In the deepest reaches of the Abyss—where existence contorted, where thought twisted into madness, and where time itself refused to tread—she stirred.
The Queen of the Abyss, born before language, sat upon a throne of writhing shadows. Not sculpted. Not forged. Birthed—from agony, from secrets, from the dying breath of lesser gods.
Her presence alone warped reality.
Mountains of bone melted into rivers of whispering flame. The skies screamed above her, not with thunder, but with the prayers of long-dead angels clawing for forgotten salvation. And all around her, the Abyss... trembled.
It had never done so before.
The void itself held its breath as her eyes—twin orbs of molten crimson—turned, slowly, deliberately, toward the unseen ripples coursing through creation.
Something had changed.
Something her beloved son had touched.
No.
Something he had claimed.
The Abyss had always been chaotic, feral, untamable. Even the gods feared to gaze too long into its depths, lest they be consumed by truths not meant for their kind. But now... even the Abyss itself hesitated.
The Queen raised one hand—delicate fingers trailing threads of entropy.
Reality screamed.
The veil between realms shattered like fragile crystal.
Visions surged before her:
—Kael, seated at the obsidian war table, unfazed, untouched by forces that should have reduced him to ash.
—The Empress, watching him not as a ruler watches her subject, but as a woman watches a storm she cannot command.
—Selene, still torn between who she was and who Kael had remade her to be.
—And then... Vael'Tor.
The instant his shape emerged—a form that defied sense—the Abyss recoiled. Shadows flinched. The throne groaned beneath her. Even the formless horrors that prowled her dominion howled and fled.
For the first time in eons, the Queen of the Abyss felt it.
Concern.
"You reach into places even I dare not tread, my beloved son," she whispered.
Her voice was velvet and ruin.
It echoed through every layer of her domain—across fallen kingdoms buried in Abyssal nightmares, through the bones of dead stars caught in the weave of her dress.
And then...
She smiled.
Not with amusement.
Not with joy.
It was a hungry smile. A possessive one. The smile of something ancient and infinite, who had waited too long for someone worthy.
A love so unyielding, so consuming, that the cosmos itself could not break it.
"Then I shall ensure that nothing... not gods, not voids, not even the End Itself, will take you from me."
With a single breath, she gave command.
The Abyss moved.
In the Celestial Realm...
Alarms screamed across the skies.
Light fractured. Wings trembled. The Archons—immortal guardians of divinity—gathered at the edge of creation.
The Throne of Divinity pulsed with fear.
The gods had not known fear in millennia.
Now, it ruled them.
"Vael'Tor has awakened," Eryndor said. His serpentine form coiled around the shattered columns of the Celestial Hall. Once arrogant, now... subdued.
His voice no longer held disdain. Only unease.
"It was not summoned. It was drawn," he continued. "By a mortal."
The High Lord of the Pantheon said nothing. His radiance had dimmed. Where once his light blinded all, now shadows clung to the edges of his divine robes.
"Kael," another whispered. The name felt like blasphemy.
"He is the cause."
"He is the threat."
"He must be destroyed."
But none moved.
Because he had done the impossible.
He had spoken to Vael'Tor.
And returned.
Unbroken.
In the mortal realm...
The war chamber was a graveyard of silence.
Kael sat still, his gaze unreadable. Shadows clung to the edges of his form. His golden eyes no longer simply observed—they pierced. As though he saw beyond.
The Empress stood by his side, arms folded, lips curved ever so slightly. She did not speak. She understood power, and what she saw now in Kael was no longer something one ruled.
It was something one followed—or was consumed by.
Selene stood at the far side, her breath held. Her heart—still human, still tethered to the beliefs of a world ruled by gods—shuddered.
He had faced something that made the divine tremble.
He had not just survived.
He had changed.
"What did you see?" she asked.
Her voice cracked ever so slightly.
Kael's eyes turned toward her.
"Not what I saw," he said, his voice low. Measured. Inevitable. "What I took."
A whisper of dread passed through the generals. A few stepped back.
Even the Empress blinked.
Kael rose, movements fluid, cold, controlled.
"The gods will retaliate," he said. "They must. It's the only way they can convince themselves they still matter."
"The Abyss?" asked one of the old warlords.
Kael's gaze narrowed.
"She's already watching."
He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to.
He turned to the gathered advisors—nobles, killers, mages, commanders—and let silence weigh on them before delivering his command.
"We will not wait."
He paused.
"We strike first."
The Empress's smile returned, wider now. "And where do we begin?"
Kael's smile was thin.
"We start," he said, "with a god's head on a pike."
Far beyond the Empire…
In a forgotten temple, buried beneath sand and shadow, a priest knelt.
White robes. Gold-trimmed. Eyes closed in reverent prayer. He had served the divine since birth.
He had never known fear.
Until now.
A whisper passed through the air—not spoken. Felt.
The priest opened his eyes.
And then… he bled.
A deep gash split his chest—not by blade, not by spell.
By will.
His divine essence—once blessed by the stars—tore away, unraveling like silk caught in fire. He screamed. But no one heard.
Because he was not being killed.
He was being erased.
A voice—Kael's voice—echoed across the now-defiled temple.
"Let the heavens know. I no longer ask."
And just like that...
A god died.
And Kael hadn't even lifted a finger.
In the Abyss...
The Queen watched.
Her fingers danced over nothingness, summoning visions yet to come.
"Strike them," she whispered.
"Strike them all."
And in the screaming silence of her domain, one truth echoed louder than the rest:
Her son had begun his war against the divine.
And the cosmos would drown in the consequences.
To be continued...