The Heartspire still bled light into the void when the summons came.
The War Council convened in the highest chamber of the Auroral Bastion — a citadel carved from white-gold stone, suspended in the high air of the Divine Realm. Its walls shimmered with protective wards drawn from the Heartspire's own core, though now their light was dim, threads of exhaustion woven into every beam.
Alter entered with Solien at his side, Starsever sheathed but still humming faintly from the battle. The Divine Lords gathered around the table were battered — Myrrion's armor bore a fracture that ran from collar to hip; Vorthys' shield was still cracked from Khyrrath's blow; Kaeryn's hair clung damp to her skin, streaked with celestial ichor.
There were no pleasantries.
"The Heartspire stands," Myrrion began, voice hard, "but its pulse is weaker than it has been in ten thousand years. We struck the Demon Gods back, yet they still hold strength enough to strike again."
"They will," Kaeryn said. "And not here."
The chamber stilled.
Her gaze turned to Alter. "The mortal realm. They will go where the walls are lowest. Where the blood of mortals can be spilled freely, feeding their return."
Messengers arrived even as she spoke — wings torn, armor scorched. They knelt, voices tight with urgency.
"Reports from the Veilwatchers… Rift activity detected in both Teravane and Seraveth. Demon legions have breached the veil in multiple points."
Alter didn't wait for the council to debate. He stepped forward, the weight of his presence silencing even the Lords."Then I go now."
He turned, Solien's hand briefly catching his arm. "You've barely recovered."
"There is no recovery if they take the mortal realm," Alter replied, already summoning the light that would carry him down. "Hold the Divine Realm. I'll hold the worlds below."
The light flared — and fractured.
Shadows rose through it. Chains of molten void snapped around his aura, dragging him sideways through space. The air tore open, not into the mortal skies, but into a suspended killing field between realms.
Five figures stepped from the breach, each radiating abyssal authority that warped the very laws around them.
Shaltheris reborn in a frame of obsidian bone. Azzorath reforged, beams already gathering in his palms. Three new ones — a horned juggernaut draped in living flame, a faceless wraith whose cloak bled night, and a serpentine colossus coiled in the ether, every scale etched with runes that screamed.
The wraith spoke without sound, the words forming in Alter's mind like poison."You thought the rift closed behind you. It never did."
They struck together.
Alter's world narrowed to movement and impact — Heaven-Piercer Step into Void Fang Rend to break the chain-lash, Thunderclap: Tempest Strike to stagger the juggernaut, Starsever sweeping into Dimensional Slash – Omni Wave that ripped the wraith's cloak into shreds of screaming vapor. But even with his speed, the five moved like a singular will, bending the space around him so that every escape became another trap.
Far below, the mortal realm burned.
In Teravane, the Mythral Dawn and dragon legions fought a rearguard retreat, the skies a living storm of wings and abyssal flame. Selene was not there — the dragons fought without their sovereign. The outer cities had fallen, and the survivors streamed toward the central keep under the cover of wyrmfire bombardments. Each time a demon phalanx advanced, a drake-rider squadron would dive from the clouds, scattering them in arcs of steel and breath.
In Seraveth, the fortress of Fort Mythral stood defiant. Takayoshi led from the battlements, his blade cutting clean arcs through the breach points while Soryn marshaled the reserves with precision only he could wield. Selene fought beside them, her Radiant Aegis flaring with every impact, her Sunlance Burst spearing entire demon squads into ash. Wave after wave broke against the fort's walls until the ground outside was a scorched sea of corpses.
Then — the push.
Takayoshi's rally cry carried over the battlefield, and the Seraveth line surged forward, driving the demons back into their own rift choke points. The fort's warhorns sounded thrice, and the outer wards flared to life again — Seraveth's gate was shut, for now.
But none of them knew that above, between realms, Alter fought alone against five gods of the abyss.
One chain snapped around his left arm, dragging him toward the colossus's open jaws. He let it — until the last instant. Shura's Fifteenth Strike – Thousand Cross Fang exploded from him, every flash-step an afterimage cutting through the serpent's neck in thirty angles at once.
The juggernaut met him head-on, fists like planets colliding. Alter caught one blow, turned it aside, and used the momentum to vault into the air — straight into Sky Piercer: Heavenfall Rend, the downward thrust tearing the abyss open in a spear of lightning.
Four were wounded. None were dead. The fifth — the wraith — hung back, runes burning in its unseen face.
"This was never to kill you," it whispered into his mind again. "Only to delay."
Below, new rifts opened.
The sky over Seraveth tore apart.
Alter's descent ripped through the cloud layer in a trail of molten gold, the air screaming around him as the shockwave spread over the fortress and the battlefield beyond. Demon lines buckled under the sudden pressure of his arrival. Starsever was in his hands before he landed.
Impact — the ground cratered, shockwaves blowing bodies, debris, and embers in all directions. He rose from the smoke, eyes like molten rings, his aura already crushing the closest demon captains into the dirt.
Selene saw him first. Her heart surged, relief breaking through the exhaustion that had been eating at her since the Heartspire. "ALTER!"
Her call barely carried before the shadow fell.
The light dimmed — not from clouds, but from shapes. Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of vast, black-armored forms dropped from the upper stratosphere, the air warping under their collective presence. Demon Gods. An army.
Each impact shook the continent. The ground split under their sheer mass. Fortress walls cracked. The breath of their arrival alone sent warriors sprawling.
Takayoshi's voice cut through the panic, sharp and immediate. "We can't hold this! This isn't a war — it's an extinction!"
Soryn's hand was already on his belt, pulling free the Elemental Runic Marker core — the only artifact capable of mass teleportation over continents. His eyes locked with Alter's for a fraction of a second. No words passed, but the understanding was absolute.
Alter's voice roared over the battlefield, his command laced with unyielding authority. "Fall back! Now!"
Selene shook her head violently, stepping toward him as the first wave of demon gods closed in. "No! I'm not leaving you here!"
"Selene—"
She started forward — only for the air between them to ignite as Alter met the first three gods in a single blur of motion. Shura's Seventh Strike – Hellpulse Eruption detonated point-blank, vaporizing a fifty-meter stretch of ground. A juggernaut god reeled back, half its chest gone, but another stepped in, swinging a blade the size of a keep.
Alter caught it, redirected, and shattered the god's forearm with Thunderclap: Skybreaker — lightning ripping sky to earth.
"GO!" His voice thundered like a commandment.
Selene took another step, tears streaking through the dust on her cheeks. "I will not—"
The blow came from the side. Not a demon. Soryn.
He caught her with a palm-strike to the neck, clean and precise, eyes unreadable even as she crumpled into his arms. Her lips still moved, whispering Alter's name even as consciousness left her.
"I'll bring her back," Soryn told Takayoshi, voice tight. "You move the others."
Takayoshi's hand gripped his shoulder once, and then they both moved. Soryn slammed the marker core into the ground — runes blazed outward in a thousand-meter radius, engulfing the fortress, the retreating soldiers, the Mythral Dawn, and every last surviving dragon.
Light swallowed them — and they were gone.
The battlefield fell silent except for the deep, rhythmic breathing of the demon god army encircling Alter.
He stood alone now, surrounded by an ocean of abyssal titans.
Starsever rose. The first step forward shook the world. The second cracked the air. His aura burned brighter than the sun, meeting the black tide without a hint of retreat.
