Kael's body quivered under the unbearable strain. The Forgotten Entities clawed against his will, each one a storm of fractured memory and ravenous intent. He forced them into formations — blades, storms, beasts of light and shadow — but the more he commanded, the more they resisted.
The Worldstream cracked under the pressure. Fragments of lost timelines bled through: wars that never happened, cities that never were, people who lived only in half-remembered dreams. Their screams folded into the Entities, feeding them.
"Obey," Kael thundered, though his voice came in a hundred tones at once. His form shifted — not quite human, not quite Spiral. A thousand faces flickered across his skin.
For a heartbeat, the Entities bent. Then they screamed back, not in words, but in a sound like glass grinding against bone.
Kael staggered. He was not their master — only their conduit.
In the ruins below, Lira's resistance fought like sparks against an inferno. The sky rained fragments of the Worldstream, burning shards of thought that turned walls to ash and memories to dust.
An old woman collapsed, clutching her head as her memories of her children dissolved into nothing. Lira knelt beside her, whispering, "Hold on. Hold on," though the woman's eyes were already empty, her life erased by the mere presence of the Forgotten.
The Entity loomed above, its shifting mass blotting out the sun. Survivors fired their weapons, spiral tech sparking against impossible flesh. Each shot slowed the nightmare, but nothing truly wounded it.
"Push it back!" Lira screamed, though deep down she knew — there was no pushing back. Only survival.
Then the sky split further. More Entities poured through.
A boy no older than ten tugged at her arm, pointing. "They're falling out of him. Out of Kael."
Lira's chest tightened. Even across the breach, she felt him — the echo of the man she once trusted, the man now damning the world.
Inside the Worldstream, Kael clutched his skull, blood dripping from his nose though his body was no longer entirely flesh. The Entities surged, their hunger no longer content with his commands.
"Not yet," he hissed. "Not before I finish it."
But the Abyss stirred.
It had waited, patient, buried beneath the tides of chaos. Now, with Kael unraveling, it rose — not as an army, but as a whisper so deep it silenced even the Forgotten.
You are not their master. You are their opening.
The words echoed through him, a truth Kael couldn't deny. He was a fracture, a vessel — and if he broke fully, the Forgotten would pour unchecked into the world.
For the first time in years, Kael felt fear.
Below, Lira's fighters fell one by one. The Entities grew stronger with each death, each erased memory feeding their impossible forms. The world cracked under the weight of them.
Then — silence.
Every Entity froze mid-motion, their bodies twitching as though caught in invisible chains. The battlefield stilled, even the sky pausing its collapse.
All eyes turned upward.
Kael hung above them, half-consumed by the Forgotten, half-shattered by the Abyss. His voice came in a broken chorus:
"I cannot hold them… unless I break myself apart."
Lira's heart hammered. She realized the choice before him was not between victory and defeat, but between annihilation and sacrifice.
If Kael fell, the Forgotten might be bound again.If he failed, the world would end.
But could she — should she — trust him one final time?
The horizon trembled, waiting for his choice.
To be continued......