The mome Aureon stepped into the ruined cathedral, the world held its breath.
Golden light poured in behind him, not warm, not kind—a consuming fire that devoured shadows and demanded worship. Every step he took sent cracks through the sacred stones, symbols of forgotten gods breaking under his heel.
Kael didn't move.
His back was straight. His eyes, void-black, locked with the golden gaze of the being who had once cast him down.
"Kael." Aureon's voice rang like bells in a cathedral—divine, pure, and utterly cold. "I see you've returned from your exile."
Kael's voice was a blade. "You made it temporary."
Aureon stepped forward, boots crushing the altar's base as if it were dust. "And still, you defy me. Even after death."
Lilith stood slowly behind Kael. Her hands shook slightly. It wasn't fear.
It was rage.
"You killed our people," she said, her voice cutting like frost. "Burned the realms. Enslaved those who once stood beside you."
Aureon didn't even look at her.
"You speak to your Creator without kneeling," he said coldly.
Kael let out a soft, mirthless laugh. "We've both changed, it seems."
Aureon's smile was slow, cruel. "Oh no, Kael. I never changed. I've always been what I am. The will of order. The hand that burns impurity. The Father of All."
He lifted his hand.
Golden runes flared across the cathedral walls. The air bent.
And Kael felt it.
Suppression.
---
Kael staggered a step, blood leaking from his nose.
His divine core—rebuilt in shadow and death—was being forced back.
Lilith screamed and fell to her knees as her soul trembled. Aureon's divine presence was like a thousand suns crashing into the earth. Her past lives clawed inside her mind, desperate to escape, to vanish rather than face Him again.
Aureon didn't blink.
"You were given a gift, Kael. Death. The final peace. And you rejected it."
Kael gritted his teeth. "You call death peace? You call chains order?"
He took a step forward, the suppression threatening to shatter his bones.
"I call it mercy," Aureon said simply. "You don't deserve to exist."
---
But something within Kael stirred.
A flicker—no, a whisper—from the depths of his soul.
Not a memory.
A pulse.
Like the beating of a second heart.
The one that had never stopped.
The presence Lilith spoke of. The fragment of the First Creator.
Kael didn't know what it meant.
But he felt it now.
Something beneath Aureon's radiance.
Older.
Stronger.
Unseen.
He let the pulse guide him.
---
Kael raised his head. "Then end me."
Aureon's smile froze.
"I'm waiting," Kael whispered.
"I won't strike you here. Not yet." Aureon turned, the divine runes fading from the walls. "I want the world to witness your final failure. I want the heavens to know that even Death bows to Me."
Kael didn't move. "Running?"
"I'm showing restraint." Aureon vanished in a flash of golden light. "Enjoy your remaining days."
The cathedral dimmed.
Silence returned.
---
Lilith collapsed fully, coughing blood. Kael rushed to her side and steadied her.
"He… he left on purpose," she said between gasps.
Kael nodded. "He wants a spectacle."
Lilith looked at him, eyes burning despite her pain. "Then give him one."
Kael stood slowly, looking up at the cracked stained-glass window.
Where once the image of Aureon stood victorious.
Now it was broken.
A sword through the sun.
He reached into his cloak and drew forth the Sacrificial Blade of Serah.
The one tool forged by Aureon to enslave the divine.
"I'll turn your weapon against you," Kael whispered. "And carve your name from creation."
---
But just as he turned back to Lilith—
The sky split open.
A tear—not of light or darkness.
Void.
From it poured something else.
Not Aureon.
Not Kael.
Not even the Creator below.
Figures cloaked in shifting matter, with masks of shifting stars, stepped through.
Lilith's eyes widened.
"The Voidwalkers," she whispered.
Kael felt it too.
He had sensed them once before—in death.
They were watchers.
Collectors.
Judges of gods who tampered too far.
One stepped forward.
It didn't speak.
Its very presence burned Kael's name into existence.
"Fragment of the First. Agent of Collapse. You have been marked."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "You serve Him?"
The Voidwalker didn't answer.
Instead, it pointed to Lilith.
"You walk beside the Catalyst. The past bound into flesh. A storm reborn."
Lilith tried to stand, but the air bent around her.
Kael raised the blade. "Touch her and I will—"
"You are already chosen," the Voidwalker interrupted. "The chain reaction has begun. You cannot stop it now."
Kael's hand trembled.
"…What chain reaction?"
The Voidwalker's mask began to crack.
Beneath it—nothing.
No face. No soul. Just fate.
It spoke one final time.
"The fall of Aureon is not the end."
It vanished.
