The soot-choked air of Forgemire did not taste of liberation; it tasted of suspicion.
Kael looked out from the high balcony of the Seventh Nation's citadel. Below, the city hummed with the rhythmic, mechanical heartbeat of the foundries, but the spirit of the people was muted. They had accepted him, yes—they wore his iron ring in their hearts as they did on their banners—but love was a far-off shore. To the world, Noelle had been a monster. To Forgemire, he had been Noelle Silverstone: a man of gentle speech and soft smiles who had promised them an age of industrial glory.
To the citizens, Kael was not a hero; he was a catastrophe who had "saved" them from a doom they never felt coming. He was a jagged shard of glass forced into a wound that hadn't yet begun to bleed.
The Visit of the Archive
A soft, deliberate footfall echoed against the cold stone behind him. Kael didn't turn. He knew the presence.
Neith stepped into the light, her small stature belying the ancient weight in her eyes. Built like a child, with skin as smooth as porcelain, she looked like a doll lost in a fortress. But her mind was a labyrinth of a thousand years, an archive of everything that had ever been or would be.
"It is quite the irony, isn't it?" Neith said, her voice a melodic chime that cut through the low drone of the furnaces. She leaned against the railing, looking out at the smog. "To be standing within the very walls where the man who fooled me resided. I was chasing an evil mastermind across the globe, scouring the dark corners of the rogue provinces, and all the while, he was right under my nose. Taking notes. Probably laughing at the intelligence reports I so meticulously filed."
Kael turned his gaze to her, his brown eyes weary. "He's dead now. The notes have burned."
"And yet the ash remains," Neith replied softly.
The Peak of Power
Kael tightened his grip on the stone railing. "Neith... something happened during the slaughter. In the lair." He paused, the memory of the blood-slicked floor rising in his mind. "When I was fighting the five hundred, I was flickering. I went in and out of the Emperor State. I felt the Saint State take hold—the heat was unbearable. But for a split second, I went higher. It was a level even more destructive than anything I've felt. It was like I was no longer Kael."
Neith's expression shifted, the playful glint in her eyes replaced by a sharp, clinical focus. "Did it feel as though your body was moving on its own? As if you were a passenger in your own skin?"
Kael blinked, surprised. "Yes. How do you know that?"
Neith walked slowly around him, her small hands clasped behind her back. "Do you know why Harold is the strongest? It is not merely because he is a captain. It is because he is beyond the Emperor or Saint State. These states are ranked with a precision that few understand."
She stopped, looking up at him with the gaze of a thousand-year-old deity. "First, there is the Emperor State. It is raw, vulgar power. Your mana becomes so dense it manifests as a visible aura, an insane amount of energy that suffocates the air around you. Above that is the Saint State.
Here, your appearance changes. You become a conduit for your magic. A fire mage will be completely shrouded in flames, a being of light too bright for ordinary eyes to behold."
She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "But then, there is a state above that. The Elemental State. You do not just use magic; you become it. You lose the vessel of the flesh and become a living phenomenon of fire, earth, water, or wind. And above that... the apex. We call it the God State."
The Burden of Divinity
Kael stared at her, the sheer scale of her words making the citadel feel small. "How can you possibly know this? These are myths. Stories told to keep mages humble."
Neith offered a sad, thin smile. "I know this, Kael, because I have reached the God State myself. I am Neith, the Goddess of Knowledge. I am not a fighter—I do not wield the sword or the flame—but I deal in the absolute. I was born with this state. It is the core of my being."
Kael let out a sharp, mocking huff, his lip curling. "Must be nice. To be born at the finish line. To be so privileged while the rest of us have to bleed for every scrap of power."
Neith didn't take offense. She merely looked at her small, pale hands, her eyes reflecting a profound, ancient exhaustion.
"Privilege?" she whispered, her voice like the rustle of dead leaves. "It is a curse, Kael. To know everything is to feel nothing for the first time. To be a 'god' is to be the only person in the room who knows exactly when the ceiling is going to fall."