The red crests conjured by the witch spiraled into the air, blooming like cursed flowers, spinning with infernal rhythm as Ys'Viruna lifted her blood-soaked hand.
Each crest pulsed with ancient runes, language not of mortals, but of blasphemy—burned into time, forbidden even to the gods. Five of them, hovering in a star formation around her, rotating faster with every breath she took.
Her lips curved into a black smile.
"Aen'Syrr Vehl'Kaen." Her voice rang like iron across bone.
The crests stopped.
In an instant, all five flared a deep, abyssal red-violet—and collapsed inward toward her palm, forming a single, black core pulsing in her hand.
The moment it ignited, the air itself screamed.
From her fingertips erupted a new technique—one never seen before—
"Blood Bloom of the Barren Hex."Her hand sliced through the air, and a blood flower bloomed from the black orb, unfurling like a razor-petal void. The knights on the other end of the reversed corridor froze—instantly seized mid-motion, as if their very souls were tethered by unseen barbs.
Their eyes turned black. Their bodies folded inward like origami of flesh—collapsing silently, violently, into nothingness.
No blood.
No screams.
Just absence.
Then—silence.
They were gone.
—
From behind a shattered pillar, someone watched.
A maid—young, hidden, forgotten in the chaos.
Her name was Thalia, and her hands pressed tightly over her mouth, her breath trembling as she watched monsters carve through the holy place like a wound through flesh. Her eyes wide—hazel rimmed with red, her cheeks streaked with soot and fear.
She wore a faded violet maid's gown, frilled but singed near the collar, torn across one thigh. Her brown hair was curled and messy, her bun long fallen apart. One stocking was missing, her knees scraped. She clutched a broken silver necklace of the Maiden Saint, fingers bleeding from gripping it too tight.
She was no warrior. But she stayed. Not out of bravery.
Out of fear that if she ran, she'd die screaming.
—
Jethro and Ys'Viruna now stood inside the monastery within the castle—a sacred place not meant for mortals.
Tall obsidian spires rose like fingers toward a ceiling painted with murals of the first gods—both triumphant and mourning. Stained glass shimmered with divine radiance, even as blood marred the floor. Ethereal torches floated, their fire cool blue, dancing around the center platform.
There, on an elevated pedestal of weeping marble, surrounded by a ring of molten gold etched with divine seals, rested:
The Crown.It did not shimmer with earthly jewels. It bore no gold or silver. It was black, like an eclipse, woven from what looked like dark metal and shadow itself. Glowing glyphs circled its rim—rotating slowly—and three seals floated around it, orbiting mid-air: one of flame, one of water, one of void.The entire room hummed, as if the crown itself was alive, asleep—and dreaming.
Ys'Viruna's eyes widened. She stepped forward, breath catching. "There it is…"
Jethro grinned. "Don't waste another second."
Ys'Viruna spread her hands.
Her eyes turned pitch-black, and her body began to twist—her shoulders cracking, spine bending as her right arm became ashen, lined with veins of obsidian fire. Her jaw snapped for a moment as fangs began to show—channeling the power of hell itself, a demon half bleeding halfway through her body, in and out, unstable.
"Hellsfire," she whispered, reaching out toward the crown. "The fire of the old hell, forged by god of darkness and sorrow Lucien himself, to burn divine law and shatter sacred bindings. He cursed the curses of gods with flame that knew no law but his own."
Black flames, slow and thick like oil, began to gather around her feet, rising like mist.
A barrier of black fog erupted around her and the crown—void-like, swirling with glyphs that flickered like the stars of a dying universe.
At that moment—The wall behind them exploded.
A blast of debris, shattered marble, and blood-soaked wind surged inward as Thrain, Alistair, Vaerlin, and Arinelle burst through in a staggered squad.
Bloody. Breathing heavy. Alive. Thrain cracked his neck and rolled his shoulder, axe gleaming. Alistair's eyes gleamed behind his black-bladed visor, breathing steady. Arinelle snarled, her crimson eyes glowing under flickering celestial light. Vaerlin adjusted his crooked tie and stared ahead coldly.
