Chapter 2: Break the Sky
The sky above Vareth howled.
Prison bells rang in wild chaos—not for escape, but for something worse.
Something had breached the island's defenses.
Kairo could feel it before he heard it: a pull, like a thread being yanked from his soul. Something ancient. Wild. Hungry.
Then the stone ceiling cracked.
With a deafening roar, the wall above shattered inward, sending debris crashing like meteors.
And there it was—
A creature of nightmare.
Towering, winged, its body split between flickering shadows and living lightning. A mask covered its face—horned, jagged, smiling. Its wings stretched wide, blotting out the flickering prison lights like a storm devouring the sun.
It didn't speak. It just stared.
At him.
> It's looking for me.
Kairo didn't know what it was. But it knew him.
And the moment their eyes met, his body responded on its own.
---
The obsidian chains—unbreakable, sacred, cursed—began to smoke.
Not from heat. Not from pressure.
From absence.
The Null Kaigen pulsed.
Chains that had bound gods began to vanish into flickering black petals, like ash caught in a storm.
Kairo gasped. His knees hit the ground. His veins burned like they were filled with fire made of silence. The lotus mark on his chest spread, twisting outward like roots breaking through stone.
> "Remember what you are."
The voice again—echoing from somewhere far away, or maybe deep inside.
> "You are the end of all things."
---
A wave of wind slammed into him as the beast roared again.
The prison walls exploded outward, lifting entire levels of Vareth into the sky. The beast flew higher, circling the ruins, its gaze fixed solely on Kairo.
Alarms screamed. Guard towers collapsed. Skyships launched into action, firing bolts of energy at the monster—but it didn't care. It simply turned into mist, flickered behind the nearest ship, and tore it in half.
It wasn't here to kill. It was here to call.
Kairo felt the pull again. Something inside that monster was familiar.
Was it summoning him?
Or hunting him?
---
The platform he stood on began to crack apart. With nothing left beneath him but endless sky, Kairo stood at the edge of the ruins.
His breath shook. His hands trembled.
Then—
He leapt.
---
He fell.
Down, down, through the scattered remnants of Vareth. Past floating debris, past screaming prisoners, past the flames and chaos and skyships in battle.
And as he plummeted toward the lands below, the black lotus on his chest began to burn brighter.
No wings. No plan. No escape.
Only falling—
And the beginning of everything.
---
✦ End of Chapter 2 ✦
> Next Chapter: "The Skyblades" — Kairo crash-lands in an unfamiliar sky-island, only to be caught between cursed beasts and rogue warriors who recognize the mark on his chest… and aren't sure whether to kill him or save him.