A deafening roar erupted as the chamber was consumed by golden light. The ancient throne pulsed violently, sending shockwaves rippling through the ruins. Stone shattered. Symbols burned.
Kael barely had time to react before the ground beneath him split apart, forcing him to roll away as jagged obsidian spikes burst from the floor.
Sylas stood at the center of the chaos, his form wreathed in flickering tendrils of golden energy. The throne behind him had transformed no longer a relic of the past, but a conduit of something greater. Something that should have never been awakened.
"Do you feel it?" Sylas's voice was different now deeper, layered, as if something else spoke with him. His gaze burned with an intensity Kael had never seen before. He wasn't just absorbing power. He was becoming something else.
Kael gritted his teeth. "You don't understand what you're playing with."
Sylas laughed, the sound sending another tremor through the chamber. "Don't I? The gods you destroyed were nothing more than imposters, parasites feeding on the Well of Eternity." He raised a hand, and the throne's golden light coiled around his fingers like living fire. "But this? This is the true divine. The first power, before all others."
Lyra staggered to her feet, her dagger glowing faintly with dark energy. "And you think you can control it?"
Sylas smirked. "I don't need to control it." His voice darkened. "I only need to become it."
With those words, the power surged, lifting him into the air. The golden fire twisted around him, reshaping his body. His armor melted away, replaced by a new form his flesh no longer fully human, but something far beyond mortal comprehension. His veins pulsed with molten gold, and his eyes became endless pits of shifting energy.
Kael's stomach twisted. Sylas wasn't just wielding power anymore. He was ascending.
Lyra cursed under her breath. "He's trying to turn himself into a god."
Kael's grip tightened around his sword. "Then we stop him before it's too late."
But before they could act, Sylas raised a hand and the air around them collapsed.
A pulse of pure divine force exploded outward, sending Kael and Lyra hurtling backward. The chamber itself shattered, stone dissolving into golden dust. The ruins could no longer contain the power within.
The first true god of the new world had been born.
And Kael had no idea how to stop him.