Fracture Above the Sky
There was no wind here—only fracture.
Above the last breath of the atmosphere, where the stars bled into the firmament, the sky had become a splintered mirror. Shards of cloud and starlight floated like debris from a shattered dome. Gravity didn't work here—not properly. Not anymore.
And Alter stood in the center of it.
His breath was calm, but the glow in his eyes pulsed with sovereign heat. Starsever pulsed at his side like a heart torn from the sun. His golden-scaled armor reflected the unsteady light of a sky on the brink of unmaking. Elemental runes spiraled across his forearms, shoulders, and collarbone—active, alive, and burning.
Across from him, they descended.
Three Demon Gods—each an apocalypse with a name carved in extinction.
The first arrived in silence, a towering, six-armed colossus who hovered without motion. Each of his arms held a blade—a massive cleaver etched with holy sigils, a jagged glaive forged from angel bone, a black iron saber humming with entropy, and others that screamed of slain pantheons.
Each weapon had once belonged to a god.
He wore them like trophies.
The second oozed into being as if memory had conjured him. Draped in chains of null-light, he moved in blurred flickers, impossible to look at directly. Behind him trailed vapor and forgetfulness. Where he stepped, the sky crumbled into white static.
Alter's eyes narrowed. He couldn't recall the name of the valley he trained in as a child.
He grit his teeth. Focus.
Then came the third.
She didn't walk. She glided.
A faceless queen cloaked in a veil of blood-silk, her entire form oozing with reverse time and reverb. Her presence was unbearable—like standing inside the memory of grief. Her voice came in fractured song, not sung but unwound, echoing in reverse syllables that scraped the inside of the soul.
She didn't raise her hand. She didn't move.
And still—the sky above them split.
A black-red crack opened across the stratosphere. Thunder curled backward. Light shimmered sideways. A distant cloud collapsed into a spiral of screaming birds before fading into feathers of nothing.
The world was breaking.
And Alter launched first.
"Divine Heavenly Sword Style…" he whispered, slamming one foot behind him and lifting Starsever to his chest. "Sky Piercer—Celestial Thrust!"
He vanished.
The stratosphere screamed as he pierced it, a golden bolt of force slamming into the six-armed demon's midline. Metal met light. Sparks tore the atmosphere in half. The impact ignited a vacuum implosion that bent space around them.
The Demon King grunted, blocking the strike with two of his sacred blades. The third swung down, forcing Alter to disengage and spiral away.
As Alter turned midair, he snapped his fingers.
Runic Marker: Flame – Detonation Point.
A sigil flared beneath the demon god's knee, erupting upward.
The First staggered. But only for a heartbeat.
From behind—
The chains came.
The Second Demon God appeared in a flicker of static. A web of null-light wrapped around Alter's ankle, tightening with a sound like silence tearing.
And something left him.
He blinked.
Why was he here?
Who had he come to protect?
Selene—
No. There was someone else. A girl? Two…?
He clutched his head as his body spiraled, trying to remember the twins' names.
The Queen sang.
Her voice crawled up his spine and whispered regret. A reverse lullaby turned funeral hymn. It sliced through his draconic defenses and twisted his emotions inside out.
Alter's hand trembled.
In that moment, he saw them—not enemies, but inevitabilities. Titans beyond war. Monarchs of loss and silence. They weren't here to kill him.
They were here to prove he never existed.
The chains tightened.
The Queen's veil shimmered crimson.
But inside his heart, a voice screamed louder.
No.
Alter's foot slammed downward, even in midair.
Runic Marker – Earth: Anchor Pulse.
Reality shook around him. The chains cracked. The song staggered. Color returned to the sky.
And he moved.
"Starfall Sword Style."
Five golden clones burst from his form, spiraling in a formation like a collapsing star. They rained down blade after blade upon the six-armed Demon King—drawing sparks and blood. For every weapon the colossus swung, a Starfall twin slashed back.
Chains lashed outward again—but Alter twisted.
Runic Marker – Wind: Double Blink.
