Chapter 13: When Shadows Return
—The Mortal Realm: The Throne of Dust—
The figure that rose from the black glass was not whole.
It flickered at the edges, its form bleeding smoke and silver fire. It wore the armor of the gods—etched with constellations long forgotten—and its face was hidden beneath a mirrored helm that reflected only Kael's face… contorted in agony.
"Toras." Kael's voice cut through the stillness like a blade.
The god of conquest had once stood as Kael's right hand in battle. Now, he stood as the gods' executioner, summoned not by presence but by prophecy—an echo preserved in the black glass of Kael's death.
The spirit of divine betrayal.
"The gods still fear me," Kael muttered, stepping forward, voice rising with ancient fury. "So they send ghosts to finish their sins?"
The figure didn't speak. It raised a hand—and the world screamed.
Spires of dust and bone erupted from the floor. The temple walls twisted, reshaping into a battleground. The throne itself cracked. Lira dove aside as the air itself bent under the pressure of power not meant to return.
Kael called the Root Flame to him.
But the flame hesitated.
This enemy was older than fire.
"Lira!" he shouted, just as Toras lunged, divine glaive in hand. The weapon gleamed with memories—not metal. Each swing tore through space, creating rifts that leaked starlight and rot.
Kael parried with a pulse of raw force.
The impact shook the temple.
Blades of broken time rained from above.
Lira unleashed a shockwave of her own—drawn from the bond awakened in the chamber below. Her hands glowed with symbols she didn't know, magic she hadn't learned. Yet it moved with her soul, as if remembering her from before.
Together, they struck as one.
But Toras did not falter.
Because he wasn't here to win.
He was here to delay.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "They're buying time…"
---
—The Celestial Sanctum: The Hall of Thrones—
"He defeated Toras's echo?" Aeris's voice cracked like breaking crystal. The mirror before them shattered as the vision faded.
"Not just defeated," murmured Elarya, her fingers trembling. "He's awakening. The Throne responded to him. The Root Flame obeys him."
"Impossible," Toras growled. "That was my echo—my essence made vengeance."
"And he still broke it," Vaelun whispered, awed and afraid. "That means he's becoming what he once was."
The sanctum dimmed. Not from loss of light—but from the presence of something returning.
A silence, deeper than death.
"He is remembering the first war," said Aeris. "And the weapon we forged to destroy him."
"What weapon?" asked a young godling at the chamber's edge. "What war?"
No one answered.
Because to name it was to summon its memory—and the last time it had been spoken, a world collapsed.
"The pact is unraveling," Vaelun finally said. "The seals are breaking. If Kael reaches the Temple of Origin—"
"He will remember everything," Elarya whispered. "His fall. Our betrayal. The truth that the pantheon was not born… but created as a cage."
"And if he reaches his full divinity," Aeris said, voice heavy with fear, "he won't just come for us."
"He'll unmake what we are."
The chamber trembled.
And for the first time in an age, gods prayed.
---
—The Mortal Realm: Throne of Dust—
Kael stood over the smoking remains of the spectral Toras.
The echo had disintegrated into motes of starlight and regret, whispering a final word:
"Remember."
Lira approached, bruised but alive. Her hands still trembled with unfamiliar magic.
"He wasn't real," she said. "That wasn't a true god, was it?"
Kael shook his head. "It was a memory… but forged by divine will. It was meant to slow us. Scare me."
She touched his arm. "Did it?"
His black-irised eyes looked toward the broken throne.
"No," he said. "But it reminded me what I lost. What they took."
Kael extended a hand—and the temple responded.
The shattered banners reformed. The thirteen thrones hummed. And the center throne, once desecrated and abandoned, rebuilt itself, bone by bone, until it stood whole.
He did not sit upon it.
Not yet.
Instead, Kael turned to Lira.
"We need to reach the Temple of Origin. That's where the gods buried the last truth. The place where all divinity was first forged."
She nodded. "How do we get there?"
Kael smiled faintly.
"We awaken the sky."
And as he raised the Root Flame high, it split into a ring of light that turned the heavens above them like a key—and the clouds parted to reveal a path of constellations leading across the firmament.
A road only a god could walk.
But Kael was no longer just a god.
He was the first, the fallen, and now—rising.