The sky tore itself open long before they arrived.
Not with lightning.Not with thunder.
But with something deeper —a slow, grinding wail of reality itself bending to make way for creatures too old for mortal memory.
From the shattered heavens, they came.
The Lords of Ash.
Remnants of the dead gods' final war — broken immortals, desperate to cling to what little power still stained their bones.
Once, they had commanded legions.
Once, they had ruled the tides of fate itself.
Now, they crawled through the ruins of a fading world, hungry for a throne that could no longer save them.
And they dared to set their hollow gazes upon Vaelen Cross.
Vaelen stood atop a hill of blackened stone, the first Garden of the Abyss blooming in twisted beauty behind him.
At his feet knelt Seris, Kaela, and Veyla —three queens of his Court, silent and perfect, their wings and chains catching the crimson light of the bleeding sky.
He watched without fear as the Lords descended.
Six of them.
Each a monument to what had once been glorious —now faded, cracked, hollow.
The first wore a crown of rusted stars.The second dragged a sword taller than most towers.The third bled mist from empty eye sockets.The fourth, fifth, sixth — it did not matter.
They had already lost.
They just did not yet know it.
The air trembled as they landed before him, shaking the trees, splintering the ground.
The crowned one stepped forward, voice like the grinding of dying suns:
"Vaelen Cross. False King. Forsaken Son of the End.""You walk where only gods may tread."
Vaelen tilted his head, almost amused.
"Gods?" he echoed — soft, deadly.
He stepped down from the hill.
With each stride, the ground blackened.The wind fled.The world itself held its breath.
He stopped mere feet from the gathered Lords — no armor, no weapon.
Only the Black Crown burning above him.Only the impossible gravity of his existence.
"You," he said, his voice a velvet executioner's blade,"are not gods."
He smiled — slow, inevitable.
"You are dust waiting for my breath."
The crowned Lord roared — a sound that split the clouds, drove animals mad for miles.
He hurled a spear of dying light toward Vaelen — a weapon forged in the heart of a star.
Vaelen raised one hand.
The spear dissolved before it touched him —unmade, forgotten, erased.
Without a word, Vaelen moved.
Faster than thought.
Faster than prayer.
He appeared before the crowned Lord —and with a single touch, he shattered the creature's body into ash.
No cry.No struggle.
Only oblivion.
The remaining Lords recoiled —the illusion of their strength bleeding from them like smoke.
Still, one lunged forward, dragging his rusted sword through the earth in a desperate arc.
Vaelen caught the blade barehanded.
The ancient steel screamed — bent — snapped.
He drove his hand into the Lord's chest.
And ripped out his soul, a tattered, screaming thing that he crushed between two fingers without looking away from the others.
The battle — if it could be called such — lasted less than a breath.
Vaelen moved among them like a storm walking on two legs.
Each Lord, ancient beyond mortal counting, was unmade with a gesture, a word, a glance.
Their bodies burned.
Their souls were devoured by the Black Crown, feeding the endless hunger of his dominion.
When the last Lord fell — reduced to a whisper on the wind —Vaelen turned, his cloak of shadow billowing behind him.
At his feet, his queens knelt, heads bowed, wings shivering in exultant awe.
He ascended the hill once more —and as he seated himself upon his blackened throne,the sky itself bent lower in submission.
The world had witnessed.
And it would remember.
Far across the lands —in shattered cities, in forgotten temples, in the hushed halls of broken kings —one truth bloomed like a plague:
Vaelen Cross could not be challenged.
Not by armies.
Not by gods.
Not by anything the dying world had left to give.
He was not king by birthright.He was not king by destiny.
He was king by will alone.
And now, there were no Lords left to deny it.
Only the silence of the conquered.
And the worship of those wise enough to kneel.