The pulse of the Abyss Realm never stopped.It was in the air, in the floor, in the marrow of Alter's bones.
Each slow throb of the black-veined obsidian around him seemed to drink more of his strength, sapping it in small, insidious pulls. But Alter had survived worse.
He leaned forward against the voidsteel shackles—not to strain, but to listen. The cold metal whispered as it drank his aura, channeling the stolen energy into the web of black veins below. The flow was precise, refined; no wasted movement, no loose current. Whoever had designed this prison understood how to dismantle gods.
Alter's fingers flexed against the cuffs. The resistance was absolute—physically. But resonance was not a thing of force.
Closing his eyes, he let his draconic heartbeat slow. Golden blood still seeped from his earlier wounds, trickling down his chest, but he let the pain fade into the background. He reached—not outward, but inward. Into the core where the seven Draconian Aspects coiled like sleeping titans.
The moment he let one of them stir, the shackles bit deeper, a flash of cold running up his arms. Alter smiled faintly. "Good. You respond."
He tested them one by one—light, shadow, flame, storm, earth, ice, and wind. The shackles reacted differently to each, feeding the energy into different veins on the floor. Mapping them, he thought. Every reaction was another thread in the lock he was unraveling.
The sound came before the shadow.
A scraping, wet and deliberate, as something massive pulled itself into the chamber from the far corridor. The shape was wrong for any mortal creature—too many limbs, bending at angles that bent again halfway. A head like a cracked mask, with three vertical eyes burning like pale green fire.
It stopped before him, the air warping around its form as if the Abyss itself recoiled.
"You," the thing rasped, voice layered in three tones. "You are to be tested."
The shackles hissed. The black veins pulsed. And the voidsteel melted away just long enough to drop him to the floor.
Alter landed on one knee, Starsever still absent from his grasp. No matter. His hands closed into fists.
The abyssal lieutenant struck first, vanishing into a smear of shadow before reappearing above him, its claw-blades descending like falling guillotines. Alter stepped into the attack, shoulder-checking the creature's torso and releasing Heaven-Piercer Step straight into its chest. The impact shattered the air in a circular blast, hurling the thing into a wall hard enough to crack the obsidian.
It screamed—a jagged sound, more metal tearing than flesh.
The fight didn't stop. The lieutenant's limbs writhed, extending like spears, forcing Alter to weave between them with precise, whip-fast footwork. Every time he struck—Void Fang Rend, Bloodlash Howl, Soulbreaker Dive—the creature adapted, learning his rhythm.
They fought for what could have been minutes or hours. Time was irrelevant here. The Abyss did not keep it.
At last, Alter's final blow—Sovereign Fang Collapse—drove the lieutenant into the floor, a crater blooming beneath them. The creature convulsed, its body folding in on itself before dissolving into black mist.
The shackles reformed instantly, snapping around his wrists again.
Alter exhaled slowly, feeling the ache in his muscles, the slow seep of golden blood from reopened wounds.
From beyond the dark, Val'zaruun's voice came—not from the doorway, but from everywhere.
"You fight well in chains," the warlord said, his tone almost approving. "Good. It means the copies will, too."
Alter's eyes narrowed. "Copies?"
Val'zaruun stepped into view, the voidfire blade now slung casually across his shoulder.
"I will take what you are," he said, circling Alter as if studying a weapon in the forge. "Your form, your power, your instincts. I will shape them into soldiers who bear your face, your strength, your legend. And I will send them into the Divine Realm… and into the mortal realm… to burn your name into ash."
Alter didn't respond. But in the silence, his resolve hardened into something sharp.
The warlord thought the Abyss could break him.The warlord thought chains could hold him.
The warlord was wrong.
The skies above Draktharek were still streaked with the faint afterglow of the divine war—burnt gold and smoldering crimson where the last rifts had closed. The air was quiet now, but it was not peace. It was the silence after a scream.
Seraphina stood at the great balcony of the Skyhold Citadel, her armor fractured and her breath still raw from the Heartspire's final collapse. Every movement hurt, but the wound in her chest was not one that bled. It was the memory of the moment Alter vanished—dragged into the Abyss Realm in a torrent of voidfire.
When she finally spoke, the words carried like a hammer through the hall."They took him."
The murmur of voices in the gathered war council fell to nothing.
Selene was there. She didn't move at first—just stared at Seraphina as if she'd misheard. But when the meaning struck, her knees buckled, and the sound of her body hitting the marble echoed far too loudly.
"Selene!" multiple voices called at once.
The Commanders surged forward, but it was Soryn who reached her first, catching her limp form before she could hit her head. Her pulse was still strong, but her consciousness had fled. He lifted her easily and turned to the others."Get her to the upper chambers. Now."
They carried her from the council room, the weight of her absence pressing down like another loss.
