The air crackled with raw, untamed power.
For the first time in recorded history, a divine weapon had been shattered by mortal hands.
The fragments of the golden lance spiraled through the sky like dying embers, once vibrant with holy radiance—now reduced to fading motes, swallowed by the storm of Kael's will.
And Kael stood at the center of it all.
Unshaken.
Unmoved.
Unquestioned.
A silence followed that was more deafening than any roar of war.
The Seraphim, once harbingers of divine judgment, hesitated—something they had never done in eons. Their celestial forms hovered midair, wings frozen, eyes wide.
Zareth the Warbringer—leader of the Seraphim, wielder of cosmic wrath—stared down at Kael. His molten gaze narrowed, not in fury, but in calculation.
"You dare defy the will of the High Pantheon?"
His voice was thunder sculpted into language, reverberating across the scorched battlefield and into the hearts of all who still lived.
Kael's smirk was slow, deliberate.
His eyes gleamed with golden defiance.
"Defy?" he repeated, as if the word itself amused him.
"No, Zareth. I simply reject the very foundation upon which your gods built their delusions."
He took a step forward.
The earth cracked beneath his feet.
But it wasn't his strength that caused the rupture—it was his presence. His will radiated outward, rewriting the laws of the world by sheer intent.
Behind him stood Seraphina, her armored form rigid, her breath caught. Beside her, Selene gripped her blade tightly. Even the once-merciless Mircea found herself breathless.
None of them had truly understood until now.
Kael wasn't resisting judgment.
He was forcing the divine to reconsider what judgment meant.
The lesser Seraphim stirred, their blades twitching in hesitant grip. Their wings—once symbols of certainty—fluttered as if caught in an unseen wind of doubt.
For countless ages, they had been avatars of unerring truth.
But now…
They felt something alien. Something blasphemous.
Doubt.
One among them—a six-winged warrior, resplendent in light—stepped forward, his grip white-knuckled around a spear that shimmered with righteousness.
"Blasphemer," he growled. Yet the word trembled.
"Your existence is a corruption. Surrender, and perhaps… perhaps your soul may still be salvaged."
Kael laughed.
Not a chuckle.
Not mockery.
A deep, resonant laugh, as if he'd just heard the most pathetic lie in the world.
"Surrender?" he echoed, stepping forward. "You call me corruption, but look at yourselves—you're trembling. Has your faith ever felt this fragile?"
The Seraph flinched.
And Kael took another step.
The divine stepped back.
Zareth raised his hand.
"Enough."
The sky convulsed at the word.
The clouds churned like boiling oceans. Reality split open with a soundless scream. From the golden rift above, a blade descended—slowly, reverently, as if the world itself bowed before its arrival.
This was no ordinary divine weapon.
This was an edict.
The Divine Edict.
Forged from the Will of the Pantheon, written into the fabric of existence, it wasn't merely a weapon—it was law. A concept given form. A blade that had erased civilizations without drawing blood. That had struck rulers, gods, titans—without ever being blocked.
"The Divine Edict," Seraphina whispered, her face pale.
"That sword… Kael—"
"I know," he said quietly, eyes narrowing.
Zareth seized the hilt.
"By decree of the High Pantheon," he declared, his wings stretching until they blacked out the sun.
"Your existence ends now."
Then he moved.
Faster than lightning.
Faster than causality.
Faster than reality could track.
The world tilted—time paused—and in that moment, any other being would have died.
But Kael was no longer "any other."
A pulse.
Dark, ancient, eternal.
Something primal stirred around Kael. A shadow, not of evil—but of freedom. Of something that refused to kneel even to the stars.
And then—
Kael raised his hand.
And caught the blade.
The Divine Edict—meant to sever fate—met his palm.
The ground quaked.
The sky screamed.
Reality rippled outward, like glass struck by a hammer—but it didn't shatter.
Kael held the blade… and didn't flinch.
Didn't bleed.
Didn't yield.
And slowly…
The Divine Edict cracked.
Time itself seemed to recoil.
The Seraphim froze, wings snapping shut in instinctive fear. Never—not once—had they seen the Edict fail. It was finality made steel. And yet—
Kael stood. Breathing. Smiling.
"Your turn," he whispered.
He squeezed.
The sword of the gods—absolute, eternal, flawless—
Shattered.
Into dust.
The heavens shrieked.
The divine rift above began to collapse, folding in on itself like a wounded beast.
Zareth stumbled back, wings faltering. "Impossible…" he whispered.
"You believe yourselves absolute," Kael said, voice calm. "But absolutes shatter like glass… when confronted with truth."
Far, far away.
Deep within the Abyss, beyond mortal comprehension—
She watched.
The Demon Queen.
Her golden eyes gleamed, her smile wicked and uncontainable.
Seated upon her obsidian throne, surrounded by trembling lords of the Abyss, she leaned forward like a predator watching her mate slaughter a god.
"My beloved," she whispered, a sultry purr curling from her lips.
"You are surpassing even my expectations."
She stood.
The Abyss quaked.
Its black oceans boiled. Its skies turned blood-red. Her aura—lethal, intoxicating—coiled outward like a tidal wave of madness and desire.
"The gods believed they could judge my son?" she asked, voice cold and tender all at once.
"Fools."
She raised a single hand.
And the demon lords fell to their knees.
"Let them summon their edicts. Let them rend the sky and call it divine. I do not care."
Her eyes narrowed, voice now deadly:
"They dared raise a blade against what is MINE."
"Let them learn—"
"Who rules the abyss."
"Who rules the mortal world."
"And soon…"
Her smile turned into something terrifying.
"Who shall rule the heavens."
The Abyss responded.
Not with whispers.
But with war drums.
To Be Continued…