The gods, with all their eternal might, had not come to challenge Kael this time.No, they came as harbingers of something darker, something inevitable.Their return was not the clang of divine thrones shaking, nor the forceful thundering of decrees upon mortal ears.It was something quieter — a whisper carried by the wind, a sigh that reverberated in the very fabric of the world.
Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, was not a creature of fury.But on that day, her face was etched with the sorrow of ages, her eyes filled with an unbearable sadness.Her presence filled the Drowned Temple, its ancient stones trembling as if in mourning for what was about to unfold.
She wept, her tears falling like crystal drops that scattered across the flooded temple floor, casting reflections of the storm outside.Kael, kneeling amid the ruin and the silence of the world, gazed up at her. His heart was heavy with the weight of choices made, of paths that could never be undone.The gods had come — not as conquerors, not as arbiters of fate, but as a warning.A warning for what was to come.
Her voice, once like the keen edge of a blade, now carried the tremor of grief, her words not as commands but as mournful entreaties.
"If you fight him with hatred, you will become him."
The air grew still.The storm outside howled, but inside the temple, there was only a haunting silence.
Kael's breath was ragged, his heart slow in its beat.The words of Athena pierced him, not with the sharpness of steel but with the weight of a truth he had known all along.Iven, the blade of vengeance, was a reflection of everything Kael had fought to escape.And yet, in his pursuit of justice, of peace, Kael had become the very thing he had sworn to destroy.
Hatred — that was the flame Iven carried, the fire that burned within his chest.But Kael, too, had carried that same flame once.He had fought gods, torn apart kingdoms, stood before the immortals themselves.All of it, driven by the desire to build something better, something brighter than the endless war that had consumed the world.But at what cost?
Kael's eyes dropped to the flooded temple floor, where his reflection wavered on the surface of the water, distorted by the ripples of his own turmoil.The gods had given him a warning, but it was not one he could ignore.
His fingers, worn and bloodied from a thousand battles, clenched into fists.He had always walked alone, the weight of peace pressing down upon him like a heavy cloak.Now, facing Iven — facing the man who had been forged in hatred, in darkness — Kael understood what it would mean to fight him.To fight Iven with the same fury that had once driven him to defy the gods was to succumb to that same dark hunger.To become that which he had despised.
Athena's words echoed in his ears, her sorrowful gaze locked upon him, as if pleading for him to understand.But Kael, though weary and scarred, was not broken.
He rose from his kneeling position slowly, the weight of the gods' words heavy in his chest.His movements were deliberate, measured — a man who had felt the burden of the world and had never shirked from it, no matter how great the pain.
Not a king.Not a god.Just a man.
Kael's voice was low, but it carried across the vast temple halls, cutting through the silence like the first crack of thunder before a storm.
"Then I will fight with something greater."
Greater than hatred.Greater than vengeance.Greater than the gods themselves.
What had always set Kael apart was not his strength, nor his defiance, but the heart that beat within him.It was not power that he sought — not the power to rule, not the power to conquer.It was the power to choose.
And it was that choice that set him apart from gods, from kings, from mortals.To choose to walk this world, not as a ruler, but as a man, to carry the weight of sorrow, of regret, and yet to keep moving forward.
Kael stood in the flooded temple, the waters rising around his feet, but he did not falter.He could feel the weight of every god who had ever looked down upon him, the weight of every kingdom he had tried to save, the weight of every life he had touched.
But he was still Kael.Not a god.Not a king.Just a man.
And in that moment, Kael made his final vow:He would face Iven, not with the might of a god, not with the fury of a king, but with the simple, unwavering strength of a man who had seen the depths of both light and darkness, and who had chosen to live.
The gods had warned him, but their voices no longer held the power to sway him.Kael was beyond their reach now.And if he was to face Iven — if he was to fight the darkness that threatened to consume the world — he would do it as he had always done: with his own will, his own heart, and the strength that comes from knowing one simple truth:
To be a man is to choose.
And with that choice, Kael stepped into the storm, ready to face whatever awaited him.