---
Kael stood in silence.
The dagger in his hand grew warm.
Not with Aureon's divinity.
But something else.
Something awakening.
From within him.
Lilith rose to her feet beside him.
She didn't ask what the Voidwalker meant.
She only whispered one thing:
"He's afraid of you. But he's more afraid of what comes after you."
Kael looked up at the sky.
And for the first time…
He smiled.
Night fell like a dying god across the valley of ruin. The stars above no longer twinkled with light—they stared, cold and silent, as if bearing witness to something ancient returning.
Kael sat alone on the stone steps of the shattered cathedral. Lilith was resting within, her wounds slowly healing. But Kael couldn't sleep. He hadn't truly rested since his rebirth.
The Sacrificial Blade of Serah rested across his knees. Its edge pulsed in tune with his heartbeat. But it wasn't just a weapon anymore.
It was listening.
And then—it spoke.
Not in words.
In memories.
---
He saw a battlefield, endless and scorched. Not the present world, not the heavens, but something older.
The First War.
Gods clashing like titans. Planets dying as collateral. Kael saw himself there—not as Death. Not as a Reaper. But as something beyond divine.
He was tall, crowned in black flame, his wings a mix of bone and shadow. And at his side stood—
Aureon.
But not as he was now.
Back then, they were brothers.
Equals.
Fighting together against a force of infinite hunger. Against the Voidwalkers, before they became Watchers. Before they began to "balance" existence with silence.
Kael blinked, sweat on his brow.
Why had he forgotten this?
Why had no record survived?
---
The blade's hum faded.
Kael whispered into the night, "You took more from me than I thought, Aureon."
He gripped the handle tightly.
"Even my name."
A soft sound came from behind him.
Lilith. Awake.
She approached slowly, wrapped in a dark cloak. Her expression was calm, but there was something different in her eyes now.
"You saw it, didn't you?" she asked.
Kael nodded. "Pieces."
Lilith sat beside him. "It's starting. The closer you get to vengeance, the more the truth leaks through."
She paused, then said something that twisted Kael's gut.
"You weren't just the God of Death, Kael. You were the First."
---
He turned to her, surprised.
Lilith didn't blink.
"You were the first created being. Before Aureon. Before all others. You were the prototype."
Kael stared.
"You lie."
"No," she said softly. "I remember now. That's why he bound you. Not just because you rebelled—but because you were too perfect. You were beyond divine. And he… feared that."
Kael clenched his jaw. "Why do you remember?"
Lilith placed her hand over her heart. "Because I was the first soul you ever created. Before the realms. Before heaven. Before even time."
Kael felt the air still.
He stood abruptly.
---
"I don't have time to chase ghosts."
Lilith didn't move.
"But they're chasing you."
Kael's shadows rose in frustration. "Then let them."
He turned, about to retreat into silence.
But a scream echoed from below the hill.
Not mortal.
Not divine.
Something… else.
Kael instantly vanished, stepping through shadow. Lilith followed.
What they found at the foot of the hill was carnage.
Dozens of cloaked figures—priests of Aureon—lay butchered. Their divine seals were shattered. Blood soaked the grass, but it didn't drip—it burned.
In the center stood a child.
Pale skin, golden eyes, and white hair.
Her hands were stained crimson.
---
Kael stepped forward. "Who are you?"
The girl turned slowly. She was no more than ten, but the look in her eyes was ageless.
"I am what you left behind."
Kael narrowed his gaze. "Speak clearly."
She tilted her head. "You once created a vessel of pure entropy. To absorb imbalance and store it. You named it Null."
Kael froze.
He remembered. Barely. A failed experiment. A forgotten solution to a problem that hadn't existed yet.
"You were sealed," he muttered.
"I broke free," she said, smiling faintly. "Because your death broke the lock."
Kael looked at the bodies. "Why did you kill them?"
"Because they tried to claim me. Like Aureon always does."
---
Lilith stepped beside him. "Is she dangerous?"
Kael considered. Then: "Not yet. But she's unstable."
"I can hear your heart," the girl whispered. "It's not his. It never was. You're not Death anymore."
Kael's voice was low. "Then what am I?"
She smiled.
"Judgment."
---
Kael looked to the sky. The stars above had shifted again.
A pattern now.
An alignment.
He didn't know why, but it made his divine core ache.
Lilith noticed it too.
"They're marking something," she murmured.
Kael nodded.
"The beginning."
---
Behind them, Null quietly spoke.
"He knows about me now. He'll send more. Stronger ones."
Kael sheathed his blade.
"Let him."
His eyes burned like the abyss.