He vanished, reappearing behind the Second God.
His hand lit with lightning.A spear of concentrated storm chi formed.
Sky Piercer: Zero Distance.
He drove the lightning directly into the phantom's chest. The null-light recoiled, howling in static. The chain-bearer's form shivered and imploded halfway before flickering to safety.
Then the Queen moved.
She raised her hands.
And the entire sky shattered.
A spiderweb of reverse sound ruptured the firmament. Stars fell upward. Time reversed around Alter—his clones unmaking themselves in silent flashes. His armor cracked at the ribs. His heartbeat slowed… then staggered… then stopped.
He fell.
Down.
Falling forever.
Selene. The twins. Their names…
He forgot again.
Until—
A whisper.
Inside his soul, the voice of Xian'Zhul.
You are Sovereign. You are Flame. You are Will.
Alter's eyes opened.
His hand clenched.
And he burned.
Seven auras exploded from his body—Draconic Aspects of flame, storm, ice, light, earth, wind, and shadow tearing open like wings of wrath.
His body reformed mid-fall.
He spun upright.
And launched upward once more.
The Demon Gods froze.
Above them, space trembled as Alter rose, surrounded by his draconic storm.
His voice echoed across broken sky.
"This world will not grieve you. I will."
His eyes blazed. And he flew.
Reign of Chaos and Sorrow
They called it the sky. But now it was only a wound.
The upper stratosphere no longer shimmered with blue. It bled. It rippled. Reality folded inward on itself like broken parchment, and gravity surged in waves. Stars blinked in and out. Light stuttered. Echoes didn't return when called.
And in the eye of that wound—Alter rose.
The Sovereign Flame trailed behind him in wild coils, his armor cracked and glowing from within. Seven draconic Aspects surged in rotating arcs around him, forming a crown of elemental divinity. His right arm burned with the marks of ten thousand battles—runic glyphs etched directly into the bone beneath skin.
He no longer remembered his pain.
He only remembered their faces.
Selene. His twins. His disciples. His gods.
And those who would take it all.
The Demon Gods moved again.
The First, the six-armed colossus, raised all blades at once. Time itself pulled taut like a string being drawn back. Every slash would be simultaneous. A god-slayer's storm. A symphony of extinction.
The Second surged in beside him, null-light chains spinning like a collapsing helix. They whistled with the silence of unbirth. Alter's bones screamed as memory erosion surged once more.
The Queen floated back, arms extended, veil fluttering across dimensions. She began to sing again—backward, inward, down into the soul.
This time, she sang of inevitability.
A cry of despair that predated language.
She sang of the death of joy.
Alter did not flinch.
He moved.
"Starsever Form Three – Tempest Step."
His body shattered into wind. A translucent streak of storm light swept upward through the torrent of null-chains. The blades swung—too slow.
He reappeared behind the Second.
Runic Marker: Lightning – Arc Chain Detonation.
Five markers exploded across the demon's back. For the first time, the chain-wrapped god cried out—its voice a distortion of static that shredded a slice of the sky.
But the Queen's song reached him.
And reality buckled.
Alter's ribs cracked. His blood reversed flow. The storm aura around him wavered, then twisted into a shrieking spiral of despair.
His clones—summoned again mid-movement—froze in place, staggered by her hymn.
He dropped to one knee.
He saw—
A memory. Not his own. A burning child, curled beneath a broken altar. A blade too heavy to lift. He saw himself failing. Again. And again.
He saw the end of the world.
He saw—
"NO."
He struck the ground with Starsever.
Runic Marker – Light: Sovereign Pulse.
A radiant shockwave exploded from beneath his knee. The Queen's hymn fractured. Her voice broke on the divine resonance. Time realigned. His breath came back.
He rose.
"Sky Piercer—Heavenfall Rend!"
He leapt, spinning, and drove Starsever upward into the air. The thrust cracked open a column of lightning and wind, slamming the Queen mid-song. Her form bent, flickered, then vanished into blood-silk ribbons before reforming higher in the sky.
