Chapter 969 – When Gods Tremble
The battlefield had become unrecognizable — a torn wound in the world. The heavens burned, the ground glowed molten, and even the air screamed between every clash.
Kael and the God of Light stood in the heart of it all, two suns locked in orbit.
Every strike shook the horizon. Every word they spoke warped reality itself.
But now — now, their powers were equal.
The divine radiance of the god and the churning chaos of the daemon lord collided in a deadlock of sheer, impossible will. The balance had been reached, but balance was not victory — and Kael refused to stand still.
He had never been balance.
He was the storm that broke it.
The god swung his burning blade in a wide arc, light trailing like ribbons of living fire. Kael ducked under, twisting on instinct, the heat peeling the edges of his armor. His counter came quick — a feint, a strike to the ribs, a step to the side — reading the divine's movements like a warrior reading another's heartbeat.
"You fight like a mortal," Kael growled, ducking another strike.
"I was never meant to fight," the god spat, light flaring, "only to judge!"
Kael smirked, eyes glowing with a wild, knowing light. "Then you've already lost."
He lunged, his sword screaming with chaos fire, clashing against the god's radiance once more. Sparks like starlight exploded around them. The god's strikes grew frantic, divine patterns unraveling, movements too rigid, too predictable.
Kael adapted. Shifted. Learned.
He wasn't just fighting — he was studying. Every swing, every flash of divine power, every pattern in the god's rhythm. He saw it all.
Then, he began to use it.
Each move became a mirror — a reflection of the god's technique, improved and brutalized by mortal cunning. Kael shifted his footing, baiting the god with deliberate openings, forcing him to overextend.
"You think you can match divinity with imitation?" the god bellowed.
Kael grinned, blood running from his split lip. "Not imitation."
He parried another swing and stepped in close, blade crossing the god's chest in an explosion of light and flame.
"Evolution."
The god staggered back, radiant ichor spilling from his wound, his eyes wide — not with pain, but realization.
Kael didn't let him breathe.
With every ounce of his strength, every ounce of his daemon soul, he pressed forward. Blades clashed, fists struck, magic cracked open the sky.
But Kael was relentless — his will unyielding. When the god blinded him, Kael fought by sound. When the god shattered his sword, Kael fought bare-handed. When the god threw him through the burning ruins of the field, Kael rose again.
And again.
And again.
Until the god's perfect composure began to crack.
"You… you cannot win," the god gasped, stumbling, golden blood dripping from his mouth. "You stand against eternity itself—"
Kael seized him by the throat.
"I'm not standing against eternity," Kael said, voice calm as a razor's edge. "I'm showing it what fear looks like."
He drove his clawed hand through the god's chest — a mirror of what had been done to him — and pulled free a pulsing orb of divine essence. The light flickered, sputtered, and began to die.
The god fell to his knees, divine armor fracturing like shattered crystal.
"This… this is an atrocity…" the god hissed, his form breaking apart into motes of dying light. "The others will come for you, Daemon Lord. The heavens will burn for your arrogance."
Kael stood over him, eyes glowing with that deep, dangerous crimson — the mark of chaos, of creation and destruction intertwined.
He leaned in slightly, his voice low, steady — but carrying the weight of the infernal and divine alike.
"Vael'thar dos kaen draekhul ven morra."
The dying god's eyes flickered with confusion — and then fear.
("Then let them come see what a god truly fears.")
The light went out.
Silence fell across the battlefield.
The divine aura faded, the torn skies knitting slowly back together. Only Kael remained standing amidst the ruin, breathing heavily, blood and ash clinging to him like armor. His shadow stretched across the field — vast, powerful, and terrible.
From afar, Lyria and Eris watched, the others behind them speechless.
Eris whispered, voice trembling with awe and something deeper. "He… he killed a god."
Lyria's eyes glistened, torn between pride and dread. "No," she murmured softly. "He became one."
And Kael — covered in the dust of battle, eyes blazing like stars forged in fury — turned toward the rising dawn, his voice a whisper only the gods could hear.
"Your move."