The void was no longer still.
It bent and twisted, as if a thousand invisible hands tore at its fabric. Waves of nothing rippled outward, bending into spirals of lightless shapes, shadows without form. The throne shook. Cracks laced across the emptiness like veins of shattered glass, and each crack pulsed with something far older than color.
The god's avatar sat still amid the storm, his golden eyes steady, fixed upon the small soul flickering before him.
Kai.
The mortal soul looked fragile, almost laughably so—a shard of ember trembling in the gale of eternity. And yet, it remained unbroken. A curiosity, perhaps even a defiance.
The god leaned forward. His voice was quiet, but it carried through the collapsing void like thunder pressed into a whisper.
"Mortal. Do you know what you sacrificed, what you fought, what you bled for?"
Kai swallowed, though his soul had no throat. "My people. My family. My… loved ones."
A faint smile touched the god's lips. "Yes. So fragile. So fleeting. You threw yourself into the teeth of fate for them. And still, you could not change the outcome. Even now, after blades pierced you, after blood turned the altar black, after the chains bound your body and soul—you call it sacrifice."
The golden eyes narrowed.
"But what if I told you… it was all a lie?"
Kai's soul quivered. "What…?"
The void trembled harder, cracks spreading wider. The banging came again, louder now, shaking what remained of the endless abyss.
The god rose from the throne. His shape wavered—one moment human, the next a storm of faces and limbs, then a shadow with burning eyes, then a silhouette crowned with galaxies. Each breath was a different eternity. Yet when he spoke, his voice was clear.
"The world you bled for—your world—was never free. From the day of its rebirth after the twenty-fourth century's collapse, it was bound by the wish of the gods. Not your gods. My kind. Do you know what a wish is, mortal?"
Kai shook his head.
"It is a lie spoken into the bones of reality until even reality forgets it was false."
The words fell heavy.
"The gods used their wish to chain the world, to bind the elements, to suppress what should never have been suppressed. To them, it was preservation. To me, it was suffocation. They rewrote your history, bent your bloodlines, seeded your fates. Even your sacrifices—your so-called love—were puppeted by the wish they wove."
Kai staggered back in disbelief. His soul flickered violently, as if on the edge of collapse.
"You're saying… everything… everything I did was meaningless?"
The avatar's golden gaze pierced him. "Not meaningless. Directed. Tilted into a shape they desired. You are not free, Kai. None of your kind are."
The mortal soul clenched his hollow fists. Rage, despair, grief—all melted into one. He wanted to scream, to deny, but the weight of the god's words pressed into him like stone. Deep within, he knew—had always known—something had been wrong.
The god lowered his hand. The storm of void stilled for a heartbeat.
"Mortal," the god whispered, almost gently, "I will use the last of my power to seal this void… and to send you back to the living world."
Kai's eyes widened. "Back?"
"Yes. There is work to be done. A task only a soul that has touched my prison may complete. Do not ask what—it will reveal itself. When the time comes, you will know."
Kai opened his mouth, but the god cut him off.
"You will not walk alone. You will need help. But do not fear—I will mark you. You will draw others. Allies. Enemies. Both. Destiny coils tighter around those who touch divinity."
The avatar's eyes flared gold, brighter than suns. The light speared through Kai's soul, and for a moment it felt as though power itself was being drained from the god and poured into him. It was agony beyond agony, as if existence were being rewritten through fire.
Then, suddenly, the god spoke again. His voice was softer this time, almost… human.
"Live well, mortal."
Kai froze. "What…?"
The god smiled faintly. "This time, try to live well. Not just for sacrifice. Not just for blood. Live for yourself."
The words shook Kai more than all the revelations before them.
And then—the void convulsed.
From the cracks tearing through the nothingness, seven shards appeared, drifting slowly into place before the throne. Each one pulsed with a different force, each one more terrible, more beautiful, more vast than the last.