Too high.
She wasn't running.
She was inviting him higher.
The Demon King surged forward, all six blades now forming a wheel of carnage. Every slash mirrored a god-killing blow from eons past. Space split before they touched. Dimensional scars radiated from the swing.
Alter activated his final elemental pairing.
Runic Marker – Shadow + Ice: Frost Lock Phantom Gate.
Chains of black ice lanced upward from his feet, catching three of the incoming blades. One clone warped behind the colossus, redirecting another.
Alter dodged the last two and flew straight in.
Their auras collided.
Metal met godsteel.
Starsever shrieked as it deflected the black glaive of entropy. Sparks the size of buildings flared around them. The battle raged upward—each movement launching sonic booms. Clouds disintegrated. The firmament peeled.
Then came the reversal.
The Queen reappeared above him.
Singing again.
This time with feeling.
Each note warped space and pulled forth doubt like a drug. Her melody slowed his heartbeat, cracked his will, and forced his eyes to see truths he had buried.
But Alter had reached his limit.
And chose to go further.
"Demon God Killing Martial Arts."
He whispered it through bloodied lips.
His aura ignited.
Across the Divine Realm, gods turned.
From the Abyss, Val'Zaruun's throne cracked.
Because when Alter moved—
The heavens flinched.
"Strike One—Fist of Ruin."
He launched downward into the Demon King's chest. The colossus blocked, but the impact cracked two ribs and sent the six-armed brute careening backward.
"Strike Two—Heaven-Piercer Step!"
A flash-step into the Queen's veil, bursting through her midline with a spiraling kick. She gasped—for the first time—her song faltering.
"Strike Three—Void Fang Rend."
He spun and clawed across the Null-Light God's throat.
But the Demon King recovered.
And struck back.
All six blades slammed into Alter mid-attack.
Three pierced his side.
One gouged into his back.
The rest sheared his left pauldron from the Sovereignborn Armor.
Blood exploded into zero gravity.
He fell again.
Back down into the storm of clouds, trailing flame and shattered memory.
The Queen, her form unraveling, looked down.
But Alter laughed.
His aura still burned.
"I told you," he rasped.
"I will grieve you."
And then—
He rose again.
Chapter 3 – The Blade King Falls
The sky did not recover.
It screamed.
Each breath of wind now cut sideways through broken dimensions, trailing glimmers of color that didn't belong to mortal eyes. The stars above trembled. The clouds below no longer held shape—twisting into slow, spiraling storms of sorrow and entropy.
And from within that realm of fractured heavens…
Alter moved.
His golden eyes locked onto the one who had struck him—who had impaled him with six god-killing blades forged from an age when Titans still ruled.
The Blade King hovered in place, six muscular arms arrayed around a throne of falling stardust. Each weapon it carried shimmered with ancestral death—twin scimitars that once felled the Wind Seraphim, a jagged broadsword etched with the screams of a slain Forge God, and a curved glaive bathed in the spectral memory of a fallen Flame Monarch. The final blade—a straight longsword blackened at the hilt—had no origin.
It only whispered one thing into the void:
"Everything dies."
Alter, floating in a hunched position, twitched his right fingers. Blood slipped from his mouth. The gashes on his side hissed steam as Sovereign Flame stitched them closed—too slowly.
Starsever pulsed once.
"Begin marker placement," Alter breathed.
The seven Aspects flared behind him like solar wings.
He disappeared.
In an instant, his form split into five radiant afterimages—each clone peeling away from the original at lightspeed, vanishing across the battlefield with precision only a god-killer could comprehend.
Runic Marker – Flame, Lightning, Earth, Wind, Shadow.
Each clone struck with the flat of a long blade—shaped in the image of Starsever—directly against the edge of space.
Markers flared across the battlefield like celestial script.
The Blade King reacted.
It rotated its core, arms moving like the arms of a divine clock. Six blades spun outward in a perfect, deathwheel formation.
Alter dove.
