Silence fell.
A silence so absolute that the screams of the dying world vanished beneath it. The sky itself seemed to hold its breath, the sun dimming as if the heavens feared to shine upon what I had become.
The crater stretched for miles, still pulsing faintly with the residue of my evolution. Silver steam rose from rivers that had boiled into nothing. The scent of burnt divinity filled the air.
I stood in the center, motionless. My wings unfurled behind me like shrouds of living night. Each feather was a blade of shadow, each movement a ripple through reality.
The resonance had stabilized within me — no longer wild, no longer chaotic.
It obeyed.
My voice, when I finally spoke, was calm. Low. Terrifying.
"Kha'reth—sha'vala."
The Void responded instantly. The shattered plain around me began to bend, stone and dust flowing like water, shaping themselves at my command. Obsidian pillars rose, smooth and tall, each one etched with veins of silver light — the first symbols of my Dominion.
This place…
This ruin of gods…
Would become my throne.
In the distance, the world began to react.
Kingdoms fell into disarray as the pulse of my existence reached their borders. Temples cracked; divine statues wept black tears. The faithful screamed in tongues they did not know.
The angels of the higher realm fled from the horizon — their wings burning away as they neared the edges of my influence. Dragons roared from their mountains, old and wise enough to feel the change in the currents of creation. Elemental lords sealed their gates, afraid that even their eternal flames might be snuffed out by my shadow.
Across the continents, prophets collapsed mid-sermon. Some screamed my name. Others clawed at their eyes, seeing me where no light should exist.
And from deep beneath the seas, ancient creatures of forgotten blood began to stir, drawn by the resonance they had not felt since the birth of the first world.
The world had not yet seen me.
But it already knew me.
I raised my hand. The air shimmered, folding upon itself. The pillars at my sides pulsed with light, channeling the resonance that bled from me into the land.
The Dominion was forming — a network of black veins stretching across the earth, visible only to those who could feel resonance. It would grow until every inch of existence trembled beneath it.
Every soul.
Every god.
Every whisper of thought.
Bound by the will of one.
Me.
I closed my eyes, and for the first time since my birth beneath the Black Sun, I listened.
Within the vast silence, countless echoes called out — the voices of those who defied me, and the cries of those who already worshipped without knowing why. The rhythm of the world beat faintly beneath my awareness, fragile and unbalanced.
I reached into it with my mind.
And rewrote it.
The language of the Void rose unbidden to my tongue, now deeper, evolved beyond mortal or divine comprehension. Each word carried weight enough to tear dimensions apart.
"Zha'reth… Kael'vahr… In'suun drael."
The earth trembled. The heavens bent. The light itself flickered.
Meaning: This world will kneel, not to fear, but to truth.
And the truth was me.
I stepped forward. The ground solidified beneath my feet — not as dirt or stone, but as obsidian glass bearing my reflection. At its center, I carved a sigil into the surface with a single gesture: an endless circle devouring itself, surrounded by seven lines of light.
The Mark of Dominion.
Every heartbeat of the world answered to it.
Every creature that felt the shift in the air bowed instinctively, their bodies compelled by resonance. Even those who resisted felt their wills bend, their prayers falter.
In that moment, I no longer wanted power.
I was power.
A wind began to rise — strange, ethereal. It carried whispers that were not mine.
Voices speaking through time, across realms, beyond comprehension.
Some praised. Some wept. Some cursed.
And among them, one voice cut through like a blade of glass.
Female.
Calm.
Laced with music that trembled on the edge of reality.
[Ka'shael… Vael'draen.]
I froze.
It was her.
The one I had felt before — the resonance that had answered mine during my ascension. The being whose song wove with my destruction instead of being erased by it.
Her voice was clearer now, reaching through the storm.
"Child of the Black Sun… you ascend too quickly."
Her tone was not fear. Not anger.
It was recognition.
I turned my gaze to the horizon, where reality shimmered like a heat mirage. A figure stood there — distant, blurred, yet unmistakably aware.
The world bent between us, our auras touching for a fraction of a second.
And in that instant, I saw her world — a realm of endless sound and color, built not upon matter, but pure resonance. Her kind did not build with hands; they sang existence into being.
I saw cathedrals made of soundwaves, oceans humming with harmonic life.
And at the center of it all, her — radiant, untouchable, eyes that saw straight through the Void.
My first wife… though neither of us yet understood what that meant.
The connection snapped, leaving behind a single word, lingering in the air.
[Vaen'thura.]
The name of her world.
The promise of her defiance.
Thunder cracked above me.
Not from the sky — but from within it.
The Black Sun pulsed once, vast and alive, as if awakened by what had just occurred. Its rays pierced the veil of my Dominion, black fire raining down in silent streaks.
I raised my hand, and for the first time, it resisted.
The darkness that had birthed me no longer felt like home — it felt like a challenge.
As if the Void itself sought to test what it had created.
I smiled.
"Then come," I said softly. My voice carried across the dead plains, echoing through the broken realms like a living storm. "Let the old gods witness their replacement."
The sky split.
Something vast began to descend. Wings of pure shadow. A shape too great to perceive. The first Watcher — an ancient sentry of the Void, summoned to judge the newborn god.
The air screamed. The world shook.
And I, still blood-streaked and radiant with power, stood beneath it — unflinching.
"This world is mine," I whispered.
"And none shall take it from me."
The creature roared.
I spread my wings in answer.
Light and darkness collided — a symphony of annihilation and creation intertwined.
End of Chapter 13 – The First Dominion