The first was crimson fire, its surface burning and devouring itself, eternal flames consuming without end. It pulsed like a beating heart of ash.
The second was azure water, endless depths swirling inside a shard no larger than a hand. Oceans churned within it, tides rising and falling, storms lashing invisible coasts.
The third was wind incarnate, an invisible shard that shimmered, its edges traced only by the distortion of space itself. It howled in silence, a gale that cut through nothing.
The fourth was earth and decay, a stone-black shard veined with green moss that grew and withered, grew and withered, over and over, in a cycle of rot and rebirth.
The fifth was void and spirit, a piece of darkness glowing faintly with ghostlight. Faces flickered within, whispering from forgotten graves, reaching out with hands that never touched.
The sixth was starlight, pure and radiant, glowing with brilliance so sharp it hurt to look upon. Within it burned the miniature echo of galaxies, constellations spiraling into themselves.
And the seventh—
The seventh was cracked.
It pulsed weakly, fissures spiderwebbing across its broken surface. It seemed fragile, ready to shatter with the faintest touch, yet inside its cracks burned something terrible—something unspoken.
The god's gaze fell upon the seven. His golden eyes dimmed.
"These," he murmured, voice like a hymn wrapped in ash, "are what remains of the chains. The fragments of what once bound creation itself. Fire. Water. Wind. Earth. Spirit. Space. And the broken one…"
His smile faded.
"…the shard that should never have been."
Kai's soul trembled as the seven shards circled the throne, humming with power that shook the void itself.
The god turned his gaze back to him.
"And now, mortal… the story begins anew."
The god lingered upon his throne, golden eyes narrowing as he regarded the fragile soul trembling before him. Silence stretched, broken only by the slow hum of the seven shards orbiting in the void.
For a long moment, the god said nothing. Then, slowly, a faint smile curved his lips.
"Enough," he whispered. "You have heard what you needed to hear. The rest belongs to time."
He raised his hand, a gesture as casual as the closing of an eyelid, and reality itself obeyed.
Kai's soul dissolved into light, his translucent form unraveling into countless luminous motes. They shimmered, delicate as dust, each fragment carrying the weight of his memories, his despair, his fractured hope. The light drifted upward, toward the circle of the seven shards.
And then—
A sound tore the void apart.
It was not the banging from before. This was worse. A crack that split the silence like the scream of a dying world. A noise so immense it could have shattered stars.
The void convulsed. The seventh shard—the broken one—split further. Black liquid seeped from its cracks, writhing outward like veins of tar. It pulsed, swelled, and then began to shape itself, climbing higher and higher, straining into the form of a gate.
The god's eyes narrowed. His faint smile vanished.
"Not yet," he muttered, his voice cold. "It is too soon."
But the void did not listen.
The black liquid pulsed violently, and the motes of Kai's soul, fragile and flickering, were caught in the shockwave. The light scattered, thrown wide, fractured into spirals of dust. What should have been a clean return was now corrupted, redirected.
The god raised his hand to steady it—but stopped. His eyes dimmed, heavy with something Kai could not name. Regret? Calculation? A choice?
"Go, then," the god whispered. "Drift where fate wills you."
The soul fragments whirled, spinning away from the throne, dissolving into the dark.
And in the void, time meant nothing. Days, months, years, centuries—what are such words in a place where the stars do not turn, where the sun does not rise, where the measure of a moment is only the space between one echo and the next?
Kai's soul drifted. Dissipated. Flickered. At times, it seemed as though he would vanish entirely, forgotten as dust scattered on the wind of eternity.
But then, slowly—so slowly—the fragments began to gather. Light finding light. Dust finding dust. Embers clutching at each other in the abyss.
The shape of a soul formed again. Faint, unstable, trembling—but whole enough to endure.
And when the last fragment found its place, when the ember sparked into flame once more—
—the void shuddered, and Kai was hurled away.
Out of the abyss.
Out of the silence.
Out of the prison of the god.
Back toward the living world.