Heavenbreaker
Chapter 3: Chains and Sparks
The fever took him like a storm.
Kaien thrashed in the cot, breath shallow, body burning as Fellchain whispered in tongues not meant for human ears. Flames coiled through his veins, freezing and boiling all at once. The blade rested beside him, unmoving—yet its presence pulsed like a second heartbeat in the room.
> You are not worthy.
The voice wasn't loud. It was cold, patient, old.
> Break. Shatter. Let me feed.
Kaien gritted his teeth. "Shut up."
> You would carry death without knowing its weight? You are but smoke, child. I was forged in the fall of gods.
Images flooded his skull—flashes of a battlefield painted in divine blood, a lone figure wrapped in chains, laughing even as the sky fell around him. Then blackness. Silence.
Kaien opened his eyes, drenched in sweat.
Ashar sat in the corner, arms folded. "You survived."
Kaien chuckled, raw and bitter. "You sound disappointed."
Ashar didn't smile. "Most who touch Fellchain scream themselves into madness."
"I'm not most."
Ashar stood. "You're something. Just not sure if it's hope or another curse."
---
The Hollow Nest – Training Grounds
The rebellion's hidden camp beneath Altaris was anything but organized. It was controlled chaos—people training with salvaged weapons, maps scattered across walls, divine texts burned for warmth.
Kaien watched it all with mild awe… and suspicion.
"Don't get too comfortable," said a sharp voice behind him.
He turned to see her—black hair in tight braids, eyes like carved ice, and two curved blades at her hips.
"Riven Vex," she said. "Commander. Blade-unit."
"Kaien. Problem-child."
She didn't laugh. "You'll be sparring with me."
Kaien blinked. "I just woke up from a demon fever dream and you want to—"
She drew one of her blades, spinning it once. "You're either going to fight gods or die trying. No time for naps."
---
They fought in a circle of rebels. Fellchain lay coiled nearby, silent and heavy like judgment. Kaien fought barehanded, instincts raw but feral.
Riven moved like a blade of wind—strikes fast, precise, leaving shallow cuts to test him.
Kaien slipped, ducked, improvised. His movements were chaotic, reactive, as if flowing with unseen rhythm.
But Riven was too fast.
A blade pressed to his neck. He panted. Bleeding. Grinning.
"You fight like a drunk shadow," she said. "But… you adapt. Fast."
Kaien wiped blood from his lip. "That's a compliment, right?"
Riven sheathed her blade. "You're not hopeless."
Ashar watched from the balcony above, arms crossed, silent.
---
That night, Kaien sat alone with Ashar near a burning sigil on the ground—one that pulsed with ancient light.
"They called them Heavenbreakers," Ashar said. "One born every century under a black star. Not a warrior. Not a savior. A weapon."
Kaien stared into the flames. "And you think that's me?"
"You held Fellchain without breaking. You defied it. You resonated with it. If you're not the one, then you're close enough to light the fire again."
Kaien didn't speak for a while.
Then: "What happened to the last one?"
Ashar's voice turned to gravel. "He died smiling. Took a god with him."
---
The light changed.
Across Altaris, something stirred.
A beam of light struck down in the Lower Ring—pure, blinding, humming with divinity. Buildings crumbled. Voices screamed. Then silence.
A Celestarch had arrived. A divine enforcer wrapped in radiant armor, faceless, inhuman. Sent not to judge. But to erase.
Kaien watched the sky from the rooftops, Fellchain now bound to his back by thick black cloth.
"You feel that?" he whispered.
The blade pulsed once.
"They're coming," Riven said beside him.
Kaien lit a cigarette with a shaking match. Inhaled deep.
> "Good," he said, smoke curling from his lips.
"Let's make the gods bleed."