"You're insane," Vaerlin muttered, stepping forward, locking eyes with Jethro. "I always thought you were my equal, Jethro. We stopped evil together. You led the divine council. And I was just an advisor to Silas. But now…"
He looked down, shaking his head. "This isn't you. But it is."
Jethro's smile never faltered.
"I am Judgment. The god who settled disputes between gods themselves in the old world."
He stepped forward, lifting his hand.
"But this… this isn't my full power. I'm only a fragment. A whisper of what I was. You never saw me at my fullest."
A massive golden crest materialized behind him—spinning, vast, impossibly complex. A judgment scale sigil bloomed at its center like a sun.
Jethro raised a similar mythic scale, hovering over his palm.
His eyes blazed like solar spheres.
"Be. Judged."
The moment he spoke, the air collapsed inward.
It wasn't gravity.
It was worse.
The very weight of divine judgment—a pressure ancient and total, like being crushed by every decision you'd ever made, every sin, every failure.
Thrain buckled first, his leg snapping to the floor.
Arinelle let out a cry, wings collapsing under the sheer spiritual weight.
"More judgment shit?!"
Alistair gritted his teeth, falling to one knee, blood from his mouth.
"Tch.."
And Vaerlin, wide-eyed, staggered forward before collapsing to his palms.
All of them felt it—
Like guilt sharpened into swords, stabbing through their backs.
Like truth itself dragging their bones down.
Jethro stood, unshaken.
Eyes gold. Crest spinning. And behind him, Ys'Viruna's flames growing darker and darker around the forbidden crown.
The air cracked—not with thunder, but truth—as Jethro raised his scale, the sigil behind him spinning faster, glowing hotter, searing gold and judgment into the air like a divine furnace.
His face twisted, voice hoarse, roaring with a fury centuries-deep.
"This world—wasn't supposed to happen…"
His foot slammed the floor, shaking the monastery, as divine fire cracked along the walls, light bending unnaturally with the sheer rage of a fallen god.
"Yll'Kaem! That was our home! The realm above all things! The sky made of glass! The rivers forged from divine flame! We carved it with blood, truth, and memory—for gods alone!"
He stepped forward, eyes blazing.
"Viremon, the Forgeheart—he was our king! Seladrine the Pale, keeper of every memory ever breathed. Al'Duranox, rebel of flame, broke the Sphere's curse. Therissha, star-eyed and stupid, who gave it all away for wonder!"
He flung his hand toward the crown, and the black fog warped violently.
"They built a sanctuary above all! But then—they grew curious! Seladrine made beasts from memory! Al'Duranox twisted flame into life! And from that desecration came—mortals!"
He spat the word like venom.
"Elves, humans, beastkin—you all birthed from divine arrogance! You're an error! A beautiful error, maybe—but a chaotic, destructive mistake all the same!"
Then his grin twisted into a snarl.
"But Therissha… oh, Therissha—she didn't just love the chaos—she gave it lineage. She broke divine law and handed the Heart of God, the crown, to a mortal bloodline—Queen Silas's line."
He pointed violently at the crown.
"That's not just a relic. That's godflesh. That's Viremon's last spark. If placed on the statue—He will rise again. And when the black sphere Xal'Zaneth opens, it will tear every mortal thread out of existence. It'll be a divine reset. And you'll all be erased."
He bared his teeth, a god wearing the flesh of a scholar.
"She committed the First Heresy because she loved curiosity and wonder. She stole a shard of the Sphere—a Seed of Undreaming—and forged the first humans from flame and uncertainty. That sin has cursed Silas's entire line. She was never meant to live. The gods want her dead."
He stepped again, and the monastery trembled.
"But they're weak. Trapped. Fragmented. They can't manifest fully in this world. If they did, everything would collapse—reality would shatter like brittle ice!"
His voice rose, nearly choking with anger.
"So instead, they hide! In artifacts, in relics, in souls of vessels, and in small domains they've crafted for themselves. Cowards with divinity clinging to scraps! You know why? Because if a god ever walked again at full strength—the world would die in a single breath. That's how fragile this place is.."