The sky above Seraveth was no longer blue — it was gold and black, colliding.
The ground shook as the Demon God army closed in. Thousands of towering abyssal titans, each emanating a darkness so thick it bled into the air, surrounded Alter in an unbroken circle. Their voices merged into a single, resonating growl — the sound of an entire pantheon of hatred breathing as one.
Wind howled around him. The land for miles was nothing but ash and fractured stone, the aftermath of their arrival. Above, the last remnants of sunlight vanished behind the black canopy of demon wings and hulking shapes blotting out the sky.
Starsever hung loose at Alter's side, its edge gleaming faintly with sovereign light. His eyes scanned the horizon once — no allies, no survivors, just him and the tide.
The first god moved.It was faster than its bulk suggested — a streak of shadow and teeth, claws wreathed in abyssal flame. Alter didn't even raise his blade until the last instant. Fist of Ruin met the god's chest, and the creature detonated backward in a spray of black ichor, its ribs reduced to dust.
The second came before the first had even landed. Heaven-Piercer Step — Alter's body blurred into an upward arc, cleaving through the god's jaw and continuing past it, rending a thirty-meter gash in the blackened clouds. Lightning danced in his wake.
The army surged.Fifty. A hundred. A thousand.
Alter exhaled slowly, his aura igniting into a blazing corona of gold, white, and crimson. The Dance of Destruction began — each step flowing into another strike, every rotation carrying him between gods as if the battlefield itself bent to his will.
Void Fang Rend shredded through a god's midsection; Bloodlash Howl erupted behind him, shattering a dozen demon wings.A pivot — Soulbreaker Dive — his elbow cratered the skull of a charging colossus.He moved without pause, without wasted motion, the 18-strike chain beginning to weave into itself.
The ground was soon a shifting landscape of obliterated titans, their corpses collapsing into black mist. But the circle did not break. For every god that fell, three more surged forward.
In Draktharek, the teleportation array pulsed as the Mythral Dawn, the Dragoons, and the dragons arrived in a whirlwind of light. The fortress walls shook from the sudden displacement. Takayoshi turned immediately toward the nearest war table, but Selene was still limp in Soryn's arms, her breathing quick but steady.
When she stirred, her voice was a whisper. "…He's still there, isn't he?"
Soryn's silence was the only answer she needed. Her hands tightened, eyes filling again. She held onto her Veil of Origin ring, crying out lout. The female commanders came to comfort her. Outside, the capital's bells rang — an alert for all forces to prepare for worst-case defense. Those who had seen the field knew what it meant: Alter was holding the line alone.
Back in Seraveth, the abyss itself seemed to ripple as the Demon Gods pressed harder. The next moment, a wall of their vanguard broke under a single, devastating blow — Sovereign Fang Collapse — Alter leapt skyward, then descended like a meteor, his strike detonating in a blinding sphere of gold.
The land fractured for miles. The fight had only just begun.
The air in Seraveth tore.It wasn't a sound — it was a sensation, as if the world's skin had been peeled open. From that wound in reality, five Demon Gods emerged at once, their colossal forms blotting out what little light remained.
Shaltheris, the Maw of Eternities — its head was a vortex of teeth and shadow, every movement pulling matter toward it.Azzorath, the Graveflame Monarch — its body burned with black fire that consumed not only flesh, but the concept of life itself.Khyrrath, the Chainbreaker — a titan clad in runes of annihilation, dragging a hundred spiked chains that cut through space like paper.Two more, unnamed horrors, each with their own abyssal dominion, stepped forward to complete the half-ring around Alter.
Behind them, the lesser Demon Gods began to form ranks — not the chaotic swarms of before, but an army drilled in the black geometry of the Abyss Wars. Their lines moved in precision, their auras stacking into a pressure that made the air boil.
Alter's breathing was steady. His hands adjusted on Starsever's hilt. The heat from Azzorath's flames was enough to blister stone. The gravity from Shaltheris' maw pulled at his armor.
They came at once.
Shaltheris struck first, inhaling with such force that mountains crumbled in the distance and loose boulders screamed through the air toward its teeth. Alter countered with Voidlock Spiral, spinning in place to create a vortex of his own — but instead of pulling in, it threw outward, redirecting the incoming debris into the ranks of lesser gods.
Khyrrath's chains followed, a hundred streaks of bladed steel cutting through time itself. Alter side-stepped two, deflected five, then caught one in his hand and yanked. The titan stumbled forward — right into Heaven's Dismantle, three strikes delivered to its pressure points in a flash of gold. One of its knees buckled with a crack loud enough to shake the clouds.
Azzorath's Graveflame rolled across the field, a tidal wave of black fire. Alter moved into Thunderclap: Storm Surge, swinging Starsever in a wide arc. Lightning leapt between enemies, detonating the flames in midair before they could reach him. The backlash shredded the front ranks of the vanguard.
But the Abyss Army was adapting.
One of the unnamed gods extended its hands and pulled — not at matter, but at concepts. The air around Alter shimmered, and he felt his speed diminish, the world growing heavy. The other twisted the ground beneath him into liquid shadow, trying to drag him under.
Alter snarled and stepped into Abysswalker's Brand, striking the shadow-wielder and cutting its healing in half. The movement flowed into Requiem Fang Barrage, his fists becoming a blur of golden strikes that cracked the god's form.
High above, Shaltheris roared, and the sound alone cracked the edges of the sky. Azzorath raised its arms, summoning a wall of Graveflame as tall as mountains. Khyrrath's remaining chains lashed outward, circling the field.
In Draktharek, Takayoshi stood on the ramparts, watching the scrying flames that relayed the battle. His jaw tightened. "He's holding against all of them."
Selene's fists clenched white. Her voice broke. "Then why aren't we—" She stopped, remembering the way Soryn had knocked her unconscious to pull her from the field. She hated it. She hated this helplessness.
The battlefield in Seraveth warped again. The Abyss Army pressed closer, a noose of divine hatred closing around one man.
Alter's aura spiked — his sovereign energy reaching a threshold where the ground beneath him began to fracture in golden lines.
The Dance of Destruction entered its second cadence.He would break their noose before it closed.
The world was burning.
The battlefield was black glass and broken mountains.
From the first clash, Alter knew this would not be a battle of attrition — it would be survival by the second. The moment Azzorath's cleaver came down for the first time, even blocking it sent shockwaves through his bones. His Sovereignborn Draconic Plate splintered along the left pauldron, molten cracks radiating outward from the point of impact. The cleaver bite hadn't broken skin — yet — but his arm throbbed with a deep, bone-deep ache.
Khyrrath's stormform slammed into him like a living hurricane, hurling him across a quarter-mile. He struck a broken spire, the impact spiderwebbing his chestplate and forcing a mouthful of blood between his teeth. He spat crimson onto the blackened ground and pushed off before Shaltheris's chains could coil around him.
Every clash was an exchange — survival traded for injury. A deflected blow from Azzorath meant taking the edge of Khyrrath's spear through his side. Dodging Shaltheris's soulhook meant letting the War Tyrant's cleaver glance across his back, denting the armor so deep it bit into the muscle beneath.
The sovereign aura around him still burned gold, but sweat poured down his temple, mixing with demon ichor on his jaw. Every breath rattled faintly, the heat of his internal chi burning faster with each technique. When he forced his aura into Runic Marker: Quad Spiral, it flared bright, but the backlash left his vision swimming for a heartbeat.
