The smoke of Etheris curled upward like the fingers of a dying god.
Luv stood in the ruins of the Judgment Circle, black blade still dripping with soul-light. Above, the halo of storm clouds split open, and through that wound in the sky poured a blinding radiance — the call of the High Heavens.
They were coming.
From the rent in the clouds descended winged figures, not like the Judges but far older. Their armor was carved from the bones of fallen titans, their weapons forged in suns that no longer burned. These were the Sky Enforcers — executioners of realms, sent only when the gods themselves demanded blood.
Their leader's voice cracked like thunder.
"Luv, the cursed one. You will kneel."
He did.
But only to lay his palm on the broken marble.
The runes hidden in the court — runes the Judges had thought long extinguished — flared under his touch. The ground shimmered. For a breath, the Enforcers hesitated, unsure.
Then the air split.
From the cracks in the marble, shadows rose — not his, but the echoes of those who had died here over millennia. Thousands of soul-phantoms, bound to the Circle, surged upward with a sound like glass shattering underwater. They swarmed the Enforcers, clawing, screaming, dragging at wings and armor.
The leader struck one down — only for it to multiply into three.
"This is not your battle," the leader roared. "These souls are ours!"
"That's the problem," Luv said, his voice quiet but cutting through the chaos. "You think life can be owned."
While they fought the phantoms, Luv moved — not charging, but weaving between their blows, never striking where they expected. Every step, every slash was meant to draw them closer to the prison towers.
And when they were in range, he snapped his fingers.
The towers collapsed inward — not by his blade, but because he had already undone their foundations hours earlier, when the Judges thought they had him chained.
A rain of shattered soul-crystals fell, releasing the prisoners' power in an uncontrolled surge.
The Enforcers reeled. Their radiant armor dimmed as the freed souls tore at their bindings.
The leader lunged at Luv, spear aimed for his heart.
Luv didn't parry. He simply stepped aside.
The spear drove into the ground — straight into one of the hidden seals he had etched with the blood of a Judge moments before the battle. The seal ignited, chaining the leader in light that burned not flesh, but memory.
The Enforcer screamed — not from pain, but from the flood of every life he had erased. The faces of the slaughtered crowded his mind until he dropped his weapon and begged for the noise to stop.
The others broke.
Not from defeat in arms, but from the weight of what they saw — and what Luv made them see.
He didn't kill them. Not yet.
Instead, he turned the prison they once ruled into a mirror of their sins, binding them in illusions so real they would live every life they had destroyed until their minds broke.
Etheris burned, but no one chased him. There was no one left who could.
The smoke faded. The sky cracked again, but not from the gods.
It was the tether.
Luv felt the pull — the thread of his mortal self, far away, tugging him back. His time here was ending.
The black blade dissolved in his hand. His cursed eyes dimmed. His breath became weightless.
Around him, the souls he had freed bowed their heads.
"You fought for us," a child's voice said in the crowd. "Will you come back?"
Luv didn't answer. He simply turned, and let the tether pull him.
The ruins dissolved into mist. The screams, the fire, the wind — all bled into silence.
He opened his eyes.
He was lying on his bed in the mortal world, morning light spilling through the small window. His body felt weak, but his heart beat with the echo of the battle.
The morning light poured through tall glass windows, scattering across polished stone floors.
Luv sat up slowly in his small apartment, every joint aching, every breath carrying the faint scent of ash that no mortal wind should carry. His hands — slim, human, and seemingly harmless — flexed in the light. Beneath that fragile skin, something ancient stirred, pressing against the limits of flesh like a storm behind a door.
The city beyond his walls was already alive.
From the street below came the shouts of merchants hawking wares, the rumble of cart wheels on cobblestones, the clang of smiths at their forges, and the layered conversations of thousands of lives weaving into one restless hum.
It could have been any other day.
Except now he saw it differently.
Threads. Faint as spider silk in sunlight, connecting every soul in sight to something above — gods' blessings, demons' pacts, hidden oaths. Invisible chains no one here knew they bore.
He touched one from afar — the tether of a street musician tuning her lute. In an instant, her life unfolded to him: every note she'd ever played, every coin tossed in her case, every whispered prayer for a better tomorrow.
He let go before she noticed the sudden catch in her breath.
So much power at his fingertips… yet no one suspected.
The door creaked open.