The sky was still bleeding gold when Kael stood again.
His hands trembled—not from weakness, but from too much power. Voidsteel remnants pulsed beneath his skin like living circuits. Every breath felt like inhaling stars.
[DOMAIN STABILITY: 18%]
[WARNING: SOULCORE FRAGMENTS DETECTED NEARBY]
He turned toward the rift where the Warden fell.
A single object floated in the air like a tear-shaped shard of glass, glowing faint blue.
Soulcore Fragment.
[System Prompt: BIND FRAGMENT TO VOIDCORE?]
[This will awaken dormant Sovereign Authority.]
Kael didn't hesitate. He reached out—
Chains of violet fire erupted from his back, lashing through space and dragging the fragment into him.
It hurt.
Like being torn open from the inside. Like memories that weren't his tried to flood his mind, screaming.
Flashes:
A battlefield of gods, burning with black suns.
A crown hovering over a headless body.
His face… carved into a temple wall.
And a voice, ancient and cold, whispering:
"You were never meant to ascend."
Then silence.
Kael gasped and collapsed to one knee again.
[SOULCHAIN AUTHORITY UNLOCKED]
[New Feature: Bind Fallen Souls | Extract Power | Rewrite Identity]
[Unlocked: VOIDGRAVE – Throne Skill]
New text scrawled across his vision. A new command.
[NEARBY LOST SOUL DETECTED]
[Do you wish to bind it and forge your first Soulknight?]
Kael looked up.
Across the shattered horizon, a ghost walked.
Tattered robes. Broken blade. No eyes, only darkness beneath a cracked helm. It moved like it remembered war but forgot peace.
Kael raised a hand. The chains answered.
Snap.
They pierced the ghost's chest, not with violence—but offer.
A pulse rippled through the void. The ghost stopped.
And knelt.
[Soulbound: Wraith-Class | Name: Forgotten General]
[Power: Shapeshifts into Weapon, Armor, or Companion]
Kael's voice was hoarse. "You… serve me?"
The soul nodded once. Then melted into strands of violet flame—and wrapped around his arms and shoulders.
Suddenly, he wore a black half-cloak of soul-cloth. His right arm encased in bone-forged gauntlet. The general was him now.
And this was only the first.
[VOIDGRAVE UNLOCKED]
You may now bind up to 7 legendary fallen souls.
Each grants new powers, forms, or abilities.
Current Capacity: 1/7
Kael laughed under his breath.
He was alone. He was hunted. He had no map, no guide, no idea what was real anymore.
But now?
He had an army of the dead, and a throne made of broken laws.
[ALERT: MULTIPLE ENTITY SIGNALS APPROACHING]
[ESTIMATED THREAT LEVEL: VARIABLE]
[WARNING: VOID TRIBUNAL EYE OPENING IN 48 HOURS]
Kael looked to the shattered horizon where floating ruins drifted across abyssal skies.
Time to explore. Time to build.
Time to show the Tribunal exactly why he was the Sovereign they feared.
Kael stood at the edge of his crater, windless void air curling around his cloak of soul-flame. Above, stars blinked in patterns that weren't stars at all—fragments of reality, still bleeding data.
He stepped forward.
The world rippled.
Obsidian platforms floated ahead in a broken trail, like shattered islands across a cosmic sea. Each one flickered with memories—scenes trapped in looping motion: a child crying beside a rusted robot. A girl screaming as a city burns behind her. A king stabbing himself with a crown-shaped dagger.
"What is this place?"
[This is the Boundary of Forgotten Realities]
[All erased timelines collapse here]
[Your existence has triggered reformation]
Kael walked slowly across the broken memory-isles. Beneath his feet, the void began to form terrain—twisting into ridged stone, paths of white bone, dead trees with crystal veins.
A voice whispered from the horizon.
"Sovereign… why did you return?"
Kael spun. "Who's there?!"
No answer.
Just a low chime in the air—like a cathedral bell echoing in reverse.
[New Location Discovered: The Bone Garden]
[High-Risk Zone: Identity Storm Incoming]
Suddenly, the sky shredded.
A spiral of red-and-silver light exploded open, and three figures dropped in—cloaked in iron-threaded robes, masks shaped like hourglasses.
[IDENTIFIED: Tribunal Reapers – Class ΔΔ Threat]
[Purpose: Recontain Temporal Anomalies]
Kael's chains uncoiled on instinct.
The lead figure raised a hand.
"Kael Draven," it said in a voice like cracking glass.
"You were supposed to die. You were deleted. And yet… here you are."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "How do you know my name?"
"Because we deleted you ourselves."
Boom.
One of them struck.
A lance of white flame shot across the void—Kael barely dodged, flipping into a roll, launching a counterstrike with his gauntlet arm. Chains lashed out, catching the second Reaper's ankle and slamming it into a floating ruin.
The third began chanting.
Reality warped. Kael's arm flickered—his body began to unravel.
[IDENTITY DESTABILIZATION: 12%]
[ACTIVATING SOULCHAIN FAILSAFE…]
Then—the soulbound General screamed.
It burst out of Kael's back, reforming into spectral armor—and deflected the spell mid-air, shattering it with a ghostly war cry.
Kael's eyes went wide. "You can act on your own?!"
[Sovereign Trait Evolved: Soulbound Intelligence Achieved]
The General turned to him, silently saluting.
Kael grinned. "Then let's make a throne out of their bones."
They moved together—soul and Sovereign—two blurs in the void. Chains, blade-arms, and spirit strikes ripped through space. The masked Reapers began to falter.
But the lead Reaper only raised one hand and spoke one word.
"Protocol: Rebirth."
[!!! SYSTEM ERROR]
[You have been Marked by the Clockwork Tribunal]
[Fate Chains are now active]
[If you die… you will not reincarnate again.]
Kael stopped cold.
"Wait. That's a thing?!"
The Reaper nodded. "You have only one life left, anomaly."
And then he vanished.
Not fled—teleported, leaving behind only a glyph burned into the air:
[NEXT TRIAL IN: 72 HOURS]
Kael stood breathing hard, staring at the fading red glow.
[Realm Stability: 22%]
[New Status Effect: FATELOCKED]
His cloak burned brighter.
His eyes narrowed.
"…Then I guess I'll just have to live harder than anyone ever has."