Still, he didn't slow. Couldn't slow. The Rift above them widened, and the next wave was already here.
Alter stood alone in the shattered heart of Seraveth's outer plains, where entire kingdoms had once sprawled. The land was now a molten graveyard, craters yawning like open maws, mountain peaks reduced to smoking teeth against a red-black sky. The Abyss Rift above churned with shadowlight storms, vomiting torrents of demonfire and obsidian rain.
Alter's boots sank half an inch into the cracked earth as his aura flared. He could feel the marker imprint still humming faintly where Takayoshi and Soryn had pulled the others away. Their absence meant there would be no fallback. No reinforcements. Only him.
The first wave hit like a tidal wall of fangs and steel.
Alter didn't move — not until the wall was an arm's length away. Then Starsever was in motion. A Life Sprinkler burst erupted around him, three golden afterimages spinning into existence, cutting arcs through the demon frontlines. They split into twelve, then into thirty-six, until the air was filled with a storm of golden blades. The opening wave collapsed into heaps of severed armor and flesh, their momentum broken.
But the Demon Gods were already moving.
Azzorath's cleaver came down in a vertical strike that split the battlefield for three miles. Alter's clones scattered, vanishing in streaks of light. Shaltheris's chains shot out like hunting serpents, one clipping Alter's pauldron and detonating in a blast of soulfire. Khyrrath spun its weapons, conjuring a cyclone that ripped buildings from the earth and hurled them like meteors.
Alter's eyes narrowed. The ground around him lit with Runic Markers, each set by direct contact during his dodges and counters. In a breath, the markers detonated in perfect sequence — a Dance of Destruction — golden shockwaves chaining through the legions in spiraling patterns, ripping apart entire regiments and cutting deep swathes into the siege beasts.
Still they came.
The War Tyrant broke through the shockwaves, his cleaver meeting Starsever in a clash that sent both combatants skidding back through the dirt. Shaltheris vanished into her own shadow before reappearing behind him, bone-sickle aimed for his spine. Without looking, Alter's left hand snapped back, unleashing Void Fang Rend — her form jolted, half of her shadow-mass ripped apart by the dimensional tear.
Khyrrath's cyclone howled louder, pressing in. Alter leapt into it, spinning Starsever in a wide arc — Thunderclap: Storm Surge — lightning lanced outward, arcing between every demon form within range, stunning even the abyssal warbeasts for a heartbeat.
It was enough to move.
The battlefield became a blur of close-quarters slaughter. Heaven-Piercer Step to bypass Azzorath's guard and slash a molten line across his chest. Soulbreaker Dive to crush a siege beast's skull before it could trample a line of immobilized soldiers. Thousand Cross Fang to dismantle a flanking force before it reached his blind side.
But for every enemy he cut down, more poured from the Rift. The three Demon Gods pressed him harder, their strikes no longer measured but meant to kill outright. The earth itself began to scream — fissures opening, rivers of magma bursting free. Above, the Abyss Rift expanded, swallowing whole patches of the sky.
The war was tilting. And there was no one left to hold it but him.
Miles away, in Draktharek, Selene's cry still echoed in the war council hall. Her voice cracked on his name, the sound breaking into raw fury before Soryn's strike took her into unconsciousness. Takayoshi stood rigid, knuckles white, staring at the scrying feed that showed only flickers of golden light in a sea of darkness.
Back on the field, Alter's breathing deepened, his aura beginning to distort the air. The next exchange would be more than survival — it would be a declaration that Seraveth had not yet fallen.
The first hour was slaughter.
It had already carved its toll into him.
His right gauntlet was cracked open along the knuckles, exposing the scorched gold beneath the plating. His breathing came harder now — shallow to keep the broken rib from biting deeper. Each time he planted his feet for a heavy technique, there was a fraction of hesitation from his left knee, jarred badly when Khyrrath's stormwall had sent him tumbling end over end earlier.
Azzorath's cleaver landed again — not clean, but enough. The sheer force smashed into Starsever's guard, sending shock up both arms. The left bicep tore, a hot line of pain under the armor. He grunted but turned it into forward momentum, spinning into Demon's Jaw Crush before the War Tyrant could press the advantage.
Shaltheris's chains struck low, wrapping his ankle before detonating in soulfire. The burst buckled his stance, and when he wrenched free, the shin plate on his right leg was half slag, the skin beneath blistered raw. The smell of his own burned flesh mixed with the demon stench, and the heat from his chi core surged in response — burning hotter, burning faster.
By the time the third layer of Life Sprinkler clones was born, he was fighting with a growing tremor in his sword arm. His swings still carried sovereign precision, but the weight behind them took effort now, effort that carved seconds off his endurance.
He could feel the edges closing. Every clash left another fracture in his armor, another bruise beneath the plate, another trickle of blood in his mouth. The golden gleam of his aura was sharp as ever, but under it, the man inside was bleeding out second by second.
When Selene's cry reached him from somewhere beyond the haze, it cut deep — deeper than any blade that had struck him that day. But he didn't turn. Couldn't. If he broke the line even for a heartbeat, there'd be no line left to defend.
The Rift above screamed open wider. The earth around him quaked as the next abyssal host poured in. He planted his feet, raised Starsever again, and ignored the blood running down his ribs.
If they wanted the realm, they'd have to take it from him while he still stood.
The air over Seraveth's plains was so thick with abyssal ash and molten dust that the sun had become nothing more than a dim coin bleeding through the haze. Each breath tasted of iron and smoke. Alter stood ankle-deep in a slurry of demon ichor and scorched stone, the golden glow of his armor the only thing defying the dark tide.
They came at him in waves. The ground quaked with the march of armored warbeasts—each one the size of a cathedral, their hides layered in abyssal plating. Between them, ranks of blackened infantry moved in tight phalanxes, their glaives trailing screaming shadows. Above, winged fiends rained javelins of condensed night, their impact cratering the earth.
Alter moved like a blade of light.
One moment he was still, eyes half-lidded, the next Life Sprinkler erupted—three afterimages leaping into existence with him, cutting golden arcs through the closest ranks. Each afterimage struck like a sovereign's execution, precise and merciless. At the eight-second mark, the first layer split again—twelve forms now weaving a tapestry of death among the demon ranks. At thirty-six, the plain was no longer a battlefield; it was a storm of flashing gold.
The first wave broke.
But the ground shook again. The sky split with a jagged tear, and the true enemies descended.
Azzorath, the War Tyrant, dropped like a meteor, cleaver-first. The impact shattered the crust of the earth for miles. He rose from the crater, a walking fortress of black steel and molten seams. Every step sent a shockwave across the plain.
Shaltheris, the Soul Harvester, coiled out of the Rift in a whirl of bone-lattice and shadow veils, dragging her screaming chains behind her. Each chain link writhed as though alive, the trapped souls within clawing to be free.
Khyrrath, the Storm of Oblivion, did not walk—it swirled. A god-shaped hurricane of abyssal wind, four arms each brandishing a weapon that dripped unmaking: a spear of silent lightning, a flail of frozen void, a sword of inverted flame, and a war axe that sang in the voice of the dead.
All three locked on to Alter.
Azzorath came first. The cleaver's descent cracked the sound barrier, the ground beneath Alter collapsing into a molten fissure as he caught the strike on Starsever. The shockwave flung entire demon platoons into the air. Alter slid back three paces, boots carving trenches in the rock.