The first scimitar slashed diagonally—air erupted in streaks of vacuum pressure, detonating in a wave.
He deflected it.
Sky Piercer: Zero Distance!
In mid-slide, Alter thrust forward at near-zero range. The piercing wind embedded the blade into the demon's outer carapace, cracking bone and exoshell.
But the King didn't fall.
Its second arm shot forward—curved blade cleaving a sideways rift through time.
Alter vanished again, phase-shifting with Tempest Step.
He reappeared behind it—
"Marker: Heaven Pulse Detonation."
He clapped both hands together, triggering three flame-lightning markers beneath the Blade King's feet.
An explosion tore upward like a divine volcano.
The demon staggered.
For a moment.
Then it roared—and the roar formed a sword.
A spiritual construct blade shot forward—piercing through Alter's shoulder from behind, grazing his collarbone as blood trailed out in a stream of crimson heat.
The impact forced him downward.
He spiraled, smashing through layers of sky fog, then halted mid-air, coughing.
It's learning, he realized.
Each time he struck, the Blade King adapted. Its weapons didn't move randomly. They remembered. They recorded his movements and forged counters mid-swing.
This wasn't a brute.
It was a master.
He wiped the blood from his lips.
"Then I'll stop giving it patterns."
He gritted his teeth.
"Life Sprinkler."
His form multiplied again—three to the sides, one behind. Then each clone blinked into position.
The sky exploded into chaos.
Starfall Sword Style – Chain Echo.
Thirty-six golden phantoms now blitzed the Blade King from all angles—each strike a cascading echo of the previous one, folding time and blade into layered death. Wind screamed. Flame roared. Lightning and shadow danced through the firmament.
The King reeled under the barrage—slashing wildly now, unable to calculate the angles fast enough. Sparks erupted as godsteel struck demonbone, as reality shivered with the weight of too many attacks in too short a time.
But the Blade King wasn't finished.
It roared.
And then—
All six arms slammed together.
Forming a spiral.
Abyss Spiral: Death Bloom Form.
From its chest bloomed a demonic flower of blades. Each petal a memory of a god slain. Each rotation formed a sphere of obliteration.
The clones were shredded.
The entire left quadrant of the sky ruptured, collapsing inward into a cyclone of obliteration.
Alter shot back—limping mid-air.
It was too fast.
Too vast.
Too smart.
His heart thudded.
But so did something else.
Behind his eyes, he saw them—
Selene's smile.
His twins' tiny hands.
And every Dragoon who dared to stand because he showed them how.
His blade flared.
"Fine," he said, spitting blood.
"I'll show you what a god-slayer really looks like."
His stance dropped.
His left hand clenched the pommel.
His right hovered behind.
Breath slowed.
Time cracked.
He whispered.
"Demon God Killing Martial Arts—Combo Initiation."
The sky split with the sound of war drums.
The Blade King froze.
And then—
Strike I – Fist of Ruin.A downward punch straight into the demon's inner guard, cracking three ribs and hurling it backward.
Strike II – Heaven-Piercer Step.He phase-shifted above it mid-fall and drove his heel into its shoulder joint.
Strike III – Void Fang Rend.A clawed slash through the demon's abdomen, tearing space open within its core.
Strike IV – Bloodlash Howl.A spiraling kick that echoed with sonic resonance, throwing the Blade King's formation out of sync.
Strike V – Soulbreaker Dive.Alter descended, elbow-first, into the demon's chest—targeting the demon core hidden beneath its godsteel cage.
Strike VI – Graviton Sever.He lifted with both arms, ripping the demon upward and pinning it into the collapsing sky.
Strike VII – Hellpulse Eruption.Chi surged from his fists—directly into the wound. The demon's skin bubbled, cracked—
—and burst.
But it still lived.
Barely.
Its six arms flailed. Its central eye opened in panic.
Alter closed his hand.
Strike VIII – Shadowbane Twister.A full rotation. His blade reappeared. He spun mid-air and unleashed a sweeping kick infused with divine will.