When Selene awoke, it was not to the war council's chaos but to the quiet of her personal chambers. The light was low—afternoon fading to dusk—and the first thing she saw was a small movement near her bed.
Two figures.Kaelion and Serenya.
Her breath caught, but then something else drew her gaze—the faint glow from the pendants they wore. The Veil of Origin, unbroken, its threads still intact. Her hand flew to her own ring, and there it was—the same subtle pulse.
He was alive.
Her voice trembled. "He's… still here."
The twins didn't fully understand, but they could see the relief in her eyes. Kaelion pressed against her arm, Serenya curling in at her side. She held them close, the three of them anchored to that one fragile truth: Alter had not fallen.
Far above, in the silver-lit spires of the Celestial War Bastion, the mood was anything but quiet.
Solien stood at the center of the great war table, its surface a shifting map of the realms, glowing in threads of light and shadow. The Abyss Realm was a churning knot of black on the display, and its surface pulsed like a heart. Around the table, the War Gods leaned forward, each armored in their own divine sigils. Behind them, ranks of the Celestial Army stood at attention, their spears and halberds catching the starfire glow.
"We go into the Abyss Realm," Solien said flatly. "Directly."
A murmur rippled through the gathered gods. Even among immortals, such a venture was reckless. But there was no hesitation in his tone.
"We do not wait for them to bring war to us again. We breach their walls, we cut down what remains of their Pantheon, and we take him back."
One of the War Gods stepped forward. "The cost will be great."
"The cost of doing nothing," Solien countered, "is greater."
The previous battle had been a victory—if such a thing could be called that. Dozens of Demon Gods had been struck down, their remains cast into the void. But it had come at the price of countless celestial warriors, and the rift scars still stretched across the Divine Realm's horizon.
This time, the fight would be on the enemy's ground.
Solien looked over the gathered host, his voice rising so it carried to every rank."They took our Sovereign. They bled our armies. They will pay for both. Ready your weapons, divine lords—at dawn, we march into the Abyss."
Morning came to Draktharek like a reluctant ember, pale sunlight spilling through the high windows of the Skyhold's western cloisters. The air was still heavy from the night before—grief and tension clinging like smoke in the halls.
Selene moved through the stone corridors with slow, measured steps. She was dressed not in battle armor, but in the simple, flowing robes of the palace's inner quarters. The twins had been left in the care of Alyxthia for the morning; Selene's mind was too restless for their presence to ease.
She found Seraphina at one of the balcony arcades, leaning on the marble rail. The older woman's armor was gone, replaced by a deep violet cloak that framed her silver hair against the dawn. Her expression was calm, but her eyes—those eyes had the weight of centuries behind them.
Selene stood beside her in silence for a long moment before speaking."You've known him longer than anyone."
Seraphina's gaze remained fixed on the mountains beyond. "I have."
"What was he like… before all this?"
There was a pause. Then, softly: "Before the title. Before the crown of flame. He was Ren Arclight."
Selene turned to her, confusion breaking through her composure. "…Ren?"
"Yes." Seraphina's voice was steady, almost reverent. "A name he buried long ago. Not out of shame, but out of necessity. When the trials came for him—when the worlds themselves began to test his existence—Ren Arclight became Alter. And Alter… became the Sovereign you know."
Selene's mind reeled. She had fought beside him, bled beside him, loved him—and yet there was a whole chapter of his life she had never seen. A name she had never spoken.
Seraphina glanced at her, reading the storm behind her eyes. "Do not mistake the change in name for a change in heart. The man you know is still the same. But he carries the weight of both names now."
Selene swallowed hard. "What happens now?"
The older woman didn't soften her tone. "You wait."
Selene's brows drew together. "Wait?"
"Yes." Seraphina turned fully to face her. "The Divine Realm will strike the Abyss Realm directly. Not a raid. Not a skirmish. An incursion to break their gates and bring him home. But our numbers are fewer than they were. Too many gods and warriors fell at the Heartspire. Every sword we have left must be wielded with precision."
She stepped closer, resting a hand on Selene's shoulder. "The balance has tipped to our favor for the first time in this war. They've lost more than we have, even if it doesn't feel that way. And that's why we will win him back. You must hold here, with the twins, until we do."
Selene's voice was quiet but fierce. "I should be there."
"You should be alive," Seraphina countered without hesitation. "If we fail, you may be the last of his line still free. Don't throw that away. Trust us to bring him back."
For a long moment, Selene said nothing. But the quiet promise in her eyes matched the one in Seraphina's—a vow unspoken, but unbreakable.
The Skyhold's bells rang in a slow, deliberate cadence—a signal known in the Divine Realm for only one thing. War.
