Chapter 10
Scene: Twilight above the City of Heavens
The sky didn't just darken.
It shattered.
Black fissures cracked across the clouds as if the heavens themselves were breaking from tension. Below, the world held its breath. Beings both mortal and divine watched the confrontation.
Zereth Kaine stood unmoving calm, detached. His robes fluttered only slightly in the pressure. Meanwhile, Vael'Tharon, cloaked in the void itself, smiled with deathless confidence.
> "You reek of borrowed fate," Zereth muttered.
> "And you..." Vael'Tharon hissed, "are the reason fate trembles."
Then movement.
No warning. No flash.
Only obliteration.
The entire mountain behind Vael'Tharon vanished. Disintegrated. It wasn't even struck Zereth had only raised his hand... slightly.
Vael'Tharon's eyes narrowed.
He clapped once.
Reality warped.
Space-time condensed around Zereth like a prison of molten gravity. Thousands of ethereal blades rained down from rifts in space. Each sword held the essence of dying stars.
The city shook. The sky bled.
But Zereth… didn't dodge.
He spoke:
> "Fall."
And the blades shattered.
With a single word.
Vael'Tharon leapt in, closing the gap at lightbreaking speed. Fists and attacks moved faster than thought each strike created impact waves that leveled nearby continents.
Zereth blocked. With just his wrist.
> "You've faced gods. You've faced demons," Vael'Tharon snarled. "But not me."
> "I've ended those stronger than you… by mistake," Zereth replied coldly.
Vael'Tharon growled and extended his arms dozens of spectral chains erupted from his back, each infused with a soul-devouring curse, each capable of binding galaxies.
They wrapped around Zereth dragged him down.
BOOM.
The city cratered. Earthquakes. Tornados. Gods began teleporting mortals to distant safe zones.
Zereth kneeled for just a second.
> "That was... loud," he muttered.
Then...
He rose.
Black lightning exploded outward, forming cracks across the very laws of magic. Vael'Tharon was thrown across the sky his cloak tearing for the first time in centuries.
Zereth stared up.
> "You made me move."
---
Scene: Spiral Observatory Beyond Mortal Realms
The cloaked figures watched. The unseen. The ancients.
> "He moved."
> "He's bleeding a little aura…"
> "...We send the second one."
---
Back on the battlefield:
Just as Zereth prepared to finish it
A hole tore through the sky. Not a portal. A hole in existence.
And she stepped out.
Eyes like black suns. Hair like floating chains. A smile that silenced thunder.
> "So this is the one who shook the Spiral," she said, amused.
Vael'Tharon looked… afraid.
Zereth exhaled.
> "Another one? Fine."
> "Maybe this time I'll need to use... more than a finger."
The clouds screamed.
To be continued..