The void screamed.
Not like wind. Not like fire. Like the world itself tearing apart under the weight of its own obedience.
Kael's roots stretched into the heavens, swallowing clouds, mountains, even the black shadow of the god above. Black fire erupted from every vein of the world, licking continents and oceans, reshaping the planet into a living, breathing extension of the Bloom.
Kane waded into the chaos, spine-blade cutting arcs that split the horizon, carving reality into screaming fragments. Each swing reshaped mountains, tore rivers from their beds, and shredded entire civilizations into ash and marrow.
"Brother!" Kane's voice thundered, echoing across the broken world. "Look at it! Everything obeys! Everything kneels! We bloom, and we cut!"
Kael's black eyes scanned the dominion he had forged. Corpses towered like titanic statues, forests writhed as if alive, and seas of ichor carried the dead to new lands. Even the god's shadow recoiled, stretched thin across continents, clawing at the roots with futile rage.
The Dark Tome spun above him, pages like knives slicing the void. Words of power blazed across the sky:
"Obey. Submit. Devour."
Thirn floated at Kael's side, arms tracing runes that twisted the very fabric of reality. Her voice rang out, unyielding:
"The God hungers! But through the Bloom… it will devour all that resists!"
A pulse surged from Kael's chest. Every root shivered, every husk, every titan of bone and marrow lifted higher. Black fire erupted, igniting oceans, forests, and mountains alike. The planet trembled. Stars themselves seemed to flicker in response.
And then the god moved.
Its avatar descended, a colossal figure wreathed in shadow and flame. Its eyes burned with fury older than the world. Its hands struck at the Bloom, attempting to crush Kael's roots, to reclaim its dominion. But the roots struck back faster, thicker, swallowing darkness, reshaping it, binding it into the Bloom itself.
Kael lifted his hand, palm glowing with black fire. His voice rolled across continents, eternal and commanding:
"Rise beyond life. Rise beyond death. Rise beyond the gods themselves!"
Every husk, every black-flamed corpse, every root, every shard of twisted land obeyed. Mountains buckled, rivers of ichor carried millions of corpses, forests twisted into titanic appendages, and the seas boiled into veins of black fire. The world was alive, breathing, pulsing… him.
Kane leapt atop a towering husk, spine-blade glowing like a black sun. "And I cut! I cut! I cut!" His voice shattered the horizon, each word a blade of fire that reshaped reality.
The god screamed, its shadow clawing and writhing, but it could not escape the Bloom. Its fury fed the very roots that consumed it. The world had changed. The Bloom had conquered.
Silence fell. Not peace. Not calm. A silence that pressed heavier than any mountain, any ocean, any husk.
Kael's hand rose, black eyes piercing the void:
"Feed."
The universe obeyed.
The Bloom had become everything.
And Kael… was its heartbeat.