From the highest spires of Draktharek, celestial banners unfurled, their woven threads shimmering with captured starlight. The sigil of the War Gods burned bright on their surface: a radiant sun split by a crescent blade. Across the plazas and mustering fields, formations of divine soldiers took shape, their golden and argent armor reflecting the first light of morning like an ocean of fire and steel.
At the heart of the mobilization, the Celestial Host assembled in tiers of might. Angelic battalions knelt beneath the command towers, awaiting orders from the Divine Lords. Arcane engines the size of fortresses were rolled into place, each one humming with destructive power meant to tear holes in the Abyss itself.
The warships of the Divine Fleet loomed above the capital like slumbering titans—hulls plated in lightborn alloys, keels lined with rune arrays that burned brighter with every minute. Fueling chambers flared with phoenix-fire, preparing the vessels for the trans-realm jump.
Solien strode through the mustering ground in full battle regalia—ebony plate streaked with crimson sigils, his twin lances slung across his back. Every step he took left a faint echo of thunder. Beside him marched Seraphina, her gauntlets wreathed in slow-burning silver flame, eyes locked on the war horizon. Behind them, the War Gods readied their weapons—each a relic built for one purpose: killing Demon Gods in their own territory.
Even the air itself vibrated with readiness, as if the realm could feel the impending breach.
Far away—beneath a sky that did not know light—Alter fought alone.
The prison was a labyrinth of voidsteel and abyssal bone, each corridor lit only by the sickly glow of runes carved to drain divine essence. His armor hung from him in jagged fragments; Sovereignborn Draconic Plate reduced to warped shards along his shoulders and waist. Golden blood ran in rivulets from deep gashes across his arms, his side, his cheek. Each drop hissed where it struck the floor, dissolving into vapor.
The Abyss was relentless. Demon generals poured into the chamber in endless waves—hulking silhouettes with weapons made from the corpses of fallen gods, their eyes burning with the void's hunger. Every strike that landed on him was meant to cripple, every movement meant to cage.
Alter staggered once, his breathing heavy. Starsever was planted in the ground before him, its edge streaked with his own golden ichor. For a heartbeat, it looked as if he might fall.
Then… his eyes narrowed.
He remembered. The Trial of Ascension—the endless storms, the dragons' fury, the weight of entire realms pressing against him. He had stood against worse. He had been broken before and had risen from the dust as a sovereign.
With a slow exhale, he wrenched Starsever free and rested it lazily on his shoulder. His lips curled into a grin—sharp, almost amused."Is this it?" he taunted, voice echoing through the prison chamber. "The Abyss sends me gnats and expects me to kneel?"
The demons hissed, their forms quivering with rage.
"Come then," Alter growled. "Let's make it interesting."
In the next instant, he surged forward—no hesitation, no defensive stance, only the pure, unrestrained aggression of a predator. Starsever flashed in lethal arcs, severing voidsteel halberds, carving through abyssal armor, sending shockwaves that split the stone beneath his feet. Every step forward was a refusal to bow. Every strike a promise that he would not be broken—not here, not now.
And somewhere in the distance, beyond the sound of battle, Val'zaruun watched… and smiled.
The air above Draktharek split open with a sound like glass shattering across the sky.
The Celestial Fleet moved first—fortress-sized warships shifting into attack formation, their hulls wreathed in burning runes. Spearhead arrays locked into place along the prows, each glowing with concentrated godfire that could pierce even the Abyss. The War Gods rode ahead in formations of three, their auras spilling down like rivers of molten gold, each step onto the warship decks ringing like a hammer blow against the realm itself.
Solien stood at the Fleet's forward edge, one lance leveled toward the void ahead. "Mark the rift," he commanded. "Burn it open."
Arc-cannons ignited across the fleet, their beams forming a massive lattice of searing light. The fabric of reality convulsed—folding inward, stretching outward—and with a deafening roar, a black wound tore open in the heavens. On the other side, the Abyss churned: a horizon of jagged bone-spires, rivers of molten shadow, and skies swarming with winged horrors.
"Charge," Seraphina said simply.
The command wasn't shouted. It didn't need to be. The Celestial Host surged forward, their divine warships slipping into the wound like blades through flesh.
Beneath that same Abyssal sky—Alter was still standing.
Barely.
His breathing was ragged now, each inhale burning in his ribs. Golden blood slicked the floor beneath his boots. Voidsteel chains lay in broken heaps at his feet, shattered by his relentless strikes. The chamber walls bled shadow where his blade had bitten too deep into the Abyssal structure.
The demon generals kept coming. New ones every minute, each stronger than the last. Massive juggernauts with mouths for torsos. Slender wraiths whose claws could phase through armor to rip at the soul. He fought them all, cutting down one only for two more to take its place.
