Chapter 14
Agnir's severed arm writhed on the shattered ground, steaming from where divine fire had been cleaved. Silence swept the battlefield gods, titans, and mortals alike frozen in awe.
Agnir staggered back, blood of golden flame spilling down his chest. Yet even in defeat, his pride refused surrender. Clutching his ruined shoulder, he gritted his teeth. "You... You bastard. You dare humiliate me in front of the realms"
Zereth Kaine turned his head slightly. His gaze alone cracked the heavens above.
"Humiliation?" Zereth spoke with a voice that made ancient trees shiver and time itself hesitate. "That was mercy."
Agnir screamed, lunging forward with a final surge of searing flame and broken pride. The crowd gasped some of the gods stood in alarm, others mocking the effort. But before Agnir's molten blade could reach even a foot from Zereth, the Sovereign raised a single finger.
Not a hand. Not an arm. Just a finger.
The entire battlefield trembled.
A wall of force, unseen yet suffocating, crushed Agnir mid-air. Bones shattered. Flames flickered and died. And then
BOOM.
Agnir's body exploded into radiant embers.
Only silence followed. Until Zereth's voice thundered like a commandment from beyond existence:
"Let this be your lesson. If you dare raise your hand against me again... there will be no ashes left to mourn."
The clouds split. The sky wept. The land beneath cracked like glass.
Even the oldest gods exchanged glances fear creeping into their ancient souls.
"Impossible... Agnir was the Flame of the East Realm..." whispered a masked god. "He was... supposed to be invincible."
"But he's just a shadow before that man," murmured another. "What... is Zereth Kaine really?"
Above them all, the void trembled spirals of cosmic mist stirring. From within that swirling vortex... something else approached.
Another one.
A second entity stepped from the Spiral Rift hooded, cloaked in darkness, dragging a massive blade carved from the corpse of a star.
The crowd gasped again.
Zereth didn't turn.
He simply whispered, almost amused: "Another one?"
The newcomer didn't speak. But the weight of his presence alone turned nearby angels to dust. Titans collapsed to one knee.
And as the chapter closed, the crowd could only feel one thing:
Dread.
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