A ring of light formed.
The final cut landed.
The Blade King's scream never finished.
Its core—half-cracked—split in two.
The explosion that followed engulfed the stars.
And as the storm died, only Alter hovered there—bleeding, panting, triumphant.
He looked at the remaining two gods above—Null-Light and the Queen—and raised Starsever with one hand.
"I'm still here."
Chapter 4 – Chains That Swallow Memory
Reality did not break. It forgot.
In the upper stratosphere where stars blurred and wind no longer carried sound, the second Demon God descended in a silence so perfect it devoured. No name followed this entity—only the knowing that something had been erased to make room for it. Its form was bound in chains of null-light, every link a spectral tether that hissed against the divine order. Around its head coiled halos of obsidian mist, each slowly turning against the other like memories grinding into dust.
It did not walk through the sky. It hovered. Each motion displaced thought itself. Where it passed, mortals below forgot their own names. Divine scribes misplaced scripture mid-recital. In one monastery, monks wept as the faces of their ancestors vanished from the murals they had painted for centuries. It was not destruction. It was consumption—of memory, of history, of meaning.
And before it now… stood Alter.
His breaths came slow, controlled—but his shoulders tensed the way one did when facing a blade not yet drawn. His draconic aura surged to meet the pressure, gold and fire rising around him, but the chains responded instantly. One twitch—and three of his memories vanished in a blink.
He staggered slightly.
"What… was…" he murmured.
Selene's voice, for a moment, was gone. The mountain where they kissed before the war—gone. The names of the Dragoons—blurred.
The chains pulsed.
A second wave came, spiraling outward in a spiral of unlight. Alter slammed Starsever into the spatial veil, carving an emergency rupture of lightning just in time to sever the incoming strike. Memory loss halted… barely. His golden eyes narrowed.
"You're the one who takes," he said lowly, voice barely audible over the storm of magic reeling behind them. "Not power. Not blood. But… self."
The Demon God of Chains did not speak. It did not need to. In its presence, clarity peeled away. The name "Solien" cracked in Alter's mind like a mirror. He grit his teeth.
No.
Not this.
With a growl, he shot forward—exploding through the clouds like a cannon of light. Starsever screamed with arcane pressure, its blade now wrapped in Sovereign Flame and Shadowcoil. He slashed wide—
The Demon God turned.
Chains moved.
Each one struck out as a ripple through dimension. Not physical whips but conceptual edits, severing parts of existence like editors slashing through a script. Each time Starsever touched one, Alter saw himself flicker—memories threatened, faces turning blank.
He couldn't win in a drawn-out clash.
"Time fracture—Shura Pulse, Frame Collapse!"
Alter's form burst into four consecutive after-images, each one moving faster than the mind could register. He appeared behind the Demon God, then to the side, then above—and then directly below it, driving Sky Piercer: Zero Distance straight into the core mass of the entity.
For a brief moment, light burst.
The chains stopped.
He saw its mask crack—not a face, but an orb of shifting, weeping eyes. A sound came from it like the scream of a mother forgetting her child's face. And then—retribution.
The chains swarmed.
Thousands. They screamed from the void, erupting into star-patterns, then coiling inward like tendrils of anti-divinity. Alter raised his arm, golden glyphs flaring across his forearm. "Heaven's Dismantle—Form Ten!"
Twin palm strikes forward—pressure-point detonations aimed at divine anchors.
Chains recoiled—but not all.
Three struck true.
One wrapped around his leg. Another his chest. A third—his temple.
The world blinked black.
He forgot how he got here.
Then—
A whisper. A woman's voice.
"You are the Sovereign. My Sovereign."
Selene.
Her voice. Pure. Strong. Carving through the dark.
He roared back into awareness, energy blasting outward in a pillar that split the clouds. The chains shattered from his body in an explosion of white-gold, cascading down like radiant ash.
"You won't take them," Alter growled, eyes alight with fury. "I'll remember for all of them. For every soul you tried to erase."