From far above, in a chamber carved into a spine of abyssal stone, Val'zaruun watched through a scrying mirror. Behind him, an intricate array of void crystals pulsed around a central forge-like cradle—where something shaped like Alter, but not, floated in a cocoon of shadowfire.
The clone was incomplete, its form flickering between solid and insubstantial. Val'zaruun's long fingers traced the air, weaving more sigils into the cocoon. "Not yet," he murmured. "But soon… your own will will stand against you."
Below, in the prison's blood-slicked arena, Alter stumbled. For a moment his vision doubled—world and shadow merging into a haze of light and black flame. His muscles screamed with fatigue, his wounds throbbed in time with his heartbeat. The air was heavy, draining, designed to smother even a god-tier will.
But somewhere beneath the pain—something stirred.
The sensation was faint at first. Like a slow, resonant pulse in his bones. But it grew—warm, steady, relentless. He knew this feeling. The World Origin. Not the fractured echoes he'd touched before… but the core of it, deep and alive.
Each beat of it was a memory. Trials endured. Skies conquered. The roar of Ignivar over the Forbidden Vein. The voices of dragons bowing in unison. Selene's eyes when she placed her hand on his chest.
He exhaled, slow and even.
And the warmth grew hotter.
The next demon lunged—a tower of muscle and horns—and Alter caught the blow in one clawed hand. The impact should have shattered his bones. Instead, the force bled away into the golden aura now spilling from his skin.
He met the demon's gaze and grinned, blood in his teeth. "Round two."
He moved.
Star-searing arcs of light and shadow wove through the prison like a storm given form. Every strike was faster. Every impact heavier. The World Origin wasn't fully awake yet, but its power bled through him—patching the cracks in his strength, feeding his will, pushing back the Abyss with every blow.
Above, the Divine Fleet slammed into the first Abyssal defense line, and the sky between realms turned into a wound of light and darkness.
The war had begun.
The Abyssal Gates loomed ahead like the jaws of some ancient predator, each towering spire of black bone braced by chains the size of mountains. The gates themselves were a living thing—stitched together from the corpses of titans, their ribcages fused into a maw that pulsed with a sickly, internal glow. Thousands of abyssal beasts clung to its surface like parasites, shrieking as they sensed the Celestial Host's approach.
Solien's voice cut through the void like a clarion."War Gods—pierce the veil!"
The forward phalanx surged. Spears of light, each carrying the condensed will of a god, streaked ahead like falling stars. They slammed into the first layer of the Gates—black stone detonating outward in waves of molten shadow. Warships followed, their prow cannons tearing through the breaches, shredding abyssal fliers by the hundreds. The first Abyssal bulwark cracked.
Seraphina's sword was a white sun in her hands as she dove from the lead warship, a trail of blazing sigils flaring in her wake. She hit the second layer like a meteor, carving a wedge through the demon ranks. The War Gods poured through the breach, their auras flaring in gold, silver, and starlight.
The Spearpoint of Heaven had struck.
Far below, deep within the labyrinth of the Abyss Realm, Alter's breath steamed in the cold black air of his prison.
He stood in the center of a crater of shattered bone and broken chains, his golden blood dripping from the tips of his claws. Around him lay the corpses of his last gauntlet—ten abyssal warbeasts, each a god-tier predator, now silent in death. The World Origin pulsed stronger now, burning in his veins like molten sunlight.
For the first time since his capture, there were no enemies rushing him. No chains tightening. Only the echo of his own breathing and the faint hum of voidsteel deep in the walls.
He rolled Starsever onto his shoulder, turning slowly."I know you're there."
The shadows thickened at the far edge of the arena. And from them, Val'zaruun emerged.
The Abyssal Emperor's form seemed too large for the space—six wings made of chained stars, armor of black adamant that drank the light from the air, and a helm crowned with the broken halves of a slain god's halo. His voice was deep enough to rattle the marrow.
"You've done well, Prime Sovereign," Val'zaruun said, stepping forward, each footfall cracking the ground. "Better than I expected. But you will not break this realm."
Alter didn't move. His grip on Starsever tightened, knuckles whitening. "Funny. I was just thinking about breaking you."
A low chuckle rolled from the Emperor, humorless and sharp. "You will serve me. Whether as a weapon… or as the seed of something greater."
Behind him, the half-formed clone stirred in its cradle of shadowfire, flickering between Alter's exact likeness and something twisted.
The World Origin flared in Alter's chest. His aura cracked the ground. "Come and try."
Above, the Gates shattered in full.
The Celestial Host poured into the Abyss, divine banners streaming through the breach. War Gods clashed with Demon Lords across titanic bridges of bone and stone. Warships banked through skies alive with fire, lightning, and abyssal storms. The invasion had begun in earnest—two fronts, one in the open void… and one deep in the Emperor's lair.
And at the very heart of it, two rulers took their first step toward collision.