"I'm done hiding."
Aureon stood at the edge of the Divine Observatory, cloaked in golden robes that shimmered with threads of law and creation. The halls around him pulsed with energy from a thousand worlds he'd forged.
But today, something was off.
The Weave of Destiny—a living tapestry only visible to the All-Father—trembled.
A black strand had begun to slither through it, disrupting harmony, bending fate unnaturally.
Kael.
"He remembers," Aureon muttered.
From the shadows behind him, an archangel approached. Her armor was white, but her wings bore iron tips—sign of a Punisher. Her name was Celeste, Warden of the Inner Sanctum.
"My Lord," she said, bowing.
"He's awakened the Null," Aureon said.
Celeste stiffened. "That thing still exists?"
"He created it," Aureon said darkly. "Of course it does. He always built too perfectly. Even his failures survived."
"Shall I go?"
"No." Aureon's voice was calm, but final. "Not yet. He must be tested first. We'll send the Sealed One."
Celeste paled. "But—he's unstable."
"All the better. If Kael kills him, I'll know how far he's come."
---
Far below, in the ruins of a long-forgotten kingdom, Kael walked among the dust.
Lilith trailed behind, while Null danced ahead, humming an eerie melody only she seemed to hear.
"These ruins," Kael murmured, "are older than any human memory."
"They were once your throne," Lilith said.
He stopped.
"What?"
She pointed to the cracked obsidian archway ahead. A crest was etched into the stone.
A crown made of bone. A serpent coiled through it.
"It was your empire, before Aureon scattered the lands and rewrote history. The Valley of Mur'kai. You ruled from here, when the gods still bled."
---
Kael approached the archway.
His hand brushed the ancient symbol.
A searing pain lanced through his palm.
But he didn't flinch.
The stone responded—glowing, rumbling. The earth shook.
Behind the archway, a circular seal embedded in the ground cracked open. Black smoke hissed upward as runes ignited.
Kael stepped back.
"What did you do?" Lilith asked.
"I didn't do anything."
From the darkness below, a presence emerged.
Heavy. Wrong.
A body rose—a man draped in chains, eyes blindfolded, skin covered in divine brands.
He wasn't dead.
He was sealed.
Null's voice turned to a whisper. "The First Sealed One."
---
The man's lips parted. "Who dares… awaken me?"
Kael said nothing.
The man sniffed the air. "Ah. I know that stench. You're the one he feared."
Kael's grip tightened around the Blade of Serah.
"What is your name?" Kael asked.
The man laughed. "I've had many. But your kind called me Varnak the Ender. I was sealed by the gods… after I devoured seven realms."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "You're a monster."
Varnak grinned. "And you're Death. Isn't that beautiful?"
He snapped the chains like thread.
Kael didn't hesitate.
He struck.
---
The blade screamed through the air—cutting across space.
But Varnak caught it.
With two fingers.
"Too slow."
He headbutted Kael, sending him flying through the ruins.
Lilith lunged, casting a binding chain of soulfire.
Varnak ripped through it and slammed her into a pillar.
Only Null remained, standing before him.
He looked down at her, curious. "You're… not whole."
"I'm enough," she whispered.
And her body ignited—pure entropy in motion.
It didn't burn. It erased.
Varnak roared as part of his arm began to vanish. But he didn't back down.
He punched forward—and Null was flung away, unconscious.
---
Kael rose, blood dripping from his temple. Shadows surged around him.
"You're not like the others," he said.
Varnak grinned. "Because I'm not bound by Aureon's false order."
Kael extended his hand.
The ground split.
And from the chasm, a second sword rose.
The Blade of Forgetting.
Forged before time. Lost to myth.
Varnak blinked. "That should be… gone."
Kael's voice was a whisper of judgment.
"I remember everything now."
---
He moved like a storm.
The Blade of Forgetting carved through Varnak's arm.
The Blade of Serah pierced his side.
Kael didn't stop.
He slashed again—again—until Varnak dropped to his knees.
The earth trembled as divine blood splashed across the broken stone.
Varnak laughed, even as he fell.
"You've become something worse than death."
Kael leaned down, his voice cold.
"I was never death."
He stabbed both blades through Varnak's chest.
"I was your reckoning."
---
As Varnak's body crumbled into dust, the seal beneath him shattered fully.
A ripple shot across the continent.
Lilith coughed, rising to her feet. Null stirred weakly.
Kael stood at the center, breathing heavily.
The sky cracked.
A thousand golden eyes opened in the clouds.
Aureon had seen everything.
And he was no longer hiding behind light.