The dust had yet to settle. The divine radiance that once bathed the city had dimmed, replaced by flickering torches and the strained breaths of terrified onlookers. The people of the empire, who had once knelt in reverence, now cowered in silence. An Archon had fallen—not in rumor or tale, but before their very eyes.
Seraphiel lay at the heart of the imperial courtyard, embedded within a crater born of divine fury turned against him. His celestial armor—once unmarred and radiant—was now a shattered husk, cracked and glowing faintly with leaking golden ichor. Every breath he drew came with effort, each motion sending ripples of divine instability through the very air.
He struggled to rise.
Not since the forging of the heavens had Seraphiel known pain. Not since the wars against the Abyss had he tasted fear. Yet now, both coiled inside him like serpents, their fangs sunk deep into what remained of his certainty.
Above him, standing with effortless poise on the balcony of the Imperial Palace, Kael observed.
No cheers greeted him. No fanfare. Just silence—deep, profound, and suffocating. The empire held its breath, unsure whether to fall to its knees or flee into the night.
Kael's voice broke the quiet like the edge of a blade.
"This is the power of the divine?" he asked, his tone casual, even amused. "I must say... I expected more."
Among the gathered court—the nobles, generals, priestesses, and the surviving advisors—no one dared answer. Their beliefs had fractured the moment Kael had raised his hand and caught Seraphiel's spear of judgment as if it were nothing more than a gust of wind.
Below, in the crater, Seraphiel's fingers clawed against the cracked marble. He forced himself upright with trembling arms. One wing hung limp behind him, shredded and stained. The other flared weakly with divine light. He glared at Kael—not with righteous fury, but with something foreign, something terrifyingly human.
"You dare mock the will of the heavens?" he hissed.
Kael stepped down from the balcony, descending without haste. Every movement was measured, every step a declaration of dominance. As his boots touched the courtyard stones, the very ground shimmered, reality bending subtly around him.
"The heavens?" Kael repeated. "Tell me something, Seraphiel. Are you truly their will… or their weapon?"
The Archon's grip tightened around his broken spear. Even with fractured limbs, even with divine essence leaking from his wounds, Seraphiel radiated the dying light of a star still trying to burn.
"There is no higher order than the gods. They are the architects of all. You are an aberration."
Kael's expression did not change. If anything, his curiosity seemed genuine.
"Strange," he murmured, circling the crater like a predator. "You speak of architects, yet you've no understanding of the foundation beneath your own throne."
And then—without fanfare—he moved.
A blur. A ripple in time. Seraphiel's body tensed—
Kael was behind him.
"Then why do you bleed?" Kael whispered into the Archon's ear.
Seraphiel reacted instantly, divine instincts honed over eons taking hold. He spun, his broken spear lashing outward with the speed of a dying sun. The weapon howled through the air, tearing apart matter as it moved.
It struck empty space.
Kael reappeared before him, untouched.
Then came the pain.
Kael's hand gripped Seraphiel's wrist, halting his next strike mid-air. He squeezed—not with effort, but with intent. Bones forged in celestial fire cracked under his grasp. The Archon howled, and the world shuddered at the sound—a scream that rippled through existence itself.
The weapon fell.
"You're not gods," Kael said, his voice calm. "You're monuments. And I do not leave monuments standing."
In one swift motion, Kael tore Seraphiel's arm from its socket.
Golden ichor sprayed across the stonework, burning and hissing as it struck. The courtyard steamed, bathed in silence and disbelief. The Archon collapsed to his knees, swaying under the weight of agony he was never meant to feel.
Kael stared down at the severed limb, studying it like a scholar examining a failed hypothesis. He tossed it aside without ceremony.
The sky above had grown dark—not with clouds, but with withdrawal. The heavens, which had opened in thunder and light, now offered nothing. No rescue. No retaliation.
Kael crouched.
He lifted Seraphiel's chin with a single finger.
"Look at me," he whispered. "I want you to remember this face. Not as your destroyer—but as your teacher."
The Archon blinked, his body shaking, his mind reeling from what he had witnessed. He had seen mortals rise, fall, sin, redeem. But never this. Never someone who walked between reality and myth, wielding neither prayer nor prophecy—but sheer, sovereign will.
"Run," Kael said. His voice was not loud, yet it rang across the empire. "Run back to your gods. Crawl, if you must. And tell them what happened here."
He leaned in closer, eyes burning with something ancient and terrible.
"Tell them I am coming."
For the first time since the Age of Ascension, an Archon fled.
Seraphiel vanished in a burst of unstable light, torn between shame and survival. A pulse of divine shockwave echoed upward—his retreat a signal to the heavens.
The courtyard was silent once more. The nobles dared not speak. The soldiers dared not move.
Kael stood alone.
No longer as a man who challenged the divine—but as one who had humbled it.
He turned to the gathered court. His gaze swept across the trembling elite of the empire—those who had once ruled with titles, now stripped bare in the presence of something far beyond them.
"Spread the word," he said. "The gods are not to be feared."
No one answered.
He looked to the sky, and for the first time, the heavens did not look down.
They watched—hesitant. Uneasy.
For the first time since the world was formed... they hesitated.
To be continued...