the Warden's grip and leapt back.
"Then take it back," he said.
Lilith raised both hands.
The chains launched toward her again—this time from every direction.
She smiled.
And then—
Silence.
The chains stopped in midair, vibrating.
Lilith spoke one word: "Break."
Every chain exploded into dust.
The Warden reeled, its arms snapping backward under an unseen pressure.
Lilith floated toward it like a goddess of oblivion.
"You kept me trapped through lifetimes. You kept him chained for a thousand years."
She reached out and placed her hand over the Warden's heart.
"For that, you'll never wake again."
A pulse.
A heartbeat of pure darkness.
The Warden turned to stone—then cracked apart.
Its mask fell and shattered on the earth.
Kael stepped beside her. "You remembered."
She nodded. "All of it."
"Then we have no time."
He looked to the north—past the temple ruins, beyond the mountain range. Toward the golden capital, where the Radiant Throne still burned.
"Aureon will feel this loss."
Lilith's smile faded. "And he'll come sooner than expected."
Kael's voice was cold. "Let him."
---
They walked through the ruins.
Priests knelt in silence, weeping, their relics dim. Crusaders who had once sung hymns now trembled behind shattered shields.
Lilith passed them like a shadow. Kael ignored them.
None dared move.
They reached the edge of the holy barrier—the wall that had once kept Kael sealed for centuries. It was cracked now, barely holding together.
Lilith placed a single finger against it.
It shattered like glass.
---
As they stepped into the night, the sky trembled with distant thunder.
And far, far above the clouds…
A pair of golden eyes opened.
The world outside the barrier was silent—too silent.
No wind moved. No insects cried. Even the stars seemed to watch them.
Kael took a step into the barren land that once belonged to the gods. His boots sank slightly into the ash-covered soil, and his breath frosted in the air, despite no cold.
Lilith walked beside him, her dark aura slowly dimming. She was tired. The backlash from awakening all her past selves was beginning to show.
"We need shelter," she murmured. "Somewhere to gather strength."
Kael nodded. "There's a ruined cathedral west of here. One of the last that resisted Aureon before the purge."
Lilith nodded. "Lead the way."
But Kael didn't move immediately.
His eyes were fixed on the sky.
"…You felt it too," he finally said.
Lilith paused. "Yes."
The moment the Warden fell, something ancient… had awakened.
Not Aureon himself.
Something older.
---
They traveled in silence for hours, following the trail of ancient ruin and forgotten relics. Statues of fallen gods lined the path—some broken, some melted, some headless. This was the Creator's cleansing.
Lilith glanced at one of them—a female deity, faceless now, but still reaching toward the sky.
"What were we all fighting for?" she whispered. "We lost… everything."
Kael didn't answer.
Because he already knew.
---
When they reached the cathedral, the sun had not yet risen, but red light flickered on the horizon like a false dawn. The place had once been holy—walls of silverstone, rooftops carved with runes. Now it was blackened by time, devoured by vines and silence.
Kael stepped through the broken doors first.
The stained glass was intact—but twisted. Images of Aureon surrounded by worshippers, standing on a mountain of corpses. Chains around every neck. Smiles forced on every mouth.
Lilith turned away.
Kael walked to the altar.
There was a dagger there.
A pure white blade.
Lilith frowned. "That's—"
"The Sacrificial Blade of Serah," Kael finished. "Aureon's favorite tool for obedience."
He picked it up. It didn't burn him this time.
It trembled.
---
Suddenly, Lilith froze.
Her eyes glazed for a moment. She gripped her head, staggering back.
Kael moved instantly. "What's wrong?"
But she didn't respond.
She was hearing something.
A voice, deep in her mind.
A memory?
No.
A presence.
Lilith fell to her knees, clutching her chest. "It's… talking…"
Kael dropped the blade and knelt beside her.
"Lilith. Focus."
Her eyes widened. "It's not him. Not Aureon."
Kael's expression sharpened. "Then who?"
Her voice was faint.
"…The first voice."
---
In the heavens, high above the clouds, where the stars bled light through cracks in space, something shifted.
The golden eyes that had opened earlier were not Aureon's.
They were deeper.
Older.
A will that had watched from behind the veil, unseen by gods and mortals alike.
A whisper echoed across the sky, unheard by the world—
Except for her.
---
Lilith gasped and shot upright, eyes pitch black.
Kael stepped back, shadows rising to defend him, unsure if she was possessed.
But she didn't attack.
She stood slowly, unnaturally calm.
And then she said something that chilled him.
"I saw it."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "Saw what?"
She turned to him.
"The real Creator."
Silence.
Kael's eyes darkened. "You're lying."
"I wish I was."
She stepped closer, speaking slowly.
"The being Aureon calls 'Father'... the one who made all this… never disappeared. He was sealed beneath the foundation of existence. By Aureon himself."
Kael's breath hitched.
Lilith continued. "That's why Aureon feared you. Not because you were Death. Not because you rebelled."
Her gaze locked with his.
"He feared you because you're His last fragment."
---
The wind returned.
The stars shimmered in strange patterns.
Kael took a step back.
"No. That's impossible."
Lilith reached out, gently touching his chest.
"Why do you think your soul couldn't be erased? Why do you think even death couldn't contain you?"
She lowered her hand.
"You weren't born in this world, Kael. You were left behind."
---
Kael turned toward the broken stained glass. He didn't speak.
Memories surged—of chains that couldn't bind, flames that didn't burn, and the first time he killed a god and felt nothing.
He remembered a moment, in the Void, when even the Abyss recoiled from him.
He thought it was because he was Death.
But it had been something deeper.
Something primordial.
---
Lilith sat down against the cold stone wall. "Aureon isn't just your enemy. He's your warden. He's been trying to delay you from awakening."
Kael clenched his fists.
"So what now?" he asked, voice low. "Do I become Him? The one even Aureon sealed away?"
Lilith looked up at him.
"I don't know."
She sounded genuinely afraid.
Kael turned, facing the ruined cathedral's altar.
He spoke quietly, to himself.
"Then I'll find the truth. And if Aureon fears what I am—"
He reached for the Sacrificial Blade again.
"—I'll give him a reason."
---
Suddenly, outside the cathedral—
Footsteps.
Kael turned sharply.
A figure entered the doorway.
Clad in white.
Hair of golden fire.
Eyes burning with holy wrath.
It was him.
Aureon.
The God of Creation had arrived.