The moment the Entity's essence scattered, the world broke.
The sky fractured into shards of glassy light, raining down in silence. The Veil—once the boundary between realms—tore apart like thin paper. Through the cracks, Anna and Kael glimpsed impossible sights: oceans of flame, forests of bone, stars bleeding black ichor into rivers of infinity.
The battlefield beneath their feet gave way.
Anna screamed as the ground collapsed, dragging them into a whirlpool of shadows. Kael seized her wrist, cursed wings straining against the pull. But even his flames couldn't hold them steady—the abyss swallowed them whole.
They fell.
Not through space, but through reality.
Anna's lungs seized as they tumbled past broken fragments of worlds. She saw villages floating like shattered islands, cities hanging upside down, mountains folding into spirals of ash. People screamed from within those fragments—mortals, warriors, even Ashborn—all caught in the collapse, pulled toward the abyss.
"Kael!" Anna cried, clutching his arm tighter.
His grip was iron, even as the curse tore at his body. "Hold on! Don't let go!"
The shadows thickened, pulling them faster. The Entity's voice returned, not as a roar, but as a whisper brushing their ears, their bones, their very souls.
> "Ashes are eternal… and now, so is the fall."
The abyss yawned wider.
And then—impact.
Anna hit solid ground, air exploding from her lungs. She rolled across black stone, pain lancing through her body. Kael crashed beside her, flames sputtering before he forced them back under control.
They staggered upright, breathing hard.
And froze.
This was no battlefield.
They stood upon an endless plain of obsidian glass, cracked and bleeding light. Above them stretched a sky that was neither night nor day—only a swirling storm of ash and fractured stars. Colossal chains floated across the horizon, linking shattered realms together. In the distance, mountains of bone jutted upward, rivers of molten shadow winding between them.
The air itself was heavy, every breath like swallowing cinders.
Anna's voice trembled. "Where… are we?"
Kael narrowed his eyes, gaze locking on the horizon. His curse whispered in recognition. "This isn't the Veil anymore. This is what was behind it."
Anna's heart skipped. "You mean—"
"Yes." His grip tightened on his blade. "We've fallen into the Ashborn's true dominion."
As if to answer him, the ground rumbled. Cracks split the obsidian plain, and from them crawled figures—wraiths, not of ash but of pure void. Their forms twisted endlessly, as if unfinished. Eyes like burning stars fixed on the intruders.
Kael raised his sword. Anna lifted hers beside him.
Exhausted. Bleeding. Outnumbered.
But unbroken.
Anna's eyes burned with light. "If this is their world, then we carve our way through it."
Kael's cursed fire flared, black wings spreading. "Together."
The first wave of voidspawn shrieked and charged.
And Anna and Kael surged forward once more, blades igniting against the eternal dark.
The voidspawn charged like a tide of nightmares.
Each one was shaped from shadow and ember, bodies twisting as though sculpted by hands that never finished the work. Their claws were obsidian sickles, their mouths wide voids that screamed without sound.
Anna met them first. Her twilight blade swept outward, carving a crescent of violet fire that tore three creatures apart in one strike. Their forms dissolved into cinders, but even as the ash scattered, more pulled themselves from the cracks.
Kael roared. His cursed wings unfurled, hurling him into the horde like a falling star. His black flames exploded outward, a storm of annihilation that erased dozens. But the curse punished him for it—his veins burned, his vision blurred. He clenched his teeth, forcing the fire under control.
"Keep moving!" he shouted. "They'll just keep coming!"
Anna nodded, her blade spinning in arcs of twilight. "Then we cut a path forward!"
Together they pushed into the swarm, back-to-back, carving through endless shadows. Their blades became streaks of light and flame, their movements desperate but relentless. The plain shook under their battle, cracks spreading wider, more voidspawn clawing their way into existence.
And then—the ground erupted.
From beneath the obsidian plain rose something colossal. A fortress, black and jagged, thrust upward as though the land itself was birthing it. Towers of bone and ash spiraled skyward, glowing with embers. At its center pulsed a massive ember-heart, just like the fragment they had fought before—only larger, alive, feeding the dominion itself.
Anna froze, chest heaving. "That… that's what's calling them."
Kael's eyes narrowed. The curse coiled tighter around him, whispering in his ear. Break it. Burn it. Destroy the heart.
He spat blood, tightened his grip on his sword, and growled, "Then that's where we're going."
The voidspawn shrieked louder, as if hearing the command. Their tide thickened, forming walls of bodies around the fortress, protecting it.
Anna raised her blade, light burning against the endless dark. "We cut through them, together."
Kael's wings flared, fire crackling down the length of his cursed blade. "Together."
They launched forward.
Anna's strike was a blinding crescent—"Twilight Sever!"—splitting a swarm in two. Kael followed with a blast of black fire, "Abyss Fang!", engulfing the survivors. The fortress loomed closer with every step, but the tide of voidspawn surged stronger, faster, heavier.
And then the fortress roared.
From its ember-heart, chains of molten ash shot outward, lashing the battlefield. One slammed down where Anna stood—she barely rolled aside before it shattered the plain into a crater. Another whipped toward Kael; he blocked with his blade, the force hurling him backward across the ground.
The fortress itself was alive.
Anna's voice cut through the chaos, fierce and unyielding. "Then we kill a fortress."
Kael grinned through blood. "Finally… something worth burning."
Together, they surged toward the ember-heart, their blades blazing against the endless tide of shadows, each step dragging them deeper into the dominion of eternity.