Chapter 950 — The Heart of the Cathedral
The fortress swallowed Kael whole.
He stepped through the shattered gates, black stone groaning beneath his boots as the echo of battle faded behind him. The air inside was thick with heat and incense—sweet, metallic, and wrong. Shadows rippled across the walls as if the cathedral itself breathed.
Eris was silent for a long moment, until her voice whispered like wind through cracked glass.
"This place feels… alive. But not in any way that should exist."
Kael's grip tightened around his sword. The chaos within him stirred, restless. "Then let's kill it."
"Kael—wait."
He ignored the tremor in her tone. He could feel it now too—the heartbeat, faint and rhythmic, pulsing through the walls. It called to him with a resonance that made his teeth ache. Every step deeper into the cathedral felt heavier, slower, as though gravity itself mourned what was bound here.
He came into the grand nave, and the sight stole even his hardened breath.
The daemon was bound to the cathedral's heart.
Chains of radiant gold and black iron pierced through its body, pinning it to the dais like a crucified god. Its skin shimmered with prismatic hues—red, violet, void-black—and its eyes glowed with a storm of energy that could melt the bones of men.
Around the base of the dais pulsed the shards—six of them—each connected by channels of energy to a massive construct above. The chaos core thrummed like a second sun, its light pulsing in time with the daemon's forced heartbeat.
Kael felt Eris recoil inside him. "That's not just any daemon. It's one of the first—an origin soul. They're feeding off its essence to keep the cores stable."
"Then we free it," Kael said grimly.
And from the shadows of the dais, a voice answered, smooth and poisonous.
"Ever the bleeding heart, Kael of the Hollow."
Kael turned.
Franklin stepped forward, his priestly robes traded for sleek, gilded armor inlaid with radiant scripture. His eyes glowed faintly blue—the unmistakable tint of chaos corruption—but his smirk was calm, confident, cruel.
"You don't understand what you're touching," Franklin said, spreading his hands as if addressing a congregation. "The daemon is not your salvation—it is our key. Our bridge between the divine and the profane."
Kael's blade lifted, cold light spilling across the stone. "You've become the very monster you claim to destroy."
Franklin's smile didn't falter. "And you, Kael, became the god you claimed to despise. Tell me—how many miracles have you performed lately? How many lives reshaped by your will?"
Kael's jaw flexed, eyes narrowing. "You're building a weapon that will burn this world down."
Franklin chuckled, circling the dais. "No, Kael. I'm building a weapon that will save it. Imagine—chaos tamed, divinity bent to mortal command. No gods, no demons, no endless cycle of sin. Just order. Peace."
"Peace built on blood," Kael spat.
"The only kind that lasts."
Lightning crackled through the chamber as the two men locked eyes—old enemies, bound by opposing convictions and the same haunted understanding: that power had always demanded sacrifice.
Eris whispered urgently in Kael's mind, "The bindings on the daemon—they're using the shards to keep it tethered. If you destroy even one, the resonance will collapse."
Kael took a slow step forward. "Then I'll start with you."
Franklin's smile faltered for the first time. "You're too late."
The shards pulsed violently. The daemon screamed—its voice a soundless shockwave that shattered glass and flayed the air itself. Runes flared across the cathedral walls as energy surged upward into the chaos core.
Kael moved.
He leapt, his blade arcing upward in a streak of blue fire. The first strike severed a chain. The second drove deep into the glowing circuitry of a shard. The explosion of energy threw him across the floor, armor hissing, but he forced himself to rise.
Franklin raised his hands, divine glyphs igniting in the air. "You never learn, Kael. You always try to save the monster instead of slaying it."
Kael charged. Their blades met in a shower of molten sparks—Kael's chaos aura colliding with Franklin's radiant ward. The ground beneath them cracked under the pressure. Franklin's every strike was precise, calculated, but Kael fought like a storm given form—relentless, adaptive, alive.
Between clashes, the daemon's broken voice echoed through Kael's mind. "End this… please…"
Kael felt the plea in his chest like a spike of guilt.
He broke from Franklin, slamming his gauntlet against the floor. Chaos energy surged, splitting the dais. He swung again—this time not at Franklin, but at the chains.
The second bond shattered.
The daemon convulsed, a wave of raw power slamming through the chamber. Franklin screamed, clutching his head as the feedback tore through the shards. "You'll destroy everything!"
Kael's voice thundered like the heart of a god. "Then I'll rebuild it without you."
He drove his sword through the final tether.
The cathedral erupted in light.
Kael awoke in the wreckage, dust falling in slow cascades from the ceiling. The chaos core had gone silent—its glow reduced to faint embers. The daemon was gone, its chains melted into slag. Only faint echoes of its presence lingered, like a sigh fading into nothing.
Franklin lay amid the rubble, broken but alive, his armor scorched. He looked up at Kael, coughing blood, a weak laugh spilling from cracked lips. "You freed it… fool. You have no idea what you've unleashed."
Kael stared down at him, his eyes burning faintly blue. "Maybe not. But I know what I destroyed."
Eris's voice was quiet, reverent. "The daemon's gone. But something of it… remains. In you."
Kael exhaled slowly, staring up through the shattered dome at the storm-torn sky.
The first true battle of the new age had ended.
But the cost—and what had escaped into the world—remained unknown.