Chapter 11 – The Day the Sky Bled
The air changed.
Kael felt it before he saw it — the pressure, so heavy it crushed the breath from his lungs.
They had been walking for hours across an endless plain of blackened stone when it appeared.
A figure stood at the horizon, towering over the land like a walking storm.
Its head was a swirling mass of dark clouds, lightning sparking within. A red, armor-like body pulsed with molten veins, and in its hands it carried two colossal swords wreathed in flame.
Nyx froze instantly. "…No."
Astrili's eyes narrowed. "God-class."
"God-class?" Kael asked. "As in—"
"As in," Astrili cut him off, "the kind even gods feared."
The thing moved.
One step — and the ground trembled for miles.
Another — and the sky turned crimson.
It opened its mouth. The swirling storm inside condensed into a sphere of burning light before exploding outward in a beam that ripped the land apart.
Kael threw himself sideways as the blast consumed everything in its path. Entire hills disintegrated. A jagged crater miles wide smoked in the distance.
"Scatter!" Astrili shouted.
Nyx vanished into shadows, striking at the creature's side, but the god turned with impossible speed, its flaming blade cutting the air where she'd been a heartbeat before. Even Astrili, whose magic could freeze a Lord-class mid-attack, found herself pushed back, her spells burning away before they could touch it.
Kael charged, cosmic energy bursting from his palm. His strike hit the god's armor—
—and the god didn't even flinch.
Instead, it swung.
The world blurred. Kael barely managed to block, the impact hurling him across the ground. His ribs screamed in protest. The speed was inhuman — faster than the dragon. Faster than anything he'd faced.
Every clash destroyed the land around them — molten stone spraying like water, black dust filling the air. Kael's vision shook with every blow he parried. His legs buckled under the force.
Nyx landed beside him, bleeding. "We can't win this."
Astrili's breathing was uneven, her robes torn. "Retreat—"
The god roared, the sound ripping through the sky like thunder.
Kael could feel the heat, the killing intent. He could feel death closing in.
And then—
That voice.
"Again… you hesitate?"
The same voice from the day he woke in this cursed world.
Kael's vision darkened — no, changed. The battlefield froze in place. Even the swirling clouds above were still. The god's blade was a hair's breadth from his face… yet it didn't move.
"Do you want power?" the voice asked.
Kael's hands clenched. "…Yes."
"Then stop fighting in their world… and make your own."
Light exploded in his chest. Cosmic energy surged, but it didn't just coat his skin this time — it poured from him, wrapping the air, bending space itself.
And then reality shattered.
They stood in a new place — his place.
A dimension of stillness. Everything — the god, the flames, even the falling ash — was frozen like glass.
Kael floated upward, energy swirling around his limbs like silver fire. His heartbeat was thunder. His vision burned gold.
The voice whispered one last thing.
"Strike from the heart."
He moved.
The god couldn't react — it couldn't even move. Kael appeared at its chest, cosmic energy coiling around his fist until the pressure threatened to tear him apart.
"Fall."
His punch landed.
The explosion tore a hole straight through the god's torso, light bursting from the wound like a newborn star. Behind it, space cracked — and a massive, ancient cradle of pure light appeared in the void.
Then, time resumed.
The god let out a soundless scream before collapsing into the abyss, its molten body breaking apart into ash. The cradle faded as the rift closed.
When the dust cleared, Nyx was staring at him, wide-eyed. "…You—killed—a god?"
Astrili's expression was unreadable, but her gaze lingered on him longer than before. "…Impossible."
Kael dropped to one knee, breathing hard. But even as exhaustion clawed at him, he felt it — his energy, his strength — shifting.
A new presence.
A new rank.
[Rank Increased: B]
The voice echoed once more, faint but clear.
"Rise higher… Riftbearer."