He lunged forward.
And this time, he moved with memory. Every strike, every cut, was not technique—but story. He recalled the Dragoons' first day. He recalled Kaedros' sighs. He recalled Takayoshi's words, Seraphina's tears. Every motion brought the truth of their existence against the falsity of the chains.
"Fifth Strike—Soulbreaker Dive!"
His elbow crashed downward with divine pressure, cracking through the Demon God's shell. Light spilled.
"Seventh Strike—Hellpulse Eruption!"
His fist embedded itself into the core, igniting fire within its endless hollow.
And then, the finishing blow:
"Fourteenth—Celestial Vein Rupture!"
A surge of force drilled upward into the Demon God's mana channels—collapsing its capacity to defend. Its chains snapped and unspooled, writhing in panic. For the first time—it trembled.
The sky overhead blinked white.
Below, the world remembered again.
On the ground, a child who had forgotten his sister's name cried out, sobbing with joy as the memory returned. In a temple, forgotten chants rose once more.
Alter didn't give it a chance to retaliate.
"Seventeenth Strike… Sovereign Fang Collapse."
He leapt. Light gathered behind him. His body became a meteor of sovereign will.
He slammed down.
The sky broke.
Clouds parted from the force. The Demon God's body tore open, unraveling in slow rings of dissipating memory. Chains fell limp and disintegrated. Its crown of null-light shattered—revealing only a blackened core, pulsing faintly.
Alter stood over it. Breathing hard. Smoke rising from his shoulders.
The battle wasn't over.
He looked to the east.
The third Demon God had not moved.
Not yet.
But she had watched—and now her veil lifted.
A song began.
Backwards.
And every god in heaven turned their eyes in terror toward the faceless queen descending at last.
Certainly. Here is Chapter 5 – The Queen Without Eyes
The stratosphere trembled—not from thunder, but from the absence of all things. Where just moments ago divine light had broken across the sky in radiant defiance, now there remained only silence. Not peace, nor calm—but the oppressive hush of grief made manifest.
She arrived without fanfare.
No portal. No eruption. No scream.
Only a blood-silk veil descending through broken clouds, gliding weightless as if the air dared not resist her. It trailed a path of unraveling light—turning color gray, draining the pulse of existence from everything it touched. The wind stilled. The heat died. And somewhere across the sky, a single star flickered out.
She did not need a name. She was known. She was sorrow.
The Faceless Queen.
Draped in elegance woven from mourning itself, her form was unreadable. No eyes, no limbs, no crown. And yet… she sang. Not with voice, but with vibration—a song carried in reverse, unraveling time with every word that should never be heard. Those below who listened… began to forget why they fought.
In the Divine Realm, dozens of gods collapsed to one knee. Not from pain. But from sorrow they could not explain. Some wept. Others grew silent, unable to remember who had died to bring them here. Selene gasped, cradling the twins tighter. One of them grasped her trembling fingers, grounding her in the present. Solien stood still, expression unreadable, lips parting as he whispered, "The Queen without Eyes. Despair's eternal vessel."
Above it all, Alter hovered alone. His breathing shallow, his armor cracked in five places. Blood flowed freely from a wound along his ribs. One eye was darkened, vision flickering, but his grip on Starsever held firm. He stared upward as the veil approached, his golden slit pupils reflecting the red tapestry of her descent.
He whispered, "I know what you are."
And somehow, he did. Not from memory. But from pain. Ancient pain. He remembered a field not his own—a time long forgotten when the Queen had walked among dying gods and bade them remember what it meant to grieve. Not to die—but to mourn.
Alter clenched his fists. "Then I'll bury you in flame."
Seven elemental markers ignited around him in starburst formation—flame, lightning, wind, light, crystal, shadow, gravity. Then he moved. Clones burst outward in perfect vectors, each one poised to strike from a different angle.
But she raised no hand. Instead, the air wept.
