The wind screamed across the desert.
Golden rays spilled through torn clouds, painting the sand a blistering amber. But the light did not warm.
It burned.
The squad of the Order of Light, twenty strong and clad in armor kissed by holy glyphs, approached in formation. Their white cloaks flared behind them like wings of judgment. Their captain, a knight named Ser Velmar, raised a hand.
"Form shields. We face the Sun-Eater himself. Do not let him taste your blood."
The sand trembled.
And then, Kael'thoris rose.
Not walked. Not approached.
He rose.
A figure of grace and death, bare-chested beneath flowing, sun-scorched robes. His skin glowed as if a dying sun pulsed beneath it — golden veins cracked with red fire. His eyes… two orbs of molten dawn, ever-hungry.
Hair like streaming solar flares swept back, writhing in unseen heat. From his back unfolded twin, flame-laced constructs resembling wings — not of feathers, but of burning sunfire.
He smiled.
Not with joy — but hunger.
Kael'thoris whispered, and the air combusted.
"Shields!" Velmar shouted.
The desert exploded in flame.
Half the front line vaporized, reduced to smoking armor and scorched bone. Others screamed, rolling through the sand, trying to snuff out robes aflame with divine fire twisted into abomination.
Kael'thoris strode forward, each footstep turning sand to glass.
A paladin raised his spear — and Kael'thoris caught it mid-lunge.
His fingers curled over the steel, sunfire boiling out and traveling up the weapon.
The paladin screamed as his blood ignited inside his body — vessels glowing from within like threads of molten gold before he collapsed, hollowed out.
Kael'thoris inhaled deeply, and his skin shimmered brighter.
"Your faith burns... sweetly."
Velmar snarled and surged forward with a battle cry. His sword struck Kael'thoris's ribs — only for the blade to sizzle and bend against his heated flesh. The demigod didn't flinch.
"You fight in the name of light," Kael'thoris whispered near the knight's ear, "but you wield no fire worth fearing."
He exploded outward with a sunflare pulse, sending soldiers flying in arcs of smoke and ash. Sand blasted in every direction, and two healers were disintegrated before they could speak a prayer.
Yet — the Order pressed on.
Three knights of faith encased themselves in radiant shields, forming a triangle around the demigod. Chains of divine light wrapped around Kael'thoris's limbs, attempting to bind him.
A fourth figure approached — a war priest, hurling a lance formed from condensed holy scripture, glowing white-blue.
It struck Kael'thoris in the chest — and for a heartbeat, he staggered.
Then laughed.
"Ah… pain. I had forgotten it."
His wings ignited.
He shattered the chains with a flare of heat, then vanished — reappearing behind the war priest mid-prayer.
With a single motion, he plunged his fingers into the man's back — and drained.
The priest screamed, and color fled from his skin, his light flickering like a dying lantern.
Kael'thoris drank until nothing remained but a desiccated husk.
Around him, the sand writhed.
The desert itself seemed to respond — warped and fevered by the power of a demigod unbound.
One last squad remained.
Ser Velmar bled from the scalp, one eye swollen shut. Still, he stood, raising a cracked shield and rallying his men.
"In the name of the Everlight, we fight!"
Kael'thoris stepped forward, arms spread as though welcoming death — or inviting it.
"You will burn in your god's name, then."
The sun dipped low.
The final rays condensed around Kael'thoris, forming a halo of roaring sunfire. His body ascended briefly, the sky behind him split between dusk and flame.
Then, with a roar like a dying star, he descended — unleashing his ultimate art.
" Solar Banishment!"
Light erupted in a sphere around him. Not warm. Not holy. It was devouring.
The last knights screamed.
Armors turned black, melting. Bones snapped from the pressure. Velmar stood tall, even as his body cracked and blistered — until he was consumed like the rest.
And then — silence.
Kael'thoris stood alone.
The desert, now glass in a wide radius around him, hissed in residual heat.
He exhaled slowly. "Light," he said softly, "is better served when it dies slowly."
He turned and walked toward the rising moon, leaving behind scorched symbols, burnt armor, and the memory of slaughter.
And high above — something ancient watched.