He gritted his teeth and screamed.
"This world is glass! And mortals—humans, beast-kin, elves—you don't belong here! You can't even be free! The gods write your stories in chains!"
His body surged with light—pure judgment flaring from the golden scale, and the pressure returned—
Not gravity.
Not magic.
But guilt made tangible.
Thrain's eyes rolled, blood spilling from his nose, as he dropped fully to the floor, the scale reflecting something within him—
—His father's voice, again and again, telling him to stop crying, to stand, to swing harder.
Each word a strike. Each lesson a scar.
Arinelle fell, eyes wide, sobbing quietly as her wings flickered.
She stood again amid her kin—all of them dead, ripped apart by forces she couldn't stop.
"Not again," she whispered. "Not again, not again—"
Alistair buckled, the black of his armor unable to shield the weight of his past.
His body was perfect. Efficient. Honed like a blade.
But the memories—
Being used. Trained. Praised when he obeyed.
Punished when he questioned.
Even seduced—to keep him moving, never stopping, never feeling.
The witches he killed—he enjoyed it. The hunt. The control.
And that made it worse.
His breath rattled.
And then, Vaerlin.
He stood, face sweating, trembling, his knees about to fold—
Then—CRACK!
A scream tore the silence as Vaerlin ripped his own eye out.
Everyone froze.
Even Jethro's mouth opened—shocked.
Vaerlin stood upright, blood streaming down his face, clutching the ruined socket, hand trembling.
And then he spoke.
"…My trauma," he whispered, voice raw, "is in what I've seen."
He tossed the eye away.
"I don't need to explain it. I just needed to see clearly. You said the body houses the weight. The burden. I removed mine."
Jethro's shock turned to fury. "You damn fool. Every scholar knows—removing a body part weakens your stolen god magic! You've crippled yourself!"
Vaerlin nodded, adjusting his coat with one arm. "You're right. I'm weaker now. But—"
He lifted his umbrella.
"I'm also the only man alive who can steal two affinities using Praxis. And you just gave me the clearest line of sight I've ever had."
The air pulsed. His umbrella spiraled with starlight and wind, each glyph ripping outward like falling galaxies.
Jethro howled.
"Our world was taken from us! And now—our power… All I've seen in this cursed realm is thieves…Every damn caster I've met—I've wanted to kill..!"
They dashed forward at once.
Vaerlin's umbrella spun—a celestial blade of impossible reach.
Jethro's scale glowed, pulling forward divine guilt, warping the floor beneath his feet—
They collided, face to face—
Wind screamed. Runes flared. The world bent.
And then—he came.
Kaelis.
The stone floor splintered beneath his bare feet as he stepped into the fray, a storm of red chaos and cataclysmic fire dancing around him like a living curse. Jagged red runes crawled across his body, pulsing with primal discord, etched into his flesh like burning scars that wouldn't heal. His back hunched slightly, clawed feet scraping, his fingers twisted like hooked blades.
A flaming red tail curled behind him—lashing, twitching, alive with cruel sentience. His teeth were no longer human—razor-sharp, serrated, and he wore a manic grin that dripped with pleasure and violence.
Above his head floated a red halo, broken, jagged, wreathed in howling fire—not divine but cursed, corrupted by something older than time. And his eyes—those eyes—glowed solid red, deep as a chasm in hell.
He appeared side by side with Vaerlin, the pair of them pressing against Jethro's divine crest—a brilliant wall of golden law and sigils.
Kaelis's bare fist dug into it, burning like a molten hammer against justice itself. His breath came in ragged, excited bursts, and his knuckles cracked as he pushed with increasing madness. The crest trembled. Lines began to spider across its surface.
Vaerlin gritted his teeth, umbrella spiraling in hand, his eye wound still bleeding, but his focus sharp as glass.
'The summon..?!'
Jethro staggered back—his hands raised, both pressed against the trembling crest, eyes wide in panic. He locked onto Kaelis—his mouth opened.
"The God of Chaos… is in the body of a mere human?!"
