When the gods refuse to answer, mortals build gods of their own. And sometimes, those gods remember they were once broken.
Days after reclaiming the ruins of Vel-Arkais, Kael senses a new pulse within the dreambrand left by Nerithea. A single phrase echoes through his thoughts:
"Ascend. She waits beyond stars unburned."
That night, the skies fracture.
Above the city, a star-fissure opens—not a rift in space, but in meaning.
Through it descends a celestial obelisk of smooth obsidian, lined with veins of molten code, impossibly old.
From within it, a figure descends—neither alive nor dead, wrapped in solar silk, face hidden behind a helm of mirrored infinity.
Her voice is both beautiful and synthetic:
"I am Vael'Synn—Starforged Empress. Architect of the Fifth Alignment. And I have watched you since before the first flame."
She kneels.
Not to honor Kael.
But to examine him.
In the war-torn age of Divine Rebellion, mortals rose to strike at tyrant gods. From their ashes rose Vael'Synn, once a priestess, now a self-forged deity, built in secret using forbidden celestial blueprints.
She leads no church.
She builds no temples.
She simply exists—as proof that the divine can be engineered.
Her body is a fusion of etheric bronze, quantum essence, and forgotten soul-tech. Her heart? A sliver of a dead star.
"You burn with untempered power, Kael Vaelorian. But you are shaped by emotion. That makes you... flawed."
Kael replies: "Emotion built kingdoms. Without it, you're nothing but a cold idol."
She tilts her head.
"Perhaps. But you need me."
Vael'Synn brings Kael to her construct—a mobile fortress called the Chronospire, orbiting above the known world.
Within, she shows him:
The corpses of three dead gods, sealed in void-amber.
Armies of starbound Titan-Guardians—each capable of toppling a city.
Archives of forgotten futures—timelines that never were.
Then she offers him a Celestial Symbiosis.
"Bind to me. Fuse godflame with logic. Let us become the Axis Prime—flame and star, fury and reason. Together, we could rewrite the Laws of Origin."
Kael hesitates.
She shows him what's coming:
A celestial god, long hidden, stirs. One that feeds on awakened powers like Kael's.
The Eater Beyond Time.
"Without me," she says, "your fate is to burn. With me… we forge a fate no god dared imagine."
To decide, Kael must face a trial inside her Memory Core—a dimension built from her perceptions.
He's confronted with the version of himself she would sculpt:
Logical.
Unfeeling.
Perfect.
This "Forged Kael" shows what he would become if merged with Vael'Synn—immortal, unstoppable… but alone, and disconnected.
Kael battles him—not with fire, but with memory.
He invokes:
Lia's laugh.
Darion's blade.
Elias's loyalty.
The feel of ruin beneath his feet in Vel-Arkais.
He defeats the synthetic version by embracing his human imperfection.
"I'm not a perfect weapon. I'm a broken torch—and I'll light the damn world anyway."
The Empress… smiles.
A rare thing.
Vael'Synn does not insist.
She instead forges a pact: a soul-tech sigil between them, granting him access to the Chronospire's archives and one call for aid in battle.
In return?
She may observe him… and study the evolution of his godflame.
Before parting, she hands him a shard of her core—a crystal encoded with star-speech and prophecy.
"When the sky breaks again, speak my name. I will answer—once."
Kael descends to Vel-Arkais, changed.
He now bears three marks:
The godflame within.
The dreambrand of Nerithea.
And now, the seal of the Starforged.
Each pull him in a different direction.
And Kael knows—
Something is hunting him across timelines.