Chains whistled through the air—Shaltheris had vanished, her voice drifting from every direction. A hook bit into Alter's shoulder plate, detonating in a bloom of soulfire. The armor held, but the impact spun him toward Khyrrath's cyclone.
The Storm of Oblivion closed its four weapons at once. Alter bent space beneath his feet—Heaven-Piercer Step—vanishing past the arc of their strikes to reappear behind Khyrrath's left flank. Starsever thrust forward, lightning and wind exploding from the blade in Sky Piercer: Celestial Thrust, punching a line of light clean through Khyrrath's semi-corporeal form. The god's winds howled in pain, spiraling outward and flattening a dozen siege beasts.
But they didn't retreat—they surged.
Alter planted a hand on the ground—Runic Marker: Quad Spiral—and the earth beneath Azzorath and Shaltheris flared golden before detonating in a chained series of directional blasts. The shockwaves tore through formations, lifting entire companies of abyssal infantry into the air before slamming them back down in broken heaps.
Khyrrath reformed faster than expected. A spear of silent lightning lanced out, grazing Alter's side and blowing apart a ridge behind him. Shaltheris reappeared in front, chains wrapping around his blade arm. Azzorath's cleaver came in low, aiming to bisect him.
Alter inhaled once, then unleashed Void Fang Rend—the dimensional tear snapping the chains and distorting the space in front of Azzorath just enough to deflect the cleaver's path. He stepped into the War Tyrant's guard—Demon's Jaw Crush—both palms slamming into the giant's chestplate, the internal rupture forcing Azzorath to stagger back with a roar.
Above them, the Rift widened. More came. Siege constructs the size of mountains began their descent. The field was black with movement.
And still, Alter did not fall.
Every technique became a hammerblow of survival: Thunderclap: Storm Surge to electrify a thousand lesser demons in one sweep, Soulbreaker Dive to collapse the skull of a fortress-class beast, Thousand Cross Fang to carve apart an encircling phalanx before they could close.
But his breathing was deeper now. Sweat mixed with demon ichor on his face. The Rift was growing, and the pressure of three Demon Gods was relentless.
Somewhere far away, Selene screamed his name, her voice cracking into rage before Soryn's hand ended it in unconsciousness. In Draktharek's war council chamber, Takayoshi stood unmoving, jaw clenched so hard it seemed ready to shatter, his eyes fixed on the scry-feed that showed only a storm of gold in a sea of black.
On the field, Alter's aura expanded, warping the ground around him. The battlefield trembled—ready to break.
The blackened earth quaked under his boots.
Every breath was fire in his lungs, every swing of Starsever a negotiation with his own failing body. The fractures in his armor glowed faintly from the heat of his chi, the molten edges hissing where demon ichor spattered against them. Blood ran down his ribs in three different places now — one from Khyrrath's spear, one from Azzorath's cleaver, one from the soulfire burst that had nearly taken his leg.
They had him ringed now.
Azzorath paced on the left, cleaver hanging low, a grin of bone splitting his helm. Khyrrath's stormform roiled high above, thunder snarling in its core. Shaltheris' chains slithered across the cracked ground, waiting for a slip, a pause, anything they could anchor to.
The Rift screamed above, vomiting another flood of abyssal spawn — too many to count, each one armored in the kind of darkness that swallowed light whole. Alter's golden aura pushed against them, but it was thinning, flickering at the edges like a candle in a storm.
He lunged anyway. Void Fang Rend tore through two demon lords before Khyrrath's lightning slammed into his back. The blast threw him forward into Azzorath's cleaver — the blade scraped across the side of his helm, shattering one of the dragon-horn ridges and ringing his skull like a war bell.
He hit the ground hard. Starsever clanged beside him. For the first time, his hand hesitated before closing around it.
Chains hissed. Shaltheris was on him.
The world narrowed to the silver hook descending toward his throat — until the sky tore.
A sound like the cracking of the firmament itself roared overhead, and a column of pure white-gold light slammed into the ground between him and the hook. The shockwave obliterated a hundred demons in every direction, the air igniting with the pressure.
When the light faded, they were there.
The Divine Gods had come.
Solien landed first, spear wreathed in celestial fire that burned in three colors at once. His arrival alone parted the abyssal tide for half a mile. Behind him, the Lords of the Solar Court descended in a rain of radiance, their weapons singing with divine resonance. The sound was like the voice of the world before it was born.
One by one, their power struck the battlefield — spears, blades, and staves burning brighter than any sun in the mortal sky. The air itself pushed back against the abyss, the ground knitting shut beneath their feet.
Alter stayed on one knee, breath rasping through blood in his throat, watching the tide turn for the first time in hours.
Solien's voice cut through the din without effort. "Sovereign — stand. We'll hold the walls. You're not falling here."
The words struck something deep in him. Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself upright. His body screamed for rest, but the war wasn't done. Not yet.
The abyss howled back in defiance, and the Demon Gods surged to meet the new arrivals. The Heartspire itself shook under the weight of gods and monsters colliding, each blow tearing at the seams of reality.
And Alter — battered, bleeding, barely upright — stepped back into the fight.
Because if this was the last pulse of the Heartspire, he'd make sure it beat for them, not the abyss.
The battlefield did not breathe — it convulsed.
A rift of sound and light split the horizon as the Divine Gods descended. The sky, once a void of abyssal storms, was pierced by a thousand spears of radiance. For the first time since the siege began, the darkness recoiled.
Solien struck first. His landing detonated like the fall of a star, a shockwave blasting the demon front into a cratered void. The air around him ignited into trifold flame — gold, silver, and searing azure — his spear sweeping in a circular arc that erased the first hundred demons before their feet touched soil again. "This line will not break," he said, voice carrying over the war like a war drum made of the sky.
To the east, Maeridion, Lord of the Infinite Vaults, descended as a storm of argent coin-blades. Each one sang in harmonic frequency, cutting through abyssal flesh and chainmail in the same motion. With every gesture, those blades expanded into full vault-walls, crushing siege beasts beneath their impossible weight. He fought with elegance — wealth and war turned into art.
Above him, Seralyth, Lady of the Dawnwing, unfurled her wings of crystal light. Every beat shattered the demon flyers in her path, scattering them like sparks into the abyss. She dove through a phalanx of aerial Demon Lords, her glaive carving perfect arcs that tore the sky into shards of daybreak.
The ground to the south erupted under Kaerthas, the Anvil Titan, his hammer pulsing with earthquakes. Every strike broke the world beneath the abyssal formations, creating fissures that swallowed siege constructs whole. Demons tried to surround him — the ground itself rose in slabs to shield him, each counterstrike sending molten rock and divine sparks into the air.
On the western flank, Veythriel, the Silent Edge, appeared without announcement. One heartbeat there was nothing — the next, dozens of Demon Generals dropped lifeless to the ground, their necks severed in lines too clean for mortal eyes to follow. She never spoke, never stayed in one place. The abyss simply died wherever she passed.
And in the center of it all, Alter stood with Starsever in hand, bleeding into the soil. The arrival of the Divine Gods was a reprieve, but the war hadn't ended — the Demon Gods roared at the intrusion.