Every clone halted mid-charge. Not by force—but emotion. Each experienced a separate illusion—Talia screaming as she fell, Vellmar consumed in fire, Rhed crushed under a demon god's shadow. Selin's blade broken. Elira's voice gone. Selene lying in ruin, her eyes still open, her hand outstretched.
They shattered.
Not from damage. From despair.
Alter hovered in stunned silence, sweat beading across his brow.
"She forces us to relive what we most fear… then convinces us it already happened."
His body trembled. He couldn't breathe. His mind burned with memories that felt real.
In desperation, he stabbed Starsever into his shoulder—blood gushing, nerves screaming—to remind himself that he still existed.
Then he dove.
Her veil rippled.
He triggered lightning markers—Thunderclap: Storm Surge—slicing arcs of divine lightning that burned through the fog. One strand of her veil tore. Just one.
But it bled.
His eyes narrowed. "So, you can be wounded."
He vanished, then reappeared behind her—Sky Piercer: Celestial Thrust. His blade shot forward like a comet, striking true. Her form lurched—ribbons of blood-silk twisting violently in recoil. But she turned, song intensifying. The air around him thickened. His thoughts slowed.
She was singing to him.
He blinked—and the world fell away.
He was in a graveyard.
Seraveth was gone. His disciples were dead. The twins were never born.
And Selene… Selene stood before him, covered in ash, her voice barely above a whisper.
"You were too late."
Alter sank to one knee, Starsever slipping from his fingers.
Tears fell.
Then fire surged.
His core ignited.
Not real. Not true. Not yours.
He roared.
Reality shattered like glass around him as his will surged forth, breaking the illusion in an explosion of draconic light. His wings snapped open. His aura burned once more.
"I've had enough of your lies."
No longer speaking, he moved.
Strike I – Fist of Ruin.
A crushing blow that cracked the veil.
Strike II – Heaven-Piercer Step.
He reappeared above her, kicking downward through the mist.
Strike III – Void Fang Rend.
His clawed hand tore open the threads of her mantle.
She countered—veins of blood-light forming claws, trying to reach his mind again.
He danced between illusions and real threads of sorrow. But with every strike, he reclaimed more of himself.
Strike X – Heaven's Dismantle.
Strike XIII – Voidlock Spiral.
Strike XV – Thousand Cross Fang.
Each attack tore the sky.
Reality twisted.
The Divine Realm cried out as their vision of the battle flickered.
Below, celestial soldiers froze in awe as streaks of gold and silk warred across the heavens.
She shrieked—but it wasn't a sound. It was a mourning that pulled time inward.
Alter met it.
Strike XVI – Abysswalker's Brand. He slammed his mark into her heart, locking her power.
Her veil frayed.
Alter's breath caught. His arm sagged. But he took one last step.
Strike XVII – Sovereign Fang Collapse.
He fell like a meteor.
The sky cracked.
Her core flickered.
Then—
He whispered his final vow.
"Let this grief end here."
Strike XVIII – Creator's Banishment.
A radiant explosion erupted as Starsever vanished from his hand. His fists glowed with celestial flame as he struck with all the fury of a Sovereign bearing seven dragon hearts.
Her body exploded in silence.
No scream.
No ash.
Only release.
The grief dispersed.
And the sky, at last, remembered how to breathe.
Alter hovered there, surrounded by light and shadow, chest rising with shuddered breath.
The third and final Demon God had fallen.
And the world had changed.
Silence fell like a blessing.
For the first time since the sky had split and the world tilted toward oblivion, the heavens held their breath.
High above, in the upper stratosphere where even stars dared not linger, the last remnants of the Queen Without Eyes unraveled into drifting threads of sorrowlight—each one vanishing into flickers of color that had no name. No cry. No scream. Only stillness.
The Sovereign floated there, blood streaking down his arms, his body lit with a fading brilliance that no longer screamed defiance—but endurance. His armor was cracked, his breath shallow. And yet, he remained. The only thing in the sky… was him.
The only light left… was his.
In the Divine Realm, it was as if a storm had been cut down mid-roar.