Silence fell for half a breath—and then the roar of power resumed, like a hurricane of screaming glass and fire.
Jethro's voice trembled—anger and fear clawing at him.
"In the old world, Viremon—he killed him…The God of Chaos tried to stop the new world, tried to stop Viremon. And Viremon—destroyed him. Chaos was always in exile—too wild, too broken—too strong."
Jethro's crest flared again—but it was cracking.
Behind them, Thrain gasped, staggering upright with blood-stained teeth, one hand on Arinelle's shoulder, the other helping Alistair up.
"Is… is that the summon?"
"Who the hell is he?" Arinelle breathed, brushing blood from her lip. "That's… not what came through the portal at first..right?"
"I—I've never seen power like that," Alistair said slowly, clutching his side, voice shaken. "Chaos? A god? The witch summoned a human… with that inside him?!"
Thrain turned, wide-eyed. "He was supposed to be in the safe room—with the Queen—!"
'Silas!'
But then he froze.
Queen Silas stood just behind him, walking forward, her ripped up bloody and dirty dress dragging behind her. Her breath caught in her throat as she laid eyes on Kaelis.
"…He broke out?" Thrain asked, confused. "Are you okay, my queen?!"
Silas said nothing for a moment. Then—quietly—"I'm fine."
Thrain stared, still breathing hard. "My Queen…"
"…I might have…" she muttered under her breath, flushing slightly, "…accidentally straddled him. While he was still… well. Naked."
Arinelle, despite the heat and blood, smirked. "Say it louder next time. For the back row."
Silas rolled her eyes and waved her hand. "N-Not the point. Sorry. He's not focused on killing me. He was drawn to Jethro."
The others shared wary glances.
Alistair murmured, "Then what does that mean for us?"
Silas shook her head. "I don't care if he's insane. If he's on our side—then he's a powerful ally for right now. But he's a monster, we don't try anything to make him turn on us…"
She crossed her arms, eyes narrowing as Kaelis pushed harder, the crest groaning under pressure.
The room began to shake.
The wind grew fiercer. Magical sigils scattered through the air like falling stars, spinning uncontrollably. Cracks spidered from the crest, and beneath Kaelis's feet, the stone melted from heat.
Chaos pulsed in waves—red, violent, like molten oil poured into the soul of reality. Vaerlin's umbrella flared with spirals of wind and stars, joining the pressure.
Jethro's face turned pale, fingers trembling.
"Stop—! You don't understand—! Chaos…you had to be stopped! But how…how did you find your way into the soul of a boy after dying?!"
Kaelis laughed. Loud, unhinged, his voice warping in and out of human tone. Each laugh shattered air like iron bells.
"HAHAHA—HAHA—HAHA—!"
The crest cracked again.
"No," Jethro muttered, sweat pouring down his temple, "No..!"
Then—
BOOM.
A violent explosion of power blasted from the impact—red flame and gold sigils shredding the air as the crest was flung backward, shattered, torn into sparks and divine cinders. The shockwave ripped through the monastery, windows bursting into dust, flame and wind swallowing the chamber in a swirling storm.
Stone lifted from the floor. Magic screamed.
….
Darkness fell—not like night, but like a mind unraveling.
Inside Kaelis's head…
He was falling—slowly, endlessly—through a red void, a bottomless pit of rage and despair. All around him were splinters of memory, fracturing into shards. His body tumbled, naked and weightless, his eyes wide but blank, glowing dim.
And above him—a shadowy figure.
Chaotic. Twisting. Glitching.
A formless silhouette shaped like him, but flickering in and out of reality, like a corrupted god wearing his skin wrong.
It had no mouth, but it grinned.
Its halo—red and jagged—burned like a crown over an executioner.
And it fell with him.
Kaelis watched it… or maybe he was looking at himself.
The line had blurred.
"So… this is what it's like to lose for the 1000th time."
—"
He floated, broken by the gravity of it.