Shaltheris was the first to strike back, his chains snapping outward to intercept Maeridion's coin-blades. The clash shattered sound itself, a wave of sonic rupture flattening the ground for miles. Azzorath hurled his cleaver through Kaerthas' hammer guard, sparks and black flame exploding into a dome of clashing force. Khyrrath descended in stormform toward Seralyth, lightning spears falling like apocalyptic rain.
The Heartspire became an open wound in reality. The seams of the world strained with every god-tier strike — air rippled like water, the ground folding into itself under pressures it was never meant to endure.
Alter staggered but moved forward anyway. His body screamed for stillness, but the moment demanded movement. With his remaining strength, he surged into Fist of Ruin, catching a Demon General mid-charge and cratering him into the ground so deep the impact shockwave bent the spire's outer wall.
Solien saw it, called out over the roar, "Hold your ground, Sovereign! Bleed if you must, but do not fall!"
Every Divine Lord fought as if this was their last dawn. The melee was no longer just gods against gods — it was the war of creation versus the unmaking.
And the abyss answered with another surge, this one bigger, darker, and far more coordinated.
The Heartspire pulsed like a living thing.
The battle for the Divine Realm's survival had truly begun.
The Heartspire was no longer a fortress.It was a wound — bleeding light, shadow, and fragments of existence.
The first impact of the Divine Gods' arrival had given the battlefield a heartbeat of clarity. Now, that heartbeat shattered. The melee fractured into a hundred threads of destruction, each one capable of ending worlds on its own.
To the south ridge, Alter locked blades with both Shaltheris and Azzorath. His wounds from the earlier siege burned deep, every motion a grind of torn muscle and cracked bone. Still, he moved like the storm was his body — a chain of blinding strikes, feet carving sigils into the stone. Heaven-Piercer Step shot him into Shaltheris' guard, Starsever cleaving through three chains before a black flame cleaver screamed across his chest. The blow ripped him from the air, but he twisted mid-fall, Void Fang Rend slicing Azzorath's forearm in a flare of spatial rupture. Both Demon Gods laughed — not in mockery, but in the joy of a worthy kill.
In the center, Solien stood as the wall that would not break. Demon Generals crashed against him like waves against a cliff, their weapons splintering under his Trifold Spear Form. His movements were pure war — one moment a killing thrust, the next a shield wall, the next a spinning hurricane of strikes that shattered armor and bone in the same breath. Yet for every one he killed, two more emerged from the abyssal tide.
Above, Seralyth's crystal wings clashed with Khyrrath's lightning storm in a sky that barely remembered it was air. Bolts the size of towers screamed through her arcs, shattering entire ridgelines when they missed. Her glaive found the Demon God's chest, but the wound bled only black electricity, and the reply was a storm so intense it turned the sky white.
To the western flank, Seraphina arrived in a burst of celestial flame so bright it burned the horizon from the sky. Her landing shattered the ground for miles, and every Demon General in her path was engulfed in the eruption. She moved like a comet across the battlefield — her twin moon-forged blades cutting through armor and abyssal flesh in arcs of white fire. Her strikes had no wasted motion; each was a clean, surgical execution, and every step she took left molten glass in her wake. Vhal'Kyrr, the Blight-Maw, lunged at her with a jaw of void. She met him head-on with Heaven's Spiral Pulse, the harmonic blast throwing the Demon God through a fortress wall and into the abyss beyond.
Maeridion's coin-blades now clashed with Shaltheris' chains in the east, both of them fighting across a spinning sphere of sonic distortion. Each impact rang across the Heartspire like cathedral bells being split in half. On the ground below them, Kaerthas and Veythriel fought back-to-back, the titan's hammer swings creating kill zones while the Silent Edge eliminated any who slipped past.
And still the abyss surged.
The Heartspire itself began to change — its central tower glowing in jagged pulses, as if something inside was pushing to break free. Alter felt the hum under his feet even as he locked into Bloodlash Howl, spinning into a shockwave that hurled Shaltheris back. His vision blurred. His ribs screamed every time he inhaled. But there was no space for weakness.
From the cliffs above, Seraphina's voice rang clear:"Hold the lines! This fight is not yet at its peak!"
As if summoned by her defiance, the ground tore open in five new places, and more Demon Gods stepped through. The battlefield was no longer a front. It was everywhere.
And still… the gods did not break.
The Heartspire shook.Not from one blow — but from the accumulation of a thousand god-tier strikes colliding in the same world. Every impact rippled through the crust, bent the air into screams, and peeled the sky back into black-veined fractures.
The war had splintered into its killing grounds.
To the south, Alter's duel with Shaltheris and Azzorath had turned into survival by inches. Starsever was still in his grip, but his arms trembled from the weight of every parry. His armor was split across the ribs, molten gold dripping down in slow, heavy streams — not just blood, but the divine essence that kept his body from tearing apart under its own strength.
Shaltheris' chains lashed again, tearing the ground into smoking trenches. Azzorath's greatblade came down in the same breath — a hit meant to split him from shoulder to hip. Alter caught it on Starsever, but the impact bent his knees until the stone under his feet shattered.
The air screamed, and a comet landed between them.
Seraphina.
The shockwave of her arrival hurled both Demon Gods back half a field. Her eyes locked on Alter — and for a moment, all the chaos around them fell away. She took in the state of him: the torn plates, the way his breaths hitched, the golden trails across his jaw.
"You're bleeding out," she said, no trace of question in her tone.
"Nothing I can't—"
She didn't wait. One hand gripped his arm, the other flared with white fire, and the battlefield bent around them. In the span of a blink, she had carried him through the burning ridges and into a jagged alcove carved by some earlier godstrike. The walls still steamed.
He staggered to the wall, wiping gold from his eyes. "I can't—"
"You can recover," she cut him off, kneeling beside him. "And you will. I'll hold them."
Her hands pressed against the wound at his side, divine fire weaving into threads of sealing light. Pain flared through him, but the bleeding slowed. She didn't look at his face; her eyes stayed on the battlefield beyond the alcove, where Solien's spear blurred into streaks against a tide of abyssal monstrosities, where Seralyth's wings cut lightning in half, where Kaerthas roared under the weight of three Demon Generals at once.
Everywhere, gods bled.
Maeridion's coin-blades fell slower now, his movements heavier — blood in the silver of his armor. Veythriel's strikes had lost their perfect rhythm, each motion dragging like her body weighed more than it should. Even Khyrrath, laughing through a storm, had hairline cracks running through the obsidian sheen of his skin.
And above it all, the Heartspire pulsed like a living heart in seizure — each throb making the land quake harder. Splinters of black light ran down its surface, and from the ruptures came a sound like teeth grinding on glass.
Seraphina pulled back from Alter, her voice low. "If that thing breaks completely, none of us are leaving this plane alive."
He met her gaze, the heat in his blood fighting the weight in his limbs. "…Then we make sure it breaks our way."
She smirked — just for a breath — and then her silhouette blurred back into the main front, twin blades painting arcs of fire through the abyssal swarm.
Alter stood. His breathing was still ragged. His wounds still burned. But the golden blood no longer flowed freely, and Starsever hummed in his grip like it was urging him forward.
The battlefield was at the knife's edge. The next minutes would decide the war.
And the Heartspire… was almost ready to burst.
The first crack came with no warning.
A deep, bone-vibrating thunk echoed from within the Heartspire, like the sound of a mountain's core splitting under its own weight. Every god on the battlefield — divine and demon alike — felt it in their teeth.
