The girl was dying.
Kael could feel it in the way her breath caught between words, the shimmer of her soul thinning like morning mist. Her body had already begun to collapse under the weight of the summoning—she had burned everything to call him here.
And yet, she had not begged again.
She simply knelt there, silent, watching him like someone trying to remember the shape of a dream before waking.
Kael stood before her for a long time. Then, without a word, he extended two fingers toward her chest and drew a shape in the air.
A rune flickered into existence—ancient, forgotten, and banned in most dimensions.
The Rune of Transferal.
Not a healing spell. Not a resurrection. A rerouting of fate.
The girl gasped as golden light sank into her skin. Her wounds didn't vanish—but her body stabilized. Her remaining lifespan re-threaded into something steady, if fragile. She would live.
But not here.
Kael stepped back and opened a gateway with a single twist of his wrist. A shimmer tore through the air like silk being split.
On the other side was a mountain monastery—abandoned, quiet, defensible.
He'd seen it on his way through the veil. Remote. Forgotten.
Safe.
"You'll wake there," he said. "No one will find you. Not yet."
The girl looked up, her voice hoarse. "Why… help me?"
Kael paused. His expression didn't change, but his voice softened.
"You gave everything you had. That deserves survival."
She reached out. "What should I do now?"
Kael's eyes met hers—ancient, weightless, and unreadable.
"When I return," he said, "this world may already be ash. So build something before it burns."
Then he touched the rune, and she vanished.
Gone in a flicker of light, carried across miles of scorched land to a place where she could begin again.
Perhaps she would meditate. Perhaps she would mourn.
Or perhaps, someday, she would remember the man she summoned.
And build a world in his shadow.
_____
The wind screamed as Kael stepped out of the ruins and into a charred wasteland.
Mountains in the far distance had collapsed, twisted like melted wax. The sky was a permanent dusk—grey and smudged with ash, where the sun hovered like a wounded eye. Black lightning danced quietly across the horizon, flashing over the broken remains of what might once have been a capital city.
There were no birds. No insects. Not even the sound of trees rustling.
This world was not dying.
It was already dead—it just hadn't realized it yet.
Kael inhaled. The mana here was fractured, like glass. It resisted forming into normal flows. No wonder the summoning ritual had failed to anchor him. The leylines were splintered. Spells here would work... wrong.
That would be a problem—for anyone else.
Kael's fingers flicked, testing the current.
Pulse. Drift. Catch. Anchor.
Even broken mana obeyed him. It always did.
Behind him, the girl still knelt at the edge of the ruined temple. She hadn't moved since he left her, as if afraid that any sound might break the illusion of safety.
Kael didn't look back.
He never did.
As he walked, the ground changed. Grass turned to soot. Buildings appeared—torn, melted, or half-submerged in glowing fault lines. The land was unstable. Earthquakes had shattered entire towns, leaving spires poking out of the dirt like broken ribs.
Then he saw them: bodies, blackened and petrified.
Not burned by fire—but by something far worse.
Divine backlash.
Kael narrowed his eyes.
It was rare to see. When a god dies violently, the faith anchored to them doesn't vanish. It turns volatile—consuming everything connected to it.
Entire civilizations had been erased in minutes that way.
He paused in front of one statue-like corpse. Its arms were raised as if in prayer. Its eyes had melted to hollow sockets.
"...Your god died screaming," Kael murmured.
Further down the slope, remnants of a battlefield appeared. Scorched banners still fluttered, half-buried in ash. Magic runes were scorched into the dirt—defensive formations. Dozens of them.
Kael walked through the middle of it all like a ghost.
And in the center of the war zone, he finally found something alive.
A boy. Maybe twelve.
He was sitting beside a corpse, poking it with a stick like it was a toy.
Kael tilted his head. "You're not afraid?"
The boy didn't flinch. He didn't even look up.
"Afraid of what?" he asked. "The gods are dead. The monsters ate everyone else. You're just another traveler."
Kael studied him.
There was no aura around the child. No trace of mana. No soul-flame. He wasn't invisible—he was empty. Like someone had scooped out his existence and left the body running on echoes.
"How are you alive?" Kael asked.
The boy finally looked up.
His eyes were black. Not metaphorically. Not like some dark magic corruption. They were literally, completely, empty—pits of void that stared back.
"Because I'm not from here," the boy said.
Kael froze.
For a moment—just a moment—the wind stopped.
"…Explain," Kael said quietly.
"I came with you," the boy whispered. "Through the circle."
Kael's mind sharpened. He hadn't sensed anyone else passing through the summoning veil. His defenses should've caught even a god's breath—but he hadn't noticed this boy at all.
That was... impossible.
"Who sent you?" Kael asked.
The boy smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You did."
Kael's hand twitched. Just a fraction. Enough to light a glyph behind his wrist.
The boy laughed.
"Don't bother. You can't kill me. Not yet."
Kael's expression didn't change. But inside, his thoughts were racing.
This wasn't a human child. This wasn't even a normal creature. It was a message. A vessel. A placeholder.
Something—or someone—was using it to speak to him.
"You've walked too long, Kael of Irides," the boy said softly. "You think you're the only one aware of the pattern? Of the summoning code? You're not alone anymore."
Kael took a slow step forward. "Then tell me—who are you?"
The boy's smile widened.
"I am the answer to your final question."
Then he vanished.
Not faded. Not teleported.
Erased.
One moment there. The next, nothing. No mana displacement. No dimensional ripple.
Kael stood perfectly still for a long time.
Then he turned to the corpse the boy had been sitting beside.
It was recent. Maybe an hour old.
Eyes wide. Mouth open.
Burned into the chest was a sigil—a glyph Kael recognized.
It had been carved into the ceiling of his tower.
The same one that had dragged him here.
Someone had used the same summoning circle from his world.
But they weren't in this world.
They had bounced the spell off it.
A relay. A reflection.
Someone was trying to manipulate the summoning pattern from outside the spell itself. That should be impossible. The Summoning Code was supposed to be absolute—unchangeable.
Unless…
Unless they were using Kael himself as an anchor.
They weren't summoning Kael.
They were summoning through him.
His body wasn't the target.
His existence was.
Kael closed his eyes.
"…You finally learned how to use me."
Then he laughed—soft, sharp, bitter.
He laughed until the mountains trembled.