The moment Kael stepped through the Ninefold Gate, the air around him shifted. It wasn't just the temperature or the pressure—it was reality itself. The world before him felt like a fractured dream.
The sky was a warped canvas of black fire and golden mist, stars bleeding across its surface like spilled ink. Floating monoliths drifted through the air, inscribed with glowing runes that twisted and changed with every blink. The ground beneath Kael's feet pulsed like a living heart—flesh and stone fused into one.
He stood at the edge of a vast platform suspended over a swirling vortex. Below, the energy of the Final Rift churned with Garmon Radiation, illuminating the underworld in violent purples and greens. This was the center of all things. The origin. The end.
Ryssa, Seris, and Veyr followed close behind, each of them visibly shaken. Even Veyr, who had long claimed to have seen it all, couldn't hide his awe.
"Is this..." Seris whispered, her eyes wide, "...the Sovereign's Domain?"
"It feels like we've stepped into someone's mind," Veyr muttered.
"No," Kael said, voice steady. "We've stepped into a god's tomb."
---
The Sovereign didn't make them wait.
He descended from the sky itself, clothed in a mantle of shadow and light, his form shifting between a man and something else entirely. His eyes were voids—bottomless pits that threatened to consume thought itself.
"Kael," the Sovereign said, his voice resonating in the marrow of their bones. "You made it further than any before you. But you have come only to shatter."
Kael stepped forward. "You brought me here. Garmon Radiation, the rifts, everything—it started with you."
"Yes. And it will end with me," the Sovereign replied. "You are a variable, Kael. An experiment born of entropy. I was curious to see how far you'd go."
"Why?"
"Because in every cycle, humanity fails. They consume. Destroy. Decay. I open the rifts to cleanse. Reboot. You are the latest piece in this grand equation. A child of suffering, granted a spark."
Kael clenched his fists. "I'm not your experiment. I'm your mistake."
The Sovereign's expression didn't change, but a wave of energy burst from his body. The platform around them cracked, and chunks of stone floated upward.
"You believe you are strong enough to defy me?" he asked.
Kael took a slow breath. "I don't need to believe. I just need to win."
---
The battle began with light.
The Sovereign raised a hand, and the sky cracked open. Beams of raw dimensional energy struck down like divine spears. Kael rolled forward, the Gauntlet on his arm flaring as he raised a barrier of time. The attacks slowed—barely—and he dodged through the gap.
"Ryssa! Flank left!"
She leapt into action, vanishing into shadow and reappearing behind the Sovereign, blades slashing. But they passed through him.
"He's phasing!" she shouted.
"Then we bring him back into reality!" Veyr roared, slamming a rune-staff into the ground. The air shimmered as a seal of anchoring locked into place.
The Sovereign flickered and solidified, if only for a moment.
Kael struck.
He launched forward, Gauntlet glowing with temporal power. With a punch amplified by momentum and rage, he drove his fist into the Sovereign's chest.
The impact sent shockwaves rippling through the sky, and the Sovereign staggered backward.
But he didn't fall.
"You are not ready," he hissed.
Then the world fractured.
---
Kael found himself alone.
The others were gone.
He stood in a mirror dimension—one where everything was reversed, twisted. He was a child again. Weak. Alone. The alley. The bullies.
"No," he whispered. "This isn't real."
"You made it real," a voice echoed. His own voice—but older. Darker.
A version of himself stepped forward, cloaked in despair. "You're not a hero, Kael. You're a scared little boy pretending to be strong."
Kael gritted his teeth. "I survived. I changed."
"You died. And you're still dying."
Kael lunged forward, but the doppelgänger caught his punch, smiling.
"Until you accept the truth, you will never defeat him."
---
In the real world, Ryssa, Seris, and Veyr fought shadows.
The Sovereign summoned projections—phantoms of their pasts. Ryssa battled a version of herself wearing the mark of the assassins who raised her. Seris confronted her father, a traitor to the old guard. Veyr faced the twisted remains of his first failed student.
Each of them bled. Each of them broke.
But none of them yielded.
"I won't run from who I was," Ryssa growled, driving her blade into her shadow.
"I am not my bloodline!" Seris screamed, unleashing a wave of fire.
Veyr placed a hand over his heart. "Rest now. I've learned."
The illusions shattered.
And then Kael returned.
---
He walked forward slowly, cloak torn, eyes glowing with golden light. His mark spun rapidly on his arm. Energy radiated from him like a second sun.
"I know what I am now," Kael said.
The Sovereign tilted his head. "And what is that?"
"I'm the end of your cycle."
He raised his Gauntlet. "And I'm not alone."
Ryssa, Seris, and Veyr stood behind him.
Together, they attacked.
Kael froze time in a narrow cone, creating a breach for Ryssa to slip through. Her blades slashed across the Sovereign's form, marking him with runes that Veyr detonated.
Seris summoned a phoenix of flame, spiraling it through the Sovereign's core.
The Sovereign staggered, light spilling from wounds he'd never suffered before.
"You… dare…" he growled.
Kael leapt into the air.
"You're not a god," he said. "You're a coward hiding behind pain."
He slammed his Gauntlet into the Sovereign's head.
Time fractured.
Space screamed.
And the Sovereign exploded in a burst of light and memory.
---
Silence followed.
The domain trembled. Cracks split the floating monoliths. The Final Rift began to close.
Kael collapsed to one knee.
"It's over," Seris whispered.
"No," Veyr said. "It's beginning."
The energy released from the Sovereign's death wasn't fading. It was concentrating.
Kael stood, body glowing, his mark pulsing wildly.
"It's choosing you," Ryssa said.
Kael looked down at his hands. The energy was merging with him.
"I don't know what this means," he admitted.
Veyr placed a hand on his shoulder. "Then make it mean something."
Kael looked out at the closing rift, the healing sky, the distant echoes of a broken world.
"I will."
And as the Final Rift sealed for good, Kael took his first step forward.
Not as an outcast. Not as a mistake.
But as the one who ended the cycle.
The world had changed.
And so had he.