Then the next pulse hit.
Black light burst outward in jagged veins, tearing across the Heartspire's surface. Each vein split the sky above, and the clouds shredded into ribbons. Fragments of reality — not stone, not metal, but sheer existence — began to flake away like ash in the wind.
Alter stepped out from the alcove where Seraphina had left him, Starsever burning white-gold in his grip. The golden trails on his skin still glimmered from his sealed wounds, but his steps were steady now. Each stride was a beat in the storm's rhythm.
Azzorath saw him first, roaring a challenge as the greatblade swung in a killing arc. Alter met it mid-swing, Starsever's edge detonating into Dimensional Slash – Omni Wave. Space tore in layers, shredding the force of the blow and leaving Azzorath reeling.
Seraphina was already there, fireblades crossing into an X that slammed into Shaltheris's chest, sending the chain-god skidding through a collapsing ridge.
The battlefield itself had changed. The ground no longer obeyed the laws of stone; massive chunks of terrain floated in slow, shuddering spirals, colliding and shearing apart as gravity faltered. Rivers of molten light bled from the Heartspire's fractures, boiling the air.
Above, Solien was a living beacon in the center line, spear arcs tearing massive rents through demon phalanxes. Each thrust flashed like a new sunrise, hurling abyssal beasts back into the churning void storms at the battlefield's edges. His armor was cracked, streaked with black ichor, but his stance never wavered.
Seralyth fought in aerial loops above him, her winged strikes sending arcs of stormfire lashing across three different fronts at once. To the far flank, Maeridion fought like a duelist drowning in enemies, each silver coin-blade spinning into dozens of mirrored copies before they crashed into the Demon Generals pressing him.
The Heartspire pulsed again — harder. This time the ground caved in a perfect ring around it, sending titanic slabs of earth plummeting into an infinite black chasm below. The sound was deafening.
And through that sound came the roar of the Demon Gods.
They surged all at once, desperate to finish the fight before the rupture consumed them. Shaltheris' chains lashed at lightning speed, Azzorath's blade struck with the force of a collapsing fortress, Khyrrath vanished and reappeared in the blind spots of multiple Divine Lords, carving wounds in their flanks.
Alter didn't retreat. He advanced.
His aura flared — not in a wave, but in sharp, pulsing bursts, each one syncing with the Dance of Destruction. Every step, every turn of the wrist, every flash of Starsever's edge was an attack and a marker in the same breath. The runic patterns lit around him in golden spirals, sealing demons into kill zones that he and Seraphina cut down in tandem.
"Left!" she called — and without looking, he shifted his stance, Fist of Ruin slamming into the skull of a demon beast the size of a siege tower, shattering it in one strike.
Then Heaven-Piercer Step — gone in a blink, reappearing above Khyrrath with a downward kick that cracked the god's carapace.
The rupture reached its peak.
From the Heartspire's core, a column of both light and shadow erupted upward, punching a hole in the sky so wide the stars themselves seemed to tilt. Chunks of reality — entire sections of the battlefield — broke off and drifted into the void beyond.
Solien's voice cut across the battlefield, thundering like a war drum. "Push them back! All of them!"
Alter felt the pull in his chest, the unmistakable warning that this plane was minutes away from collapse. He locked eyes with Seraphina across the chaos.
"Now," he said.
She nodded.
They moved as one — a golden streak and a crimson blaze — diving straight into the Heartspire's base where the largest cluster of Demon Gods fought. Void Fang Rend, Soulbreaker Dive, Celestial Vein Rupture, and Sovereign Fang Collapse chained together into a single, unbroken assault, the final blow detonating in a shockwave that split the battlefield down the middle.
The gods on both sides staggered from the impact. The Heartspire's light flared one last time.
The breach… was seconds away.
The breach detonated.
Not like an explosion — like a god's scream made into light. A column of raw, unfiltered creation and annihilation erupted from the Heartspire, so bright the shadows it cast burned themselves into the eyes of every combatant. For an instant, all sound vanished.
Then the world tore.
The ground buckled and folded upward, then inward, as if the battlefield was being swallowed by an invisible throat. Towers of stone, floating battlements, the shattered remnants of divine bastions — all were dragged toward the vortex at the Heartspire's center.
A third of the demon host vanished instantly, screaming as they were pulled into the rift. But the void didn't discriminate. One of Maeridion's silver citadels — a divine anchor that had stood since the Dawn War — twisted apart and was gone in seconds, along with a dozen of his guard.
The surviving gods moved at once.
Solien planted his spear into the rupturing ground, divine runes exploding outward in concentric circles as he forced a stability ward into the collapsing plane. Cracks still spidered across it, but the fall slowed.
Seralyth was a blur above, wings folded tight as she dove into the maelstrom to snatch three wounded gods out from the brink. Her talons burned with lightning, cutting a path through the chain-lashes of Shaltheris.
Seraphina and Alter didn't retreat. They plunged deeper, their markers flaring like miniature suns in the gloom. A ring of gold and scarlet burned into the collapsing terrain — the perimeter for their Dance of Destruction. Inside that space, every demon that crossed the threshold died in seconds, their bodies shredded by combined strikes before the void could take them.
Azzorath tried to break the ring, his blade swinging in a downward arc the size of a fortress wall. Alter met it mid-swing, Starsever screaming in friction against the abyss-forged steel. Seraphina came from the flank, twin blades hammering into the gap at Azzorath's wrist, forcing the strike wide.
The Heartspire pulsed again, harder.
The void widened. A mountain range in the far horizon simply tipped over the edge of existence and vanished into nothing. The battlefield had shrunk to less than half its original size.
"Fall back to the outer anchors!" Maeridion's voice roared over the gale. His coin-blades spun around him, dozens of them breaking formation to act as flying platforms for retreating divine forces.
Shaltheris didn't let them go quietly. Chains lashed outward, snagging a divine host mid-air. Before the god could be pulled under, Solien vaulted forward, spear flashing in Heaven's Arc Severance, cutting the chains into shrapnel that dissolved in the light.
Alter felt the ground tilt beneath him. The gravitational pull of the breach was now a constant drag, threatening to tear the sword from his grip. His breath came heavy, golden blood still seeping between the plates of his armor. His vision narrowed, and yet—he stepped forward again.
This wasn't a battle they could win by surviving.
It had to end here.
"Seraphina—front." His voice was raw, but it carried over the roar.
She moved instantly, sliding into position beside him. Their combined aura flared, and the markers they'd been weaving all fight linked into one colossal sigil — a war-sun of gold and crimson.
The Dance of Destruction changed. No longer a weaving of motion — it was a gravitational collapse in reverse, all force surging outward. Demon Gods staggered under the pressure. The weakest of their number crumpled, crushed into fragments that the void devoured.
Still, the breach widened.
Solien barked a single word. "Now!"
Every surviving Divine Lord moved at once. Seralyth's stormfire, Maeridion's mirrored blades, Solien's spear arcs, Seraphina's fireblades, and Alter's Demon God Killing Martial Arts—all struck the Heartspire's base in perfect synchronicity.
The rupture howled.
For a heartbeat, it looked as if the breach would consume them all. The sky was a boiling, lightless wound. The ground was a patchwork of floating fragments spinning toward oblivion. The air burned to breathe.
And then — the pull began to slow.