Solien had remained silent throughout the entire battle, his arms folded within his robes of woven eternity. But now—even he exhaled.
Across the Grand Dome of Aether, divine seers collapsed from exhaustion, unable to hold the vision any longer. The Celestial Choir halted their songs mid-syllable. The great star-chart at the heart of the Hall of Realms no longer bled. Its light turned calm.
A hush swept through the gods—not from fear, but reverence.
"He did it," whispered a lesser god of flame. "He broke them. All three."
"Alone…" came another voice, somewhere deeper. "He fought alone."
Then came the trembling voice of the Storm Matron, whose domain governed divine oaths and celestial winds.
"With every strike, I felt my own name unraveling. And still he moved. Still he chose. That was not a battle. That was will forged into judgment."
A thousand eyes turned to Solien, but he said nothing.
Not at first.
Only when the last thread of the Queen's veil dispersed into the outer aether did he speak—quiet, but resolute.
"The Abyss has lost its stars."
And all across the Divine Realm, bells rang.
Not in celebration.
But in mourning—for the gods that fell before. And in honor—for the Sovereign who stood in their place.
In the Abyss, where twisted monarchs and forgotten things peered from broken thrones, there was no cheer—only silence, more profound than death.
Val'Zaruun's fortress—still shuddering from the previous invasion—dimmed. He who had watched in secret from the Eye of Damnation leaned back upon his obsidian seat. The vision pool before him rippled, distorting the Sovereign's bloodied silhouette in the high skies.
"So," he murmured. "The blade of judgment has carved through my children."
He did not rage.
Instead, he placed a single clawed finger to the armrest of his throne, dragging it along the bone in a lazy stroke.
"Then I must forge new heirs."
He leaned forward—just slightly.
"And next time… I'll greet you myself, Sovereign."
In Veyr'Zhalar, atop the obsidian balcony of the Aetherflame Palace, the wind ceased.
Queen Elanra held both hands clasped before her mouth, tears falling silently. Prince Kaelen stood still, eyes narrowed, unmoving as if afraid that blinking would shatter the image in the sky. Ryvar's hand gripped the railing, jaw clenched. Alyxthia, however, was already crying—tears and laughter both, for she had seen the moment when grief died in fire.
Behind them, Soryn stood.
Silent. Steady.
But the knuckles on his sword hand were white.
Selene did not speak.
She sat upon a cushioned bench behind the rest, her twin children resting on either side—one tucked against her arm, the other still playing with her braid. The moment the Queen was struck down, her daughter—without knowing why—had smiled. Her son had clenched a fist and breathed out sharply, as though something vast and terrible had finally passed.
Selene looked up.
"Alter…"
Her voice cracked.
Then steadied.
"I saw it all. Even the sorrow… couldn't stop you."
She held her children closer. One of them giggled, then patted her collarbone as if proud.
Behind them, one of the 14 Commanders, Blazebloom, exhaled with theatrical exhaustion.
"Right. Just casually ended despair incarnate while looking like a myth. As expected of our Sovereign."
Darius grunted beside her. "Showoff."
Mira crossed her arms. "You two could barely handle one mid-tier Demon Lord last year."
Blazebloom spun dramatically toward her. "Excuse me, do you want to go fight the Veil Lady with a smile?! Be my guest!"
Finn raised an eyebrow. "He did more than fight. He tore sorrow itself apart. And made it look… beautiful."
The rest fell silent.
Their master had fought three gods that warped reality—and survived.
And throughout Seraveth, Terravane, and Drakareth, all who still held sky-crystals watched the moment of death and silence. Villagers wept. Soldiers knelt. Children clutched their guardian's arms and pointed up, shouting things like:
"Look! The sky's not crying anymore!"
"He did it!"
"The dragon man won!"
Even those who did not know his name—felt it in their blood. That someone, somewhere, had severed the thread of despair for them all.
The skies—once broken—began to stitch themselves closed.
One thread at a time.
And in that fragile silence, the world remembered hope.