The cave was shallow. Barely enough room to sit upright. Cold stone pressed against Kale's back, slick with condensation and dust. Outside, the storm howled, hurling ash and wind like knives.
He was bleeding again.
Dirnan had been dead for two days. But the damage from using Fateshatter hadn't healed. His threads—what remained of them—twitched and frayed whenever he moved too fast. Something inside him was breaking.
Or changing.
"Your frame is collapsing," Azrael said calmly. "This vessel cannot bear the weight of what you're becoming."
"I noticed," Kale muttered, coughing blood into his sleeve.
"Would you like a solution?"
Kale froze.
Azrael never offered things. He commented, judged, mocked. But now… his voice had weight. Like a blade held just out of reach.
"What kind of solution?"
"I can rebuild you."
Silence.
"Your bones. Your nerves. The shell you cling to. All flawed. I can replace them with something eternal—something shaped from soulsteel and severed fate."
Kale's breath caught.
"You would no longer bleed," Azrael continued. "You would no longer tire. You would walk as a shadow upon the Loom, and all who saw you would feel the end of their thread."
It sounded like a god.
But it wasn't a gift.
"What's the price?" Kale asked quietly.
"Your name."
Kale blinked. "What?"
"Your identity. The self you believe you are. It is the last thing anchoring you to humanity. Give it to me, and I will forge you into something that can survive what's coming."
He sat in silence.
Rain lashed the cave mouth. Thunder rolled overhead.
Kale thought about what he was before Azrael — before the Vault, before the world turned to ash. A boy with a name. A family. A fear of being forgotten.
Now?
He was already a ghost. Already hunted. Already dying.
Would it even matter?
He pressed a hand to his chest. Threads pulsed beneath the skin like worms of light.
"Will I still be me?" he asked.
"No," Azrael said. "You will be more."
He closed his eyes.
And let go.
Something ancient moved.
Kale felt it — a vast darkness unfolding inside his bones, swallowing him from within. His name… his face… his sense of self… stripped away like old skin. Something else took its place.
Not evil.
Not good.
Just limitless.
You have unlocked:[Fateshatter: Ascended Form — Vowbreaker]You are no longer bound by mortal limitations.But you have sacrificed your identity.You are now a creature of contradiction.
He stood.
His skin no longer tore. His wounds had sealed into smooth silver scars. His eyes gleamed like shattered starlight, and around his hands danced flickers of broken prophecy — glowing fragments of other people's futures, waiting to be stolen.
Azrael whispered, pleased.
"Now… let them try to erase you."
End of Chapter 5