Not stop. Never stop. But slow enough that what remained of the divine host could stabilize their footing. The vortex shrank just enough to let the surviving gods form a defensive ring.
Half the battlefield was gone. A third of the divine army was dead. The Demon Gods, though battered, still stood.
And the Heartspire — fractured, burning, bleeding light — pulsed one final time.
This war wasn't over. It was only narrowing.
The void no longer screamed — it growled.A deep, grinding resonance pulsed through the ruins of the Heartspire, the kind of sound that felt like it was shaking the marrow inside every god's bones. The breach had slowed, but its hunger hadn't gone. It had simply become deliberate. Patient.
And it had forced the war into a cage.
The remaining ground — a jagged ring of broken stone and fractured divine metal — floated in the void like the rim of a shattered crown. There was no sky above, only the black wound of the breach, ringed by rivers of molten light. There was no open field to maneuver, no space for grand formations.
It was kill or be thrown into nothing.
The armies collided in the ring's narrow corridors. Divine light and abyssal dark clashed in bursts so violent they threw shards of reality into the void.
Solien stood at the center, his spear rotating in tight arcs that sent shockwaves up the stone walls, driving demon vanguard troops into clusters for the Lords to strike. He was bleeding from the temple, divine ichor tracing his jaw, but his stance never broke.
Maeridion fought behind him, his mirrored coin-blades folding into one massive cleaver of light. Each swing cleaved both matter and magic, severing abyssal armor from the flesh beneath. When Khyrrath tried to flank, Maeridion spun the blade into a shattering backhand that sent the Demon God staggering into the breach's gravitational pull — only for a chain of Shaltheris to lash out and drag him back.
On the far flank, Seralyth unleashed a curtain of stormfire so dense it bent light, roasting the swarms that tried to rush over the fragmented stone bridges. The lightning screamed like living things, burning rifts into the air that didn't close.
Seraphina and Alter fought shoulder to shoulder. The ring's narrow kill-zone forced their movements into a compressed Dance of Destruction — tighter arcs, faster pivots, more violent breaks. Their markers were no longer laid for battlefield control; they were set point-blank, detonating the instant a demon crossed the threshold.
Azzorath barreled in low, his black-forged blade carving a trench in the stone. Alter dropped beneath the swing, his claws scraping sparks against the weapon's flat before driving a Void Fang Rend into the Demon God's ribcage. Azzorath staggered, only for Seraphina to vault over Alter's back, driving both blades down in a Thunderclap: Skybreaker that shook the ring's entire section.
The breach pulsed again.
Not outward — but down. Gravity buckled, and the whole battlefield tilted toward the wound. Dozens of divine and abyssal soldiers alike were ripped off their feet. Solien slammed his spear into the ground, anchoring a swath of warriors to his divine ward. Maeridion spun his coin-blades into a whirling wall, slicing apart debris before it could crush the pinned fighters.
But the kill zone was getting smaller.
The outer edges of the ring were crumbling away into the void, leaving only ten fractured platforms large enough for combat — the Tenfold Eclipse.
Each platform became its own warfront.
On the northern shard, Seralyth clashed directly with Shaltheris, lightning tearing through his chains while the Demon God wove them into a prison of screaming steel.
On the western rim, Maeridion traded blows with Khyrrath, their weapons so fast they blurred into single lines of blinding silver and bottomless black.
At the southern breach, Solien held against two Demon Gods at once, spear arcs forming an unbroken wall of light that hid the gods behind him from annihilation.
And in the heart — the smallest shard — Alter and Seraphina stood against Azzorath.
Every strike between them cracked the air. Every parry left the stone beneath their feet glowing from the friction. The breach's pull made every movement feel like dragging a mountain, but Alter's form never wavered.
Azzorath snarled, driving his abyssal blade into the ground and forcing a shockwave upward. Alter leapt into it — not away — using the momentum to spiral over the Demon God's head in a Thousand Cross Fang, slashing from a dozen angles midair. Seraphina followed instantly, her own arcs joining his until the two of them moved like one radiant storm.
The breach pulsed again — harder, hungrier.
And the gods knew:There would be no room left soon.
The Tenfold Eclipse trembled.
Every platform — every sliver of stone still clinging to existence — was shaking under the weight of gods locked in mortal hatred. The breach's pull had narrowed the world into these floating shards, and each one now burned like its own collapsing sun.
Lightning storm met abyssal chain. Seralyth's every motion ripped arcs across the void, her stormfire bending space into spirals that detonated midair. Shaltheris answered with living chains, each link screaming in a thousand demon tongues as they wrapped, constricted, then snapped apart under the pressure. Both gods bled freely — her silver arcs staining the stone, his black ichor hissing as it ate through matter.
Coin-blades spun so fast they formed halos of blinding silver. Khyrrath's twin axes, forged from the marrow of abyssal titans, shattered each strike into a tidal wave of force. They fought on a platform barely wide enough for three strides; one wrong step meant the void. The ground beneath them cracked into spiderweb fractures, each hit shaking the shard toward collapse.The center anchor of the divine line burned bright.
Solien's spear work was a wall of light, his divine wards absorbing strikes that could have split the shard in half. Both Demon Gods pressed him relentlessly — one wielding a glaive of condensed shadowfire, the other channeling molten void energy through clawed hands. Solien's breath was ragged now, his armor split at the ribs, golden ichor leaking — but his stance never wavered.
Azzorath was no longer holding back. His abyssal blade howled through the void, every swing dragging black fire through the air like the trail of a falling star. Alter's claws were fractured in places, the gold sheen of his draconic scales dulled by the impact of countless blows. Seraphina moved in lockstep with him, arcs of Thunderclap: Storm Surge chaining lightning between her strikes and his markers, the two weaving a compressed Dance of Destruction that detonated in bursts inches from Azzorath's chest.
Azzorath laughed — low, cruel, unshaken. "Even together… you only slow me."
He drove a black spear of void energy upward from the ground. Alter blocked, but the shockwave punched through his guard, slamming into his chest. Golden blood sprayed from his lips. His knees buckled for half a second — enough for Azzorath to twist, blade screaming toward his neck.
Seraphina was there before the strike could land. Her swords crossed in front of Alter's throat, sparks blinding them both as she caught the blow. The force sent her skidding back with him, boots carving molten grooves into the stone.
Alter's breathing was ragged now. His vision bled into gold static at the edges, every heartbeat a detonation in his skull. He tightened his grip on Starsever anyway.
"We end this," he growled.
Markers flared into existence at impossible speed — so many that even Azzorath hesitated. Seraphina stepped in sync, her own arcs tracing through the paths he laid, weaving their attacks into a cage.
Then the Dance of Destruction detonated point-blank.
The platform beneath them cracked in half.The breaches between shards widened. Gravity shifted, the pull of the void tugging harder than ever. The gods no longer had the luxury of space — duels turned into grappling matches, strikes into kill-or-be-killed bursts at arm's length. Platforms began to disintegrate into ash, each collapse pulling combatants screaming into the breach.
Northern Shard — Seralyth roared, a wall of lightning blasting Shaltheris clean off the edge, but one chain wrapped her wrist even as he fell, threatening to drag her with him.
Western Shard — Maeridion's blade lodged in Khyrrath's shoulder just as the platform snapped beneath them. Both vanished into a spiral of silver and black.
Southern Shard — Solien drove his spear through one Demon God's chest, only to take a molten fist to the jaw from the other that sent him spinning toward the void.
