The silence that followed Kaisen's challenge was audacious.
Here, in a throne room that bent the laws of reality, the weakest of men stood with a trembling, chipped sword raised against the slayer of gods—and dared him to attack.
Karihad studied him.
The irritation in the god's eyes faded, replaced by something almost contemplative. When he spoke again, his voice no longer boomed like thunder. It was quieter now—steady, unnervingly honest.
"Kaisen, huh…" The name hung in the air, tested like an unfamiliar flavor. "Perhaps I was mistaken. I expected a man of strength—of merit—a conqueror draped in glory. But in truth…" He paused, and for an instant, the divinity in him flickered, revealing something older, more human. "I never had such things. I had nothing. Only my spite. My desperation… and that, I see burning so brightly in your eyes, Kaisen."
Kaisen said nothing. His knuckles whitened around the sword's hilt.
"I'd fight you," Karihad continued, a trace of genuine regret in his tone. "I truly would. But I already lost. I'm dying. My time grows short—and now I seek someone who can carry the same bloody path I walked."
The admission was colossal—so at odds with the being's overwhelming presence that Kaisen's stance faltered.
Dying? The Ascendant? The thought didn't fit.
He lowered his sword just enough to whisper, "Wh… who are you?"
A faint, grim smile touched Karihad's lips.
"I've been called many things. The God Butcher. The Primordial's Mistake. The Devil. And famously…" His gaze drifted to the floor. "The Godslayer."
He leaned back, the weight of his armor pressing deeper into the throne. "But my mother named me Karihad—so long ago you cannot begin to comprehend it. A time when the universe was still pure, and I had yet to stain its innocence with divine blood."
The scale of his words was too vast to grasp. Kaisen's head spun.
This wasn't a rift Guardian. That much he knew.
"What… what do you want from me?" he managed, the fight draining out of him, leaving only awe.
"It's not what I want from you," Karihad corrected softly. "It's what I want for you."
His gaze burned through Kaisen.
"Power. Not the ranked scraps your world clings to. Power beyond measure, beyond concept—to become the vessel of my hatred, my will, my strength."
He rose—not swiftly, but with the slow inevitability of a mountain shifting. The chamber seemed to contract around him.
"You, Kaisen… will inherit the Will of the Godslayer."
The words struck like a sentence handed down by fate.
Kaisen's arm fell to his side, the blade's tip clinking softly against the luminous floor. His mind raced, torn between awe and impossible hope.
A Will of an Ascendant? The Will of a Godslayer? Could this mean he wouldn't die a failure? That the Flicker Spark wasn't the end of his story?
"But the final decision isn't mine," Karihad said, glancing past Kaisen. "It must deem you worthy."
Kaisen turned. His pulse stuttered. "It?"
"The Judge."
Footsteps echoed—slow, metallic, deliberate.
From behind a pillar of milky stone emerged a figure.
Humanoid, but faceless. Its body was a smooth, mirrored surface without seam or feature, and in its hand, it held a blade made of the same flawless chrome.
A white system prompt appeared across Kaisen's vision:
[ You now stand in the presence of an Appraiser. ]
The thing's aura bled into the air—dense, analytical, merciless. It was not like the rage of a beast; instead if felt like the intent of a surgeon dissecting a soul.
Kaisen's instincts flared. His cheap sword came up again, trembling but ready.
"Defeat the Appraiser," Karihad's voice echoed, final and absolute, "and my will is yours."
The Appraiser moved—its glide too smooth, too fast.
Kaisen braced himself, waiting for a tell, a shift, a sign of attack—
—and blood sprayed into the air.
A fine red mist shimmered before him.
Kaisen froze.
A burning line opened across his chest. Then another. His thigh. His arm. His face.
He hadn't even seen it move.
There was no blur, no displacement, nothing. The cuts had simply appeared—as if reality itself decided he'd already lost.
His body failed. His sword clattered. He dropped to his knees, then to the floor, his blood pooling beneath him, the cold stone drinking it in.
From the sidelines, the man in robes—Eros—let out a soft whistle. "Ugh. Brutal."
Iris nodded once beside him, expression blank, but her eyes betrayed a faint flicker of pity.
Karihad remained silent, his gaze heavy on the broken boy at his feet.
It was over.
He'd failed. Again.
The fragile spark of hope he'd held guttered out beneath the weight of his inadequacy.
Darkness crept closer—peaceful, almost kind.
But somewhere in the deep, scarred-over chambers of his soul, something snarled awake.
Lyra's cold betrayal. The laughter of his classmates. The memory of hiding while his family died.
A lifetime of humiliation compressed into one defiant breath.
No.
Not like this.
Kaisen moved.
A raw, animal sound tore from his throat as he pressed his blood-slick palms to the floor. His body shook, bleeding from every cut—but he rose.
First to his knees. Then, wavering, to his feet.
He stood in a puddle of his own blood, chest heaving, eyes wild.
His hand found the hilt of his ruined sword. It slipped twice before he managed to lift it again.
He raised it—pointed it at the Appraiser.
"I'm not done, you ugly fuck!" he rasped, voice ragged, throat shredded. "Come back and fight me!"
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It listened.
On the dais, Karihad's lips twitched. Not a smile—something darker, prouder.
Eros blinked, disbelief shattering his calm. "I'll be damned…"
The Appraiser stopped mid-stride.
It turned back toward Kaisen, precise and expressionless.
No anger. No malice. Only new instructions.
And in an instant, it was there—right before him.
Kaisen barely saw the motion.
The mirrored blade thrust forward, piercing his chest in one clean, perfect strike.
He gasped—a short, final sound.
His eyes went wide. His mouth filled with the hot, metallic taste of blood.
He looked down at the blade buried in his chest, as if surprised that defiance alone hadn't changed the world's rules.
Then the darkness swallowed him whole.
A final, cold system prompt flickered in his vision—his last conscious thought.
[ You have died. ]