The moment Kael Vanthelmir uttered the first syllable of the Tongue of Ruin, the firmament of the Thirteenth Heaven shuddered.
It was not a sound.
It was a denial.
A command older than breath, bypassing language and divinity alike—a syllable that unmade the concept of "silence" and replaced it with Kael's presence.
In the highest spires of the Celestial Court, where blind scribes inked the laws of reality with phoenix feathers and melted time, the Oracle Bell shattered.
One of the twelve Heavenly Sovereigns, Lord Caer'Zhael of the Flame-Bound Edicts, knelt by instinct—his knees breaking against celestial jade as blood oozed from his ears.
> "A God... no—something older," he gasped.
The stars behind his throne stilled.
Then, one by one, they began to bleed.
---
◈ Meanwhile, in the Mortal Realm
Kael stood outside the vault now. The sun had not risen—not because it dared not, but because time itself had yet to resume its flow fully around him.
He raised his hand. The Tongue pulsed, and his shadow lengthened unnaturally—stretching across entire mountains in an instant.
Within that shadow, beasts once thought extinct awoke and howled.
Clouds turned black, then fled.
Qi withered and bloomed in the same breath.
Kael did nothing.
The world responded anyway.
> "You don't need to destroy everything," a voice called from behind.
It was Sei'Liora.
She had followed him again—always too late, yet never far.
She wore the robes of a fallen sect now, her spiritual energy restrained behind countless suppression seals, yet her gaze was unshaken.
> "I remember what you were," she said. "Before all this."
Kael didn't look at her.
> "Then you remember the mistake."
> "No," she whispered. "I remember the boy who carved birds into stone walls and wept when a butterfly died in winter."
He turned at last. And in his eyes was neither sorrow nor anger—but the absence of both.
> "That boy was erased. Not by my hand.
But by yours.
By the world's."
She flinched but did not look away.
Kael raised his hand, and the heirlooms on his back pulsed softly—seven legacies hung behind him like ethereal relics of gods.
Then, he spoke the Second Syllable of the Tongue.
Reality tore open in front of them, revealing a crimson sky with constellations not from this world—a divine realm that should not yet exist. A Domain of Rupture, created solely by the intention of Kael's will.
> "Where are you going?" Sei'Liora asked, her voice cracking.
> "To the Thirteenth Heaven."
> "Alone?"
Kael stepped through the rift.
> "No."
> "I am never alone again."
Behind him, shadows followed. Echoes of ancestors. Spirits from ruined temples. The wind from burnt prayer scrolls. They had all chosen him now—not because he was right, but because he remained.
---
⟢ Celestial Court - Upper Sky Pavilion
Heavenly Sovereign Caer'Zhael stood before a congregation of divine generals, all of them bound by fate-runes and vows forged before mortals had names.
> "Kael Vanthelmir has violated the 7th Law of Naming.
He has accessed the First Language.
He is rewriting us."
One of the generals stepped forward, her eyes glowing with prophetic insight.
> "Then it is time," she said.
> "To summon the Twelve Cataclysms."
The room darkened. Thirteen swords embedded in stars hummed. The sky above the Celestial Realms turned red.
And Kael arrived.
Not in a chariot. Not on a phoenix.
But on foot.
Dripping water from the Realm Between Worlds.
Eyes calm.
Heart empty.
Tongue ready.
---
> "You called me myth," he said.
"Let me remind you what myth sounds like."