The moment Kael stepped beyond the mortal plane, the world around him did not merely shift—it unraveled.
It wasn't teleportation. It was disintegration.
The Imperial Palace, his allies, the air, the stars—all dissolved like forgotten dreams. Reality itself ceased to hold form, slipping through his fingers like water through a broken chalice.
In its place was an abyss.
But not the Abyss that belonged to demons. No screaming pits of infernal fire, no twisted souls clawing for salvation.
This was older.
Primordial.
A place unrecorded in any divine scroll or demon scripture.
The Forgotten Abyss.
Here, even time had been abandoned. There was no up or down, no ground or sky. Kael stood—or floated—on something that neither supported nor denied him. All around him stretched a void of endless shifting mist, heavy with silence and gravity that pressed more on the soul than the flesh.
Then, a voice.
It didn't come from the air. It wasn't heard. It was simply understood.
"The First Trial begins."
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"You stand in the Forgotten Abyss, where all things lost are devoured. Here, your past, present, and future will be tested. If you do not reclaim yourself, you will be erased from existence."
No mention of victory. Only reclamation. And if failed—erasure.
Not death.
No afterlife. No legacy. No memory.
Cease.
Kael felt a chill slide down his spine—not of fear, but of understanding.
This trial wasn't a battlefield. It was a crucible.
One designed to strip him of everything that made him Kael, until only emptiness remained.
He smiled.
Let them try.
The abyss trembled.
The mist twisted inward, folding like a curtain drawn by unseen hands. Out of the darkness, shapes emerged—flickering, broken, stitched together by fragments of thought and emotion.
Figures began to form.
Some Kael recognized.
Others… he had chosen to forget.
The first stepped forward from the gloom.
A knight, clad in shattered silver armor, the emblem of a forgotten Order barely visible on his chest. His face was bloodless, cracked like porcelain. His eyes glowed dimly with a pale blue fire.
Lucian.
Or rather—a memory of him.
Not the corrupted demon Kael had left bleeding in the Empire.
But the idealized version. The one who had once stood beside Kael with conviction in his eyes and a sword in his hand.
"Kael," the phantom rasped, his voice jagged with betrayal. "You destroyed me."
Kael tilted his head. "I didn't have to."
The knight stepped forward, dragging his rusted blade across the misty ground. It hissed like a wound torn through reality.
"You abandoned everything we fought for. Everything we believed in."
Kael gave a small, almost pitying smile. "You believed. I watched."
Lucian's ghost raised his sword. "You used me."
"I gave you purpose," Kael said simply. "What you did with it was your choice."
The blade flashed.
Kael didn't move.
The sword passed through him like fog through a dream.
Lucian froze, staring at his own intangible weapon.
Kael's voice cut clean through the mist. "You're not him. You're just a fragment of guilt that never belonged to me."
With those words, the specter shattered, unraveling into threads of memory that dissolved into the abyss.
But the trial was not done.
The mist churned again, pulling together a new shape.
This time, it was softer. More human.
A woman stepped forward, barefoot upon the non-ground, her dark hair billowing in a wind that did not exist. Her eyes were wide with sorrow. Her presence was gentle, but her pain radiated like a wound that refused to heal.
Elara.
Kael's smirk faltered.
This was calculated.
Elara didn't accuse him with rage.
She simply looked at him.
And that, somehow, was worse.
"Kael…" Her voice was like the whisper of falling snow. "I trusted you."
Kael remained silent.
Her eyes shimmered. "You let me believe I mattered."
"You did," Kael said at last. "For a time."
She flinched, as if struck.
"You used my love," she said softly.
"I used your loyalty."
Tears rolled down her cheeks. "Then what was I to you?"
Kael's gaze was unreadable. "A piece."
"To be discarded?"
"To be played."
She trembled. "Do you feel nothing?"
Kael's voice was ice. "Feeling is for those who lose."
The abyss trembled beneath them, and Elara's form flickered—half-light, half-shadow.
Then, she stepped forward.
Her fingers brushed his chest.
"You were not always this," she whispered. "You had a soul once."
Kael's hand rose—not in violence, but to grasp her wrist.
He leaned in, his voice low.
"I still have a soul, Elara."
Her breath caught.
"It simply doesn't belong to anyone but me."
And with that, her form dissolved.
The silence returned.
But Kael knew the pattern.
One last trial remained.
And then he saw it.
Himself.
A perfect mirror.
No distortion. No haze.
Kael stood face-to-face with Kael.
The twin version folded his arms. "Do you really think you're ready?"
Kael's eyes glittered. "I've been ready since the day I broke the chain of gods."
The reflection smirked. "You've walked through shadows, deceived kings, broken heroes. But what happens when you become the thing even you can't control?"
Kael didn't flinch. "Then I master it."
"And if it consumes you?"
Kael's smirk returned. "I've never been devoured by anything I didn't first infect."
The reflection chuckled. "Spoken like a tyrant."
Kael shrugged. "Or a god in the making."
The mirrored version leaned closer. "Then tell me, Kael… when the heavens kneel, and the Abyss sings your name, will you still be you?"
Kael's voice was calm. Certain. Infinite.
"I will be something more."
The reflection smiled.
And vanished.
The abyss, now hollow, began to collapse inward like a dying star.
Black gave way to light.
Time snapped back into motion.
Kael opened his eyes.
He was standing exactly where he had been—in the Imperial Palace's grand hall.
To the outside world, not a second had passed.
But to Kael… centuries of identity had just been weighed.
The gods watched from above, their expressions unreadable.
The Archons whispered amongst themselves.
Mircea looked at him with quiet curiosity.
Selene blinked once.
Seraphina stared, trying to read what had changed in him.
Vaelios finally spoke.
"The First Trial is complete."
Kael said nothing.
But deep within his gaze now burned something new.
Not just defiance.
Claim.
One down.
Two to go.
To be continued…