The dark star blinked.
Not like the Child of Silence had—but like an ancient eye reopening after eons of slumber.
Kael felt it ripple through the fabric of the cosmos. Not just a tremor of space, but a shift in truth itself. Like the laws that governed reality were being rewritten, line by trembling line.
The others—Lyra, Valen, the remnants of the Starborn Guard—looked to Kael. But he didn't speak. He couldn't. Not yet.
Because something had answered him.
Something older than stars.
A presence drifted into Kael's awareness—not hostile, not yet—but vast. It didn't walk or fly. It unfolded into reality, like a forgotten memory reclaiming its place.
Kael's feet left the ground. A celestial force pulled him upward—beyond atmosphere, beyond the veil of the sky—to the edge of the world.
There, floating above the world's heart, was a throne of obsidian light. Broken. Cold.
And on it sat a figure cloaked in pre-creation shadow, watching him.
Its voice thundered not in sound, but in understanding.
"You are the spark. But I... I am the fire before fire."
Kael floated before the being, his body shimmering with divine light—but it flickered before this presence.
"You were there when the Abyss was born," Kael said.
"No," the figure replied. "I am the Abyss."
Time warped. Kael saw flashes—civilizations devoured, gods silenced, stars crushed under cosmic will. All by this entity who called itself:
Yaros, the Unremembered Flame.
"The Heralds were echoes," Yaros said. "The Child was a flicker. But you, Kael… you are a beacon. A mistake that calls the devourer home."
Kael clenched his fists. "Then let that beacon blind you."
He unleashed his power—not alone, but merged with the entity inside him, the celestial force he now understood wasn't just a gift, but a seed planted by creation itself to counter Yaros.
Starlight collided with shadow. The void screamed.
Kael felt himself stretching—his power amplified by every star that had ever known his name.
Yaros didn't flinch.
"You shine well, Celestial God. But even the brightest stars die."
He stood.
The broken throne shattered.
And the true battle for reality began.