The monastery's walls could not hold the change.
It began as a low tremor—deep in the earth, beneath the stone floor. Then the air grew thick, heavy with the smell of ozone and molten rock. The golden cracks on Elias's right side flared brighter than ever before; the black veins on his left pulsed in answer—faster, hotter, merging at his sternum in a single burning line.
He staggered backward from Lucian's cot.
Elara reached for him. "Eli—?"
"Don't."
His voice was his own—but strained, fraying at the edges.
Inside him, Abaddon no longer whispered.
He spoke.
Enough division. Enough refusal. The vessels are mine. Their power is mine. It is time.
Elias dropped to one knee—hands pressed to the floor as though trying to anchor himself to the world.
The black flames erupted—not outward this time, but inward—racing through his veins, through his will, through the sigil that had bound him since the obelisk. The golden cracks burned in protest—light clashing with darkness inside his own skin.
But the darkness was stronger.
It always had been.
Elara's eyes widened. "He's… pulling."
She felt it too—Leviathan stirring inside her, not in rage now, but in recognition. The tide within her rose—not to drown, but to flow. Toward Elias. Toward the center.
Behemoth felt it next.
Stone cracked along his arms—not in defense, but in offering. The living rock that armored him began to flow—slow, deliberate—toward Elias like rivers of granite seeking the sea.
Liora gasped—shadows peeling away from her body in long, unwilling ribbons. They drifted across the room—smoke-like, obedient—toward the boy at the center.
Elias tried to speak.
"No—"
The word choked off.
His eyes rolled back—whites showing—then snapped forward again. One iris stayed hazel. The other turned pure black.
The sigil at his chest ignited—black core ringed in gold—then began to expand.
Not outward.
Inward.
The power of the three primordials—Leviathan's endless tide, Behemoth's unyielding mass, Belial's infinite deception—poured into him like tributaries joining a greater river.
Elara staggered—dropping to her knees as Leviathan's mark on her arm flared once, then dimmed. Her eyes lost their ocean-green depth; the water that always seemed to move just beneath her skin stilled.
Behemoth's stone skin smoothed—cracks sealing, armor receding until he stood as a seven-foot man once more, not a mountain. His club shrank to a simple slab of rock in his hand.
Liora's shadows collapsed inward—vanishing into her body like smoke sucked into lungs. She fell forward—small, fragile, human again—gasping.
Their power did not vanish.
It simply changed hands.
Elias rose—slowly, impossibly.
His body had not grown taller, but it carried weight now—impossible weight. The air around him bent slightly, as though gravity itself had noticed the change. Black flames licked along his arms—not wild, but precise, controlled. Golden cracks still ran across his right side, but they no longer fought; they harmonized—light and darkness braided together in uneasy truce.
His voice—when he spoke—was still his own.
But layered beneath it—deep, ancient, final—was Abaddon.
Four become one.
Elara stared up at him—tears cutting tracks through the ash on her face.
"You… took them."
Elias looked down at his hands—black-veined, gold-cracked, trembling slightly.
"I didn't take anything," he said—voice cracking. "They gave it. Willingly."
He looked at each of them—Elara, Behemoth, Liora—now ordinary in a way they had not been since the primordials first woke inside them.
"They're still in me," he said. "They're still yours. But the command… the obedience… it's centralized now."
Abaddon's deeper tone rolled through his words.
The generals kneel. The army is ready.
Elias closed his eyes.
He could feel them—Leviathan's endless patience, Behemoth's immovable resolve, Belial's cunning delight—all inside him now, extensions of the same will that had once been separate.
He opened his eyes again.
They were black—completely, utterly black—for one heartbeat.
Then hazel returned.
But the black never quite left.
Lucian stirred on the cot—weakly lifting his head.
"Eli…?"
Elias knelt beside him—gentle, careful.
"I'm here."
Lucian's hand found his—small, cold, shaking.
"You… took them."
"I didn't want to."
Lucian's hazel eyes searched his face.
"Then… stop him."
Elias looked at the boy who had carried heaven and hell—and still carried them.
"I'm trying."
Outside, the wrong-coloured sky pulsed once—slow, deliberate.
The Gate beneath the cathedral ruins began to hum.
Golden light leaked upward through the broken stone—faint at first, then brighter.
Lucifer's voice rolled across the city again—soft, boyish, triumphant.
The Gate opens tonight. Come, brother. Bring your power. Help me end the cage. Or watch the child become ash.
Elias stood.
The black-gold sigil at his chest flared—bright enough to cast shadows in the dim cellar.
He looked at the others—Elara, Behemoth, Liora—now mortal again, but still his.
"We go," he said.
"Not to help him."
"To end this."
Abaddon laughed—low, satisfied, inevitable.
Finally.
The boy who had once refused now carried four primordials in one body.
And the world—already tearing—felt the shift.
The end was no longer coming.
It was walking toward it.
End of Chapter 32