The air twisted, thick with something even Kael couldn't comprehend.
For the first time since merging with the abyss, he felt small.
Sylas staggered back, clutching his wound, his golden aura flickering. He felt it too. His divine power unstable. Weakening. The abyss was devouring him.
But whatever was watching them was beyond both of them.
Kael turned his gaze upward.
The sky… was breaking.
Cracks of blinding white light spread across the heavens, stretching far beyond the ruins. It wasn't divine, nor abyssal—it was something else entirely. A force that did not belong to this world.
And then, a voice spoke.
"This was never meant to be."
It wasn't like the abyss's whispers. It wasn't like Sylas's divine proclamations.
This voice was absolute.
Kael felt his very soul tremble.
Lyra, who had been standing at a distance, fell to her knees, eyes wide in horror. "What is that?" she whispered.
Sylas, for the first time, looked like a mere mortal standing before the unknown. His voice shook. "No… this shouldn't be possible."
Kael gritted his teeth. Even the abyss inside him recoiled.
Then—the cracks in the sky shattered completely.
And something stepped through.
A figure descended from the rift—but it had no true form. One moment, it was a towering humanoid of shifting energy; the next, it was a formless mass of light, then a void of pure darkness.
Kael could barely look at it. His new abyssal senses screamed in protest. This being was beyond creation, beyond destruction.
And it was here because of them.
Sylas dropped to one knee, clutching his chest as golden blood poured from his wounds. Even his divinity was useless before this presence.
The figure spoke again.
"The balance has been shattered. Two forces that should never have coexisted have become one. This cannot be allowed."
Kael clenched his fists. "Who… or what are you?"
The entity turned its gaze to him.
And suddenly, Kael felt everything he was laid bare.
The abyss inside him, the power he had taken—it had all been noticed.
And this presence was not here to simply watch.
It was here to judge.
"You are an anomaly," the entity declared. "You wield the abyss, yet you defy its nature. You are neither god nor void. You are something… unfinished."
Kael felt his breath hitch. The abyss within him trembled like a living thing.
Then, the figure shifted its gaze to Sylas.
"And you. False Ascendant. You have taken what is not yours, and now you falter before true power."
Sylas's golden light dimmed, his expression twisting in frustration and desperation. "I am a god! I will not—"
"You are nothing."
The moment those words were spoken, Sylas screamed.
His divine power began unraveling instantly, as if reality itself had rejected him. Golden energy poured from his body, scattering into the wind like dust.
Sylas clutched his chest, his godhood being stripped away.
Kael took an instinctive step back. This wasn't just power—this was authority over existence itself.
And if Sylas could be erased so easily…
Then Kael could be next.
The entity turned back to him.
"Your existence defies the natural order. You should not be."
Kael's heart pounded. Was this it? Had he just traded one executioner for another?
Then, to his surprise, the abyss inside him resisted.
A deep, growling voice—not the same abyssal whisper as before—spoke inside his mind.
"Not yet."
A sudden pulse of abyssal power surged through him, stronger than anything before.
The entity hesitated.
Kael's fingers curled into a fist. "I don't care what I was 'meant to be.' I decide who I am."
The figure studied him for a long moment. Then, it spoke again.
"Very well."
The sky shifted, and Kael felt something change.
The entity did not erase him. But it left a warning.
"You walk a path never taken. Be warned—there are things beyond even what you have seen. And they are watching."
With that, the being vanished, the sky sealing behind it.
The world went still.
Sylas collapsed, gasping—his divinity completely gone.
Kael, breathing heavily, felt the weight of the moment settle on him.
He had fought gods. He had survived the abyss.
But now, he knew the truth.
Something far greater had just turned its gaze upon him.