The battlefield lay in ruins. The armies of the Order—once countless, once fearless—had been broken beneath Kael's ascension. Yet silence did not bring peace. It was the silence of prey realizing they stood before something that was not predator, but extinction itself.
Kael stood at the center of it all, his form cloaked in writhing shadows woven with burning strands of light. The world itself bent around him; air refused to touch him, earth recoiled beneath his feet, the sky cracked in his presence. But it was not the storm of power already unleashed that froze every soul—it was what stirred beneath.
A second heartbeat.
A sealed core.
A truth older than gods and crueler than devils.
Kael's body trembled as the pulse grew stronger, each thud of that hidden heart resounding like war drums. In his mind, chains rattled in a void without end, bound around something immeasurable, something infinite. He knew it was not his—but it had chosen him as its vessel.
Unseal me, the voice whispered again. It was not singular, but countless, a chorus of eternity. Let me eclipse all. Let me show them the meaning of dominion.
Kael's golden eye flickered. His crimson eye darkened. His hands clenched at his sides. He saw visions spill into his thoughts—armies turned to dust by his breath, worlds kneeling in submission, the cosmos itself bent beneath his hand. It was beautiful. It was monstrous. It was temptation carved into destiny.
"Kael!" Elara's cry pierced through the storm.
Her boots crunched against the shattered stone as she forced herself closer, even as his aura battered her back like a hurricane. Sweat clung to her face, her knees buckled, but her eyes did not leave his. "Fight it! You are not this power—you are you!"
But Kael did not answer. His breath came ragged, and shadows coiled from his chest like smoke from a broken seal.
Darian gritted his teeth, summoning flames that barely flickered against the pressure. "Damn it… he's slipping further!"
Lyra's voice cracked with fear as she held her blade, its notes shivering in the air. "No… no, that's not just Kael. That's something else inside him. Something that shouldn't exist."
The soldiers of the Order, what little remained of them, felt it too. Priests fell to their knees, chanting prayers that shattered into sobs. Knights threw down their swords, fleeing in terror. But one, a commander draped in silver armor, raised his weapon high.
"This is proof!" he screamed, desperation cracking his voice. "This is no savior—this is blasphemy! A false god who wields hell itself!"
He charged, a final act of defiance.
Kael's head tilted. He did not move his body. He only raised his hand.
And the world obeyed.
The sky blackened as the sun dimmed, swallowed by a curtain of shadow. The moon burned crimson, bleeding across the heavens. Light and darkness twisted, collapsed, and fused into one.
The battlefield drowned in twilight.
This was his new power. Eclipse Dominion.
The commander froze mid-strike. His sword's flames guttered out, swallowed by the eclipse. His body shook as if every atom of his being recognized a higher law, a dominion that rendered him meaningless.
Then, he was gone. Not slain. Not shattered. Erased.
Gasps echoed across the battlefield. Priests shrieked. The Order broke completely, their formations dissolving into chaos as men and women ran, tripping over each other in blind terror.
Kael's allies felt no safer.
Elara's breath caught in her throat, her hands shaking. "Kael… what have you done?"
Darian fell to one knee, fire sputtering in his palms. "That wasn't an attack… it was a command. He commanded reality to unmake itself."
Lyra's blade fell silent in her grip. Tears welled in her eyes. "He's… he's not even human anymore."
But Kael did not see them. His eyes were locked on the eclipse above, the seal within him throbbing in harmony with its rhythm. He could feel it—more than this. Eclipse Dominion was only the first crack in the chains. If he reached deeper, if he embraced it fully, he could eclipse not just the battlefield but the world itself.
Unseal me fully, the voices urged. And all creation will kneel. You will not be god, nor devil—you will be all.
Kael's chest heaved. His fingers twitched. For a heartbeat, he nearly obeyed.
But Elara's voice broke through the void again.
"Kael!" she screamed, her voice raw with desperation. "If you destroy everything… then what's left for you to protect? What's left of us?"
The shadows around Kael faltered. The eclipse flickered, light and darkness wavering as if the heavens themselves hesitated.
His hands trembled. His gaze turned toward her.
For a moment, just a moment, she saw him again—the Kael who had laughed beside her, who had fought not for power but for hope.
And then the sealed heart pulsed again. Harder. Louder. Hungrier.
Kael fell to one knee, clutching his chest as cracks of light and shadow tore through the ground around him. The air split with screams of reality itself, as if the world feared what it could not contain.
The eclipse above flared brighter. And in its glow, every soul—ally and enemy alike—knew a truth that would not fade:
Kael was no longer theirs.
He was becoming something else.
Something the world could never control.