Heavenbreaker
Chapter 1: The Boy Who Laughed at the Gods
Altaris was a city made of prayers and chains.
Its sky was pierced by obsidian towers wrapped in gold veins—temples to gods whose names were spoken with bowed heads and bled hands. Every corner had a shrine. Every hour, a hymn. The air tasted like incense and iron. And above it all, at the heart of the divine citadel, the sky cracked open into a floating palace—Seraphiel—the throne of the gods.
Down in the slums, beneath all that glory, a boy was stealing divine grain.
"Oi, rat!" barked a voice. "You think the gods won't see this?"
Kaien Valis didn't stop. His boots slapped against cracked stone as he weaved between busted food stalls and skeletal trees. In his arms, a cloth bundle of sacred grain—the kind only nobles or priests could eat.
Behind him, armored footsteps thundered. A holy enforcer—a Seraph-class Sentinel—gave chase. Six feet of gold-plated arrogance and divine authority, brandishing a halberd crackling with celestial runes.
Kaien vaulted a railing, slid across a sloped rooftop, and barely dodged a spear of light that exploded behind him.
"By decree of the Crownfather, surrender!" the Sentinel shouted.
Kaien grinned, blood trailing from his lip. "Can't hear you, sorry! Must be all the holiness clogging my ears."
Another spear. Another dodge. He dropped down into an alley, clutching the grain tighter, lungs on fire. He knew this part of the slums—narrow, twisted. The Sentinel's bulk would be his enemy here.
But luck had a limit.
As he turned a corner, a radiant barrier slammed down in front of him. The Sentinel appeared behind, steps heavy, weapon glowing.
Trapped.
The enforcer raised his halberd. "You mock the gods. You steal their blessing. By their will, I'll burn the heresy from your flesh."
Kaien exhaled. Then he laughed.
A sharp, reckless, wrong kind of laugh.
Even the Sentinel hesitated. "Why do you smile, mortal?"
Kaien looked up. His eyes were sky-gray and defiant.
"Because you call this a blessing," he said, raising the sack of stolen grain. "But I see crumbs from a gilded table. And I'm hungry."
The halberd came down.
Blood splattered the alley.
---
Later That Night – The Rooftop
Mira patched him up in silence. Her fingers trembled as she cleaned the gash on his ribs.
"You're going to get yourself killed," she whispered.
"Maybe," Kaien said, wincing. "But at least I'll die full."
She didn't laugh. She never did when he joked like that.
Mira was older, softer. A voice like rain. She'd found Kaien five years ago, orphaned and feral, and gave him a name, a place. She sang forbidden songs in quiet corners of the slums—ballads of freedom, of gods who bled.
"Kaien," she said, looking up, "do you believe in them? The gods?"
He looked at the stars above Altaris—tiny, smothered by divine glow.
"I believe in fire," he said. "And if a god stands in it long enough… they'll scream just like us."
---
The Square – Morning
They dragged Mira into the plaza in chains.
Kaien shoved through the crowd, breath shallow, heart strangled. She was bruised, her voice hoarse. A Priest of Flame stood before her, robes white and gold, eyes empty of mercy.
"She has sung songs forbidden," he intoned. "She has inspired rebellion. Her voice carries sin."
"No—no, no," Kaien whispered. "Please—"
The executioner raised his hand.
A pillar of divine fire erupted.
When it cleared, there was no body. Only ash.
---
That Night
Kaien sat alone in the square, surrounded by silence.
He didn't cry.
Didn't scream.
He just sat, as the fire's afterglow faded from his eyes.
Then he smiled.
Not the cocky grin. Not the reckless laugh.
A smile that cracked like ice over something buried deep.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a crumpled flyer—a relic of rebellion, half-burned, half-legend.
> "For those who would defy the divine… we wait in the shadows. We burn with you."
He stood. Walked into the night.
And the world would never be the same.
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