The battlefield was a cathedral of ruin.
The moon had cracked open like an eye, bleeding red light over the world. The soil beneath Kael's feet was no longer soil but the remains of prayers—burned letters, broken promises, and the scent of something older than forgiveness.
The wind didn't blow anymore; it whispered. It said his name again and again.
> "Kael... Kael... my son."
The voice was velvet and venom—warm, familiar, unbearable.
Kael gripped his halberd tighter. His breath misted the crimson air. Every step forward felt heavier, as though the world wanted him to kneel.
He wouldn't.
Not now. Not before him.
---
The Devil Appears
From the fractured horizon, a figure emerged—tall, regal, cloaked in darkness that flickered with embers. The Devil didn't walk; he approached like memory.
His face bore Kael's own bones, but older, sharper, more knowing. His eyes—those molten gold eyes—carried centuries of lies dressed as truths.
> "So," the Devil said, voice like music at a funeral, "you've grown strong. Strong enough to raise a weapon against your own blood."
Kael said nothing.
Words were small things against this kind of presence.
> "You want to protect him," the Devil continued, stepping closer. "The Vessel. The fragile little human that the Moon toys with. You'd betray Heaven, Hell, and your birthright for a boy trembling between sanity and sin."
Kael's jaw tightened. "He's not trembling. He's fighting."
> "Fighting what, Kael?"
"Me? The Red Moon? Himself?"
The Devil smiled. "He'll fall. They always do. Desire is stronger than reason. That's why I made you."
---
Kael's Defiance
Kael raised his halberd. The light from the Red Moon shimmered across its blade like blood caught in a sunrise. "You made nothing. I'm not your creation."
The Devil tilted his head, amused. "Oh, you are. Every breath you take is defiance carved from my own ribs. You were born from my refusal to kneel. Don't you feel it—the hunger to rise, the lust for justice even when it burns you alive?"
The words struck him deeper than any blade could.
Kael did feel it—always had. That ache to rise, to fight, to protect, even if it meant falling.
But not today.
> "I'm not your reflection," Kael said, voice breaking through the weight. "I'm your consequence."
---
The First Clash
The Devil's smile died.
For the first time, the air trembled—not from power, but from disappointment.
> "Then prove it."
A ripple split the world.
Flames twisted into chains, lashing toward Kael. He deflected one, shattered another, but the third wrapped around his arm and sank into the skin. Pain like liquid fire crawled through him.
He leapt, wings bursting open—white with streaks of grey ash, feathers trailing sparks.
His halberd met the Devil's sword, and the collision sounded like thunder remembering creation.
Each blow was history repeating itself—Father and Son, Love and Wrath.
The Devil fought with elegance; Kael fought with conviction. Every swing was a scream of purpose.
> "Still holding back," the Devil whispered between strikes. "Still clinging to restraint like a leash. I told you, mercy is just a slower kind of death."
Kael's teeth gritted. "Mercy isn't weakness. It's what separates us."
> "No, Kael. It's what kills you."
---
The Fall into Memory
With one slash, the Devil shattered the ground beneath them.
Kael fell—not into hellfire, but into memory.
He landed in a city of glass and silence. The old world.
Before the Red Moon. Before Adrian. Before he had a reason to live.
He saw himself, younger, kneeling before a throne of fire.
His father's voice echoed:
> "Rise, Kael. You will be my sword. My angel of conquest."
And then the memory fractured—his mother's scream, her hand reaching toward him before disappearing into the light.
The Devil's laughter followed.
> "You couldn't save her then. You won't save him now."
Kael's wings dimmed. His weapon flickered like a dying star.
For a moment, despair almost took him—until he remembered Adrian's voice, weak but steady, back in the mortal realm:
> "Kael... don't let the light end in you."
Something inside him shifted.
---
The Rebirth of the Guardian
Kael roared. His wings burst outward in a blaze of white fire. The memory world cracked and bled away, unable to hold him.
When he rose again, the Devil stood waiting, unfazed but curious.
> "You always were dramatic," he mused. "What now, little rebellion?"
Kael walked toward him—slowly, deliberately. His eyes glowed pale, cold light. The halberd hummed as though alive.
> "You wanted a weapon," Kael said. "But I became a wall."
> "Walls crumble."
> "Not if they're made of what you fear most."
> "And what's that?"
Kael smiled—grim, quiet, unstoppable.
> "Hope."
---
The Final Battle
They clashed again, but now Kael was different.
He no longer fought to win. He fought to end the inheritance.
Every strike carved symbols into the air—runes of resistance, binding light into flesh. The Devil countered with pure will, reshaping darkness into blades and serpents.
At one point, Kael's halberd shattered. He caught the blade mid-air, spun it, and drove it through his own chest to channel the last of his strength.
> "You'd sacrifice yourself for that boy?" the Devil asked, incredulous.
Kael's voice was raw, almost tender: "Not for him. For what he makes me remember."
The Devil's sword pierced Kael's side.
Blood dripped onto the ground and ignited like oil.
> "You can't kill me," the Devil said, leaning close. "I am you."
Kael looked into his father's eyes—those golden fires that once terrified him—and whispered, "Then I'll learn to live with the wound."
---
The Collapse
The Red Moon trembled.
All around them, the world started to fold—streets bending, time collapsing. The Devil's form flickered; the chain between them thinned.
> "You think you've won?"
"No," Kael said softly, falling to one knee. "But I've remembered what it means to fight without hating."
The Devil reached toward him—perhaps to strike, perhaps to touch—but the world swallowed them both.
---
Aftermath
Kael awoke beneath a bleeding sky.
The ground was cold, littered with fragments of glass and ash. He was alone. His armor cracked, his halberd gone.
Somewhere far off, he felt Adrian's heartbeat—weak but alive.
He smiled through blood.
> "Still standing, Vessel. Good."
Then he heard faint footsteps—crying, trembling. Crysmal appeared, half-transparent, its voice small.
> "You… survived."
Kael exhaled. "Barely."
> "Do you… still believe?"
Kael looked at the horizon, where the Red Moon pulsed like a wound refusing to heal.
> "Belief isn't comfort," he murmured. "It's resistance."
And somewhere deep in the darkness, his father's laughter echoed—not victorious, not defeated—simply waiting.
> "Light doesn't win by destroying the dark. It wins by refusing to vanish inside it."
Kael, Guardian of the Vessel