The night shattered into war.
Kael exploded upward in a cyclone of golden threads, his power blazing so bright that the ruins of the House of Echoes burned with reflected daylight. His aura stretched like wings of living light, thousands of radiant filaments spinning in fractal patterns, anchoring reality as it buckled under the weight of two gods.
Across the torn sky, the Abyss descended—its form pulsing like a living wound, tendrils dripping black fire that ate starlight. It had no face, no voice, yet when it spoke, it spoke through everything—through the trembling earth, the shivering wind, the cracking bones of existence:
"You were ours the moment you broke the Loom."
Kael's golden radiance surged, wrapping him in armor wrought from pure concept: Order forged in rebellion. He raised his hands, and the threads lashed outward like titanic spears, piercing the void's advancing limbs. The collision rippled through the sky, detonating clouds into shards of light and shadow.
On the ground, Lyra shielded the remaining students with a dome of starlight, her aura shimmering like the last candle against a storm. Her eyes never left Kael—the man she loved now blazing like something too divine to hold.
Beside her, Nyra staggered, her body convulsing as fragments of the Abyss tried to reclaim her. Shadows writhed from her skin, coiling in agony.
"Kael… you can't hold it alone!" she screamed, her voice breaking as another tendril snapped toward him.
Kael's jaw clenched, veins of light crawling across his skin as golden fire erupted from his core. He spun threads into a shield the size of a mountain, intercepting the blow. The impact cracked the air like the birth of thunder, hurling Kael backward through the stratosphere.
The Abyss surged after him, tearing through layers of reality like silk. Entire constellations flickered as gravity warped. This wasn't just a battle for dominance—it was a war over what existence would become.
Kael's thoughts roared like a storm in his mind:
I can't let it anchor here. If it roots in this plane… it wins.
He wove his will into a spiral of radiant chains, snapping them forward to bind the Abyss. They wrapped around its formless body, glowing like suns against the dark. For a heartbeat, Kael thought he had it—
Then the chains shattered.
"You cannot bind hunger, Kael," the Abyss thundered. "You cannot bind what you are."
A tendril whipped forward, impaling his side. Kael gritted his teeth, his golden blood spilling across the sky like molten stars. Pain seared him, but with it came clarity—a terrible, liberating truth:
The Abyss wasn't lying. It wasn't separate from him. It was the shadow of his own unlimited freedom, the part of creation that craved without restraint.
And if he didn't master it… it would master him.
Below, Lyra's scream tore through the night as Kael plummeted like a falling sun, crashing into the mountains beyond the House. The impact split peaks and birthed rivers of molten stone.
"Kael!" Lyra ran toward the chaos, her starlit aura burning brighter than ever, but a wall of shadows rose to block her path. Nyra stepped forward, trembling, her eyes flickering between darkness and light.
"I can feel it," Nyra whispered, voice frayed with terror and awe. "It's not just calling me anymore. It's calling him."
Lyra's grip tightened on her bow. "Then we drag him back."
Above the shattered mountains, Kael rose from the crater, golden fire streaming from his wounds. His eyes were no longer human—they were twin suns burning in a storm. His voice rolled across the broken sky, calm and lethal:
"No more running."
He extended his hand, and the heavens themselves answered. Stars bent, threads flared, and for the first time since the dawn of the Loom, a god's true power awakened without fate's chains.
The Abyss writhed in answer, and the world trembled as two infinities prepared to collide.