'…It's impossible to ignore. That pier clawing at me, that escape to be strong enough..damn it was hard. I won't lie to myself, it does feel damn good to be strong after coming from a world where I was beaten by everything, even myself. I can't help but smile with the bastard forcing this on me. I feel a connection, a purpose with whoever this is floating down with me. Like we both share the rage of our problems, the happiness of being powerful enough to finally conquer stuff. Makes me wonder, would I rather lose myself in strength, or my own nightmare..?'
And then—
Reality returned.
A grey sky loomed. Smoke billowed over shattered stones.
The explosion had leveled part of the monastery. Soot and wind swirled over cracked earth and debris-strewn fields. In the middle of it all, Jethro stirred, his breath labored.
He pushed himself up, chest heaving, face cut and bleeding—
Then stopped.
His right arm was gone.
There was a moment of blank shock, and then he slowly turned his head…
And Kaelis was crouched a few feet away, low to the ground on all fours.
A feral position. Primal.
His back arched. His muscles pulsed beneath torn, blood-smeared skin. His tail swayed lazily, the flame at its end flickering like a candle on the edge of hell. His clawed hands twitched, scraping furrows into the ground. His breathing came fast—too fast. Too excited.
And in his bloodied teeth, still grinning wide—
Jethro's severed arm hung like a grotesque trophy.
Vaerlin stood beside him, calm amidst ruin. His umbrella opened elegantly, shielding both him and Kaelis from falling ash and rubble. He looked down, slanted gaze narrowed, watching Kaelis with eerie calm.
'So this is your true nature, boy… This isn't berserk rage. This is control.
…No, not control. Something deeper. Something cursed. Summoned a human with a chaotic god lodged in his soul. Interesting.'
He tilted his umbrella.
'He's not just housing chaos. He's slightly willing it. Even in madness—he moves with intention. But if he's not fully lost to the god within… then what is he?'
Behind them, half-buried beneath splinters of shattered marble, Thrain, Alistair, and Arinelle coughed and groaned, having shielded Queen Silas with their own bodies.
Their armor was cracked, cloaks scorched, and blood painted their faces—but they were alive.
Thrain blinked dust from his eyes. "We're still breathing…?"
Alistair muttered, "Barely."
Arinelle groaned, "Did someone get the name of that star that fell on us…?"
Queen Silas pushed herself up. "Agh…that hurt…"
They all turned to where the chaos-bonded boy crouched, teeth bared, blood glistening on his mouth like wine.
"Gods…" Thrain whispered. "He's still smiling."
Alistair narrowed his eyes. "What is he?"
And in the far distance—panic.
From the edge of the smoldering woods, Ys'Viruna, the Witch Queen, was fleeing. Her long veil flapped behind her like a funeral shroud, and her eyes were wide with raw terror.
"Unwinnable," she whispered, running. This was unwinnable from the start!"
But the horror was not over.
Jethro's rage boiled.
"ENOUGH!"
His body glowed—a harsh, blinding gold. Light split from his back as massive golden wings of judgment erupted outward, feathers etched with ancient verdicts.
A golden tome appeared in his hand, pages glowing with divine law, and behind his head a pure halo formed—unchipped, untouched by time. His body rose into the air, suspended by righteous fury, as his voice echoed across the battlefield.
From the sky above, a massive golden crest materialized, mirrored by several smaller ones descending like falling verdicts—symbols of divine law expanding in the sky, casting a sickly golden hue over the battlefield.
"A god of chaos who's supposed to be dead.. in a mortal's body…?" he bellowed. "I will not allow this blasphemy to endure.."
All around, knights and castle staff emerged from hiding, their weapons trembling, unsure whether to fight or flee.
And in the shadow of rising light—
Queen Silas stood tall.
Her voice was low at first, trembling from exhaustion—but filled with fire.
"Kill him…"
Her teeth clenched. Her fists balled.
"Kill that bastard—"
Then she screamed—
"FUCKING KILL HIM!!"
And with a crack of wind and space—
Kaelis and Vaerlin vanished.
Only a shockwave marked their movement—then they reappeared, in the air above Jethro, crackling with red chaos and star-born wind, light warping around them as if the very world were rejecting their presence.