The skies screamed as reality unraveled.
Kael hurled himself sideways as Aetheron's assault cascaded down in waves of pure uncreation, annihilating matter, energy, and time itself. The land shattered into floating fragments, suspended in a void of shifting light and collapsing stars. The Riftblade glowed violently in his grip, not merely as a weapon now, but a stabilizing force barely keeping Kael anchored to what remained of this fractured reality.
He coughed, blood leaking from his lips, divine energy surging erratically inside him like an unstable sun. Zorthar's temporal dominion clashed with Thanar's storming wrath within his body, resisting the alien power Aetheron brought forth.
Kael forced himself to stand atop a floating shard of earth, his eyes glowing with defiance and divinity. "This world won't break me," he muttered, more to himself than to Aetheron. "You can twist the sky and rip time apart… but I'm still here."
Aetheron descended like a comet of living stars, the sheer gravity of his existence bending the land below. "You are still here. Curious. Perhaps you're not as fragile as I expected."
With each word, fragments of Kael's memories surfaced—visions of his first steps as the Gatekeeper, his first contact with divine forces, and the oath he swore: that no one, god or man, would ever control him again.
"I am Kael," he whispered to himself, "the breaker of chains… the slayer of gods."
Aetheron raised a hand, summoning a sphere of roiling energy: galaxies compressed into a single point, spinning with impossible momentum.
Kael responded, channeling everything—Zorthar's time-bending techniques, Thanar's violent force, and his own will. His body screamed as his form began to blur, stepping a half-second into the future. The Riftblade became a comet of light in his hand as he launched forward.
The two forces collided.
Time folded. The storm howled.
Kael struck Aetheron with a blow that could fracture the heart of a star. Aetheron retaliated, crashing his fist into Kael's chest, sending him spiraling through the void. Pain exploded through him, bones cracking, organs straining under godly stress. But Kael twisted mid-air, flipped, and landed hard on a collapsing platform of swirling cosmic dust.
He grinned, bloody and wild. "You're powerful, Aetheron. But you're not invincible."
"You're playing with fire, mortal," Aetheron said, voice growing darker. "You tamper with creation itself. The balance must be preserved."
Kael's laughter cut through the chaos. "Balance? You mean control. You fear what happens when a mortal escapes your game board."
Aetheron's form flared, expanding into an astral colossus, a silhouette carved from the nebulae of the cosmos. "You will return that power… or I will rip it from your soul."
The Riftblade pulsed, reacting to Kael's rising fury. He felt the divine power inside him align—not chaos, but harmony. Time and Storm had not been enemies within him. They were evolving. Merging.
He understood now.
"I won't return anything," Kael said, eyes blazing gold. "I'm not stealing power. I'm becoming something new. Something you fear. Something the gods cannot control."
With a scream that shook eternity, Kael launched himself at Aetheron again, not as a man, but as a rising force of his own—a godslayer becoming a god.
And as their powers collided once more, the realms trembled, the stars blinked out, and the echo of their clash was heard across all realities.
But in the deepest corners of existence… something stirred.
For Kael's rebellion had awakened more than divine wrath.
It had awakened something ancient, something buried, something that the gods themselves had sealed away.
And it was watching.
One by one, the constellations blinked out as if snuffed by a divine hand. Lightning surged across the heavens like cracks in a broken mirror. The world held its breath, and at its center, Kael, the Gatekeeper, walked through the veil between realms.
His body shimmered with power, his every footstep distorting the ground. Behind him, his childhood home faded—replaced by a desolate stretch of celestial wasteland: the Borderlands of Divinity, where gods came to die.
Above him, the heavens shook as Aetheron, Keeper of Creation, stood suspended in a vortex of time and light. Yet now, Kael's power had risen beyond that of any challenger. The Riftblade pulsed at his side, alive with the power of two fallen gods—and hungrier still.
Kael's system flickered into his vision, confirming what he already knew:
[New Objective: Confront the Supreme Council of the Divine]
The first tremor struck like a thunderclap. Aetheron descended with cosmic wrath, his form now stretched across the sky, galaxies spinning in his chest, stars erupting from his crown like solar flares.
"You should have stayed mortal," Aetheron thundered, casting a vortex of cosmic energy toward Kael.
But Kael had already moved.
Echo Step.
Reality bent as Kael vanished, reappearing behind Aetheron mid-strike. In one fluid motion, he activated Dimensional Strike, cleaving a rent through Aetheron's outer form, time unraveling where the blade passed.
Aetheron shrieked—not in pain, but in disbelief.
"You wield the Rift like it's your birthright."
"It is," Kael said coldly. "I'm done playing your game."
He raised his hand.
Time Dilation activated.
Everything slowed to a crawl—the suns in Aetheron's chest froze, his attacks stalled in space, his power dragged into stasis. In that frozen moment, Kael charged, activating Worldbreaker.
The skill surged through his body. The ground beneath them cracked open into a void of collapsing dimensions as his next strike shattered through divine armor, breaching Aetheron's core. Celestial blood, glowing with every color of existence, sprayed into the sky.
Aetheron roared in desperation, regaining control for a fleeting second—only to feel the crushing pressure of another force.
Riftborn Legion.
Kael summoned his spectral army—each soldier a fragment of fallen timelines, echoes of warriors from destroyed realms. They surged forward, engaging the god with blinding precision.
"You don't understand," Aetheron growled, rising even as his form began to splinter. "Killing me will break the Balance!"
Kael said nothing. He felt the weight of his power gathering. The Riftblade lit up one final time.
Aetheron's form began to collapse inward, his divine shell cracking, his consciousness slipping.
And then—
God's Harvest activated.
A blinding flash. Kael inhaled sharply as Aetheron's divine soul was consumed. He could feel it—an overwhelming force surging into him. Cosmic knowledge. The secrets of creation. The unbearable responsibility of balance.
[New Ability Gained: Nexus Core]You now command the creation threads of the universe.Warning: Overuse may tear the boundaries of existence.
Kael fell to one knee, the surge of power like a tidal wave. Visions of stars being born, of galaxies colliding, of time fracturing—all flooded into his mind.
And through it all, a voice whispered:
"You've done it. But you've only just begun."
Kael looked up at the sky. The stars were returning—faintly, slowly, cautiously.
The gods were quiet now.
But in that silence, he knew: they weren't gone.
They were watching
END OF CHAPTER 16