Eastern Shard — Alter's knees finally hit stone. Azzorath's blade rose for the killing strike—
Seraphina screamed his name and stepped in, taking the blade across her side instead. The cut tore through armor and flesh alike, spinning her to the ground in a spray of silver light. Alter's eyes flared with the molten gold of his Sovereign's wrath.
"You will not touch her again."
The breach pulsed — the final warning before total rupture.
And every god left standing realized: they had seconds.
The breach was screaming.
Its light wasn't light anymore — it was a howl made visible, a twisting cyclone of void and fractured law that burned through sight and sound alike. What little remained of the Tenfold Eclipse's platforms were now just drifting ribs of stone, shaking with the strain of holding the defensive line.
Solien slammed his spear into the shattered ground, anchoring the divine wards with the last of his strength. "Hold it—hold it!" His voice was hoarse, cracked, but the command in it kept the line from folding.
Seralyth staggered onto the nearest shard, half-dragged by lightning whips as she severed the last of Shaltheris's chains from her wrist. Maeridion emerged from a cloud of ash, bleeding from a dozen cuts, his silver halo dimmed to a faint glimmer. Even Seraphina was down to one sword now, her right side wrapped hastily in a strip of Alter's torn armor to slow the bleeding.
Alter stood at the center of it all.
His armor was cracked, every joint leaking molten gold that hissed against the cooling stone. His breathing came in deep, deliberate pulls — not calm, but controlled rage, the kind that held a battlefield together through will alone. Starsever was still in his hand, the blade's edge flickering in and out of reality.
The breach pulsed again. This time, the pull wasn't random — it was deliberate. The void parted like a curtain, and something vast stepped through.
The battlefield went still.
Val'zaruun.
His arrival was not an impact but a shift in gravity, as if the entire plane bent to allow him entry. His frame was monstrous, but it was his presence that stole breath — a tidal weight of abyssal authority so absolute that even the surviving Demon Gods took a half-step back. His armor was black diamond laced with blood-vein cracks, and across his back, a blade taller than most gods hissed with unbound voidfire.
"Enough," Val'zaruun said.
The word was not loud, but it was total. The breach's roar dimmed, the air thickened, and even the pull toward the void slowed as if listening.
Solien's spear dipped a fraction under the pressure. "Val'zaruun… you weren't supposed to—"
"I decide when I move," the Abyssal Warlord interrupted, his gaze locking onto Alter. "And I see the one the Pantheon fears most."
Alter's grip on Starsever tightened. "If you came for fear, you'll leave with pain."
Val'zaruun's eyes burned — not with fire, but with the reflection of entire worlds dying. "We'll see."
He moved.
It wasn't speed — it was erasure. One moment he stood across the breach; the next, his blade was already hammering down toward Alter's skull. Starsever rose in time, but the force was titanic. The platform beneath them didn't crack — it detonated, sending a shockwave that knocked Seraphina and two Divine Lords clean off their footing.
Alter shoved back, aura flaring, the Draconian Prime's Resonance shattering the press of Val'zaruun's weight for an instant. He followed with a blinding Sky Piercer: Celestial Thrust, aiming for the warlord's throat —
— only for Val'zaruun to catch the thrust in one hand, the blade sinking into his palm without slowing him. Black ichor boiled over his fingers.
"You bleed," Alter said.
"You will break," Val'zaruun answered.
The breach pulsed again, wider now, pulling debris, corpses, and entire chunks of battlefield into its core. The safety line around Draktharek wavered. Solien bellowed orders, Seralyth and Maeridion dove to reinforce the wards, and the remaining Demon Gods began circling like predators sensing a shift in the tide.
But in the center shard — if it could still be called that — the duel between Alter and Val'zaruun consumed the air.
Marker detonations, blade crashes, sovereign roars — each clash bent the breach's edges wider. Every strike from Val'zaruun carried the weight of a collapsing continent, and Alter answered with the full chain of Demon God Killing Martial Arts, each strike faster, heavier, more desperate.
Then the breach's pull spiked again — no longer random, no longer neutral.
It wanted Alter.
Val'zaruun's grin deepened. "Time to end this."
He stepped through three of Alter's strikes like they were air, caught him by the chestplate, and with a twist that shattered bone and armor alike, hurled him toward the breach's heart.
"ALTER!" Seraphina's scream tore through the void.
But the pull was too strong.
And the last thing Alter saw before the breach swallowed him was Val'zaruun stepping through after him.
There was no falling.
No sensation of wind, or gravity, or motion. Only a single instant of nothing—a hollow pause in the pulse of reality—before the world slammed back into existence.
Alter opened his eyes to black.
Not darkness. Darkness implied absence of light. This was presence—a black that moved, breathed, and pressed against the edges of his thoughts. Every breath drew it in, and every exhale left a faint trace of gold mist, his own divine essence burning away just to keep his form intact.
The floor beneath him was cold obsidian veined with something that pulsed like arteries, each beat echoing with a low thrum deep in his chest. His arms were shackled high above him, locked into curving bands of voidsteel. Even Starsever was gone—his bond to it severed so thoroughly he couldn't even feel its absence.
A voice rolled through the black.
"You wake."
Val'zaruun stepped into sight—or perhaps into focus. Here in the Abyss Realm, he was not just larger; he was more. His armor was jagged shadow, constantly shifting like plates of volcanic glass sliding over molten rock. The great voidfire blade was sheathed across his back, but its heat still licked the air between them.
Alter's voice was low, steady, but his eyes never left the warlord's. "You took me from my war."
"I took you from our war," Val'zaruun corrected, stopping just short of the shackles. "You're the keystone, Alter. Remove you, and the Divine Realm flinches. The mortal realm crumbles. And your allies… they'll spend their strength chasing you instead of holding their walls."
He leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper that carried like thunder. "They will break without you. That is the beginning."
Alter pulled once against the shackles—not in desperation, but in testing. The voidsteel burned cold against his wrists, sending a pulse of numbing force up his arms. The resonance was clever: it ate at his draconic aura with each movement, siphoning it into the black veins beneath the floor.
"What's the end?" Alter asked.
Val'zaruun's eyes burned like eclipses. "The end… is when you kneel."
The chamber around them shifted. Walls that were not walls pulled back, revealing an expanse of the Abyss Realm—an ocean of shadow broken by jagged spires that clawed into a sky of roiling void. In the distance, enormous shapes moved beneath the surface of the dark, their bodies so vast the waves they made were visible even miles away.
Closer, along the obsidian causeways, came ranks of the Abyss Warlord's chosen: demon lords in armor blacker than the realm itself, each carrying weapons that pulsed with the same living shadow as the floor. Their steps were in perfect unison, every motion feeding into the oppressive rhythm of the realm's heartbeat.
"You'll watch," Val'zaruun said, turning away. "You'll watch as the mortal realm burns and the Divine Realm buckles. And when the choice is kneel or lose everything… you'll know what to do."
Alter said nothing. But his gaze tracked the warlord's every step, memorizing the patterns in the veins of the floor, the sequence of the black-armored guards, the slow ebb and flow of the realm's oppressive pressure.
He was chained. He was cut off.
But he was not broken.
In the distance, the pulse of the Abyss quickened. Something massive was approaching, each step sending tremors through the obsidian.
And as the sound grew, Alter's lips curled into the faintest hint of a smile.