There were no stars.
Not in this part of the Grand Magic Zone.
Just a sky like rotted parchment, sagging and veined, weeping strands of ash that never touched the ground. Kael walked through it barefoot, his blood soaking the earth with every step. The forest had long since died behind him, replaced by bone trees with tendons for bark and teeth for leaves.
Still, he walked.
Not because he wanted to.
But because stillness was death here.
His skin peeled in places. His bones clicked with each movement. His left arm was gone, torn from him in the fight against the Judge of Chains. And yet, the rune scars along his ribs pulsed faintly, keeping him tethered to the thin thread of life. The grimoire floated behind him like a silent wraith, still blank… but hungrier.
"Don't stop."
The words weren't his.
They came from the magic.
No—from within it.
Freedom whispered. Control screamed.
Kael's breaths were shallow.
His body was broken, stitched together by raw will and something worse.
But the Zone wasn't done with him yet.
Ahead, the land dropped off into a crater shaped like a screaming mouth, filled not with lava, but obsidian thorns, each taller than towers, slick with ichor that burned on contact with air. At the center was a spire—not built, but grown. A black mass of roots, bone, and flesh wrapped into a tower that breathed.
He stopped at the edge, staring down.
And it blinked.
The crater itself had an eye.
Kael staggered back. Not from fear—but the sound. Not a roar. Not a cry. Just a heartbeat.
BOOM.
BOOM.
The pulse cracked his teeth. Blood ran from his ears. His magic surged to shield him—veins glowing silver and violet as a chain of radiant script formed around his spine like a brace.
Still not enough.
The eye opened wider.
And Kael fell.
Not down—but inward.
---
He awoke in the tower.
Naked. Bleeding. Shackled by roots that weren't roots, but cords of memory. His memories. Every strand pulsed with images:
Him crying in the Witch's Forest.
Him clawing through mud for scraps while others trained.
Him begging someone—anyone—to look at him.
The roots drank it all.
Not just memories.
Identity.
He screamed.
The sound didn't leave his mouth—it returned, entering his ears like fire.
A figure emerged from the black walls. Not humanoid. Not beast. A thing shaped like understanding, dripping black ink that hissed where it fell.
Its body was faceless, but dozens of white eyes blinked along its ribs. It crawled on backwards limbs and whispered in a thousand voices.
"You are becoming."
"You are unchained."
"You are loved… by us."
Kael spat blood.
"What are you?"
The being cocked its head.
"We are what magic left behind when it grew teeth."
It circled him slowly, dragging claws across the ground, forming sigils Kael couldn't comprehend—but somehow already knew.
The thing pressed its skull to Kael's and whispered:
"They will fear you because you make choice sacred again."
Then it bit him.
No warning. No build-up.
Its jaw split in half, and it tore into Kael's chest, eating not flesh—but meaning.
Kael didn't scream.
He focused.
A single word pulsed in his mind, repeated by the core of his grimoire:
"Unbind."
His remaining hand ignited in violet fire.
Chains snapped.
The roots shrieked.
He broke free.
The faceless god-thing turned too late.
Kael's fingers dug into its throat—not to choke it, but to anchor himself as he poured a spell directly into its being.
"Anarchy: Reversal Law."
The creature twisted—inside out, as if reality rejected its shape. Its limbs folded, eyes bled ink, and it crumbled into a puddle that screamed like a nursery full of dying infants.
Kael stood over it.
Shaking. Bleeding.
Alive.
"No more gods. No more order."
He stepped forward, and the tower responded—opening, not like a building, but like a wound splitting wide.
Inside were corpses.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Each one marked with the sigil of the Clover Kingdom.
Knights. Scholars. Even a former captain.
All dead. All piled.
Some still twitching.
Kael's stomach twisted—but not from fear.
From recognition.
They had come here for power.
And died for it.
"So this is what they send their 'chosen' into…"
He walked through them.
Their magic seeped into the air—echoes of final spells, screams etched into mana. And at the center—
A throne.
Made of bones that didn't match.
It wasn't meant for a king.
It was meant for a jailer.
And sitting upon it, waiting…
Was Kael.
Not a reflection.
Not a vision.
An older version—eyes hollow, arms wrapped in chains, with no grimoire.
Kael stepped forward.
"What… is this?"
The older Kael spoke, voice like cracking stone:
"Your end."
The younger Kael blinked.
And realized—
He was inside his grimoire.
This tower. This pit. This hell.
It wasn't the Zone.
It was himself.
The blank pages had finally written back.
And what they wrote was suffering.
The older Kael rose.
"Let's see if you can survive yourself."
Then he attacked.
---
The fight wasn't magical.
It was animal.
Flesh on flesh.
Fists like hammers.
Each blow Kael took shattered ribs. Every hit he landed tore skin from knuckles.
There were no rules here. No laws. Just violence.
His spine cracked. His jaw broke. The older Kael laughed as he ripped his own spine out and used it like a whip.
Kael bled. Coughed teeth.
Then—he remembered.
He wasn't here to fight.
He was here to change.
He let the pain in.
Let the suffering mold him.
And whispered:
"Reforge."
The magic didn't burst.
It boiled.
Chains of light and shadow erupted from his flesh, forming armor that screamed as it latched to bone. His left arm reformed—not human, but chain-wrapped sinew glowing with runes.
Kael struck once.
And the older version exploded into a cloud of screaming glyphs.
The throne cracked.
The tower burned.
And the grimoire…
Turned its first page.
A single phrase written in ash:
"I am my own end."
---
He awoke outside the crater.
The ash was gone. The trees around him were dead, bowing toward him as if in prayer.
And far—very far—a presence stirred.
In the Black Bulls' hideout, Yami Sukehiro's sword hummed.
His eyes narrowed.
"Not devil magic."
He lit a cigarette.
"Something worse."
And in a deeper place, where gods go to rot, something else laughed.
Not at Kael.
But in welcome.
---
I have done my best in writing this, there soo many things gone unexplained, for now, cause if i reveal everything right now, you guys won't have anything to wait for later.....it won't be fun to read like that, right....so read the upcoming chapters, shower me with power stone, elevate this novel.....please
Thank you for reading