That night, Kael dared what none had attempted.
He reached not to consume, but to commune.
The fractured divine remnants resisted, their presence crushing, alien. Kael felt his humanity strain under the weight of something vast and indifferent.
Why do you persist? a voice thundered.
"Because you abandoned us," Kael answered through clenched teeth.
We broke ourselves to spare you.
The truth struck like a blade.
The gods had not fallen to some external force.
They had sacrificed themselves to seal something worse.
And now that seal was failing.
Kael withdrew, shaking violently.
The war was not just against the dead.
It was against what the gods had died to contain.