The world had narrowed to a single thread.
Kael's breath was a ragged, wheezing thing, his lungs burning with every inhale, his ribs shifting wrong with each step. Blood dripped from his hands, smearing down his wrists, pooling beneath his feet. His vision swam at the edges, black creeping in, but the Ashen Eye burned bright.
Threads of light wove the air around him—Darion's aura exposed in its rawest form, a web of power that shimmered and twisted, frayed and tattered in places, but still vast, still crushing.
Darion Voss stood like a storm incarnate, his chest rising and falling with heavy, furious breaths. Blood flecked his lips. His stance was wider now, lower, his eyes sharp with something that wasn't just rage—there was caution there too, a sliver of disbelief.
Because Kael was still standing.
Broken, yes. Bleeding, yes. Barely breathing—but standing.
The whispers in the shadows had fallen silent.
Gravewood watched.
The multiverse watched.
And Kael could feel them all—the eyes, the weight, the burden of generations screaming in his bones.
He could not fall.
Darion's voice cut through the stillness, low and rough as gravel.
"You should be dead."
Kael's lips peeled back in a bloody grin, a flicker of defiance burning in the ashes of his soul.
"I'm not done yet."
The words scraped his throat raw, but they were a promise, a curse, and a challenge all at once.
Darion snarled. His aura flared, the weight of it pressing down like a collapsing mountain, the very air groaning under the force.
Kael's knees buckled. His body screamed.
But the Ashen Eye held.
The threads held.
And Kael moved.
Darion lunged, a blur of power and fury. His fist came down like a hammer aimed to split Kael's skull in two.
Kael twisted, the Ashen Eye showing him the fracture—a hairline crack in the flow of power, a shimmer of weakness hidden beneath layers of raw strength.
He drove forward, weaving under the blow, and struck—his palm slamming into the fracture with every ounce of strength he had left.
The impact sang through the air—a deep, resonant sound that seemed to vibrate in Kael's bones.
Darion stumbled, breath catching, his eyes flaring wide in shock.
Kael didn't stop.
He couldn't.
He struck again—fist, elbow, knee—each blow guided by the Ashen Eye, each one landing where the threads were weakest.
Darion roared, lashing out with a backhand that caught Kael across the face, sending him spinning. Blood splattered the dirt, teeth clinking on stone.
Kael's body screamed at him to stay down.
But the burden would not let him.
He rose, gasping, the taste of iron thick in his mouth, his vision tunneling—but the Ashen Eye burned brighter, the threads of Darion's aura flaring in his mind like a map etched in fire.
There.
The core fracture.
Hidden deep, beneath the layers of power, pulsing faintly like a dying star.
Kael's breath hitched.
This was it.
His last chance.
His final strike.
Darion charged, a snarl tearing from his throat. His aura blazed around him, raw force crackling, the ground shattering beneath his feet.
Kael's body was a ruin—ribs broken, muscles torn, vision a blur of light and shadow.
But he moved.
The Ashen Eye guided him.
Every step was agony, every breath a blade in his lungs, but he moved.
He twisted under Darion's strike, the fist grazing past his cheek by a hair's breadth.
He drove forward, hand outstretched, every ounce of his soul burning in the strike.
His palm slammed into the core fracture—precise, brutal, final.
The world snapped.
Darion's aura shattered.
A shockwave burst outward, a crack of sound like stone splitting under the weight of the earth.
Darion's body jerked, his eyes wide with disbelief, mouth open in a silent scream.
Kael felt it—the threads tearing, the power unraveling.
Darion staggered back, his knees buckling, breath leaving him in a sharp, choked gasp.
And then…
He fell.
A heavy, brutal collapse, the ground shaking beneath the weight of him.
Dust billowed in the stillness.
Silence followed—stunned, heavy, absolute.
Kael stood over him, swaying, the Ashen Eye's glow dimming in his gaze. His body was done. Broken. Barely holding together.
But he stood.
Because the burden demanded it.
Because the Xelvor name demanded it.
Because he demanded it.
The woman behind him sobbed—a choked, disbelieving sound.
The crowd stared in stunned silence.
Kael's breath came in ragged gasps, every inch of him screaming, but his voice, when it came, was low, raw, and final.
"Darion Voss… is dead."
The storm had broken.
And Kael Xelvor still stood.