Kael pushed himself off Adam's corpse and looked down at him.
'Too bad I couldn't get any of his motes.'
He scoffed inwardly.
When a Luminaire died, their soulbound motes were usually destroyed, unless they had been summoned into their true form beforehand, released willingly, or passed on. But that rarely happened. Most didn't have the time or clarity to think about such things in their final moments. Maybe nobles did, wanting their motes to return to the family line, but most Luminaires preferred their soulbound motes to die with them.
It was the same with regular motes, though the mechanics differed. Unlike soulbound motes, standard ones didn't vanish upon death. But Luminaires often embedded a fragment of their will into them, a final command: self-detonate upon their death. It was their last act of defiance, a final spiteful gesture to ensure their killer gained nothing.
Who would want their strength to become someone else's prize?
'Why did he even bother?'
Kael glanced at the slow-moving clouds drifting high above the crater, their pale outlines fading against the darkening sky.
'If my time comes, I won't bother with something so trivial.'
He turned away from Adam's corpse, boots crunching softly against the dirt as he made his way toward the lifeless body of the King Wolf Tiger.
To Kael, the idea had always seemed strange. The thought of dying and still clinging to one's strength, it felt small. Desperate. Like a man gripping the edge of a cliff, not to save himself, but to drag someone else down with him. What purpose did that serve?
If death ever reached him, he would welcome it without flinching, without pride, and without the need for final vengeance. So what if his killers used his motes? So what if they grew stronger? If they survived and he didn't, then perhaps that was reason enough. Perhaps survival was proof of worth, and death the last quiet admission of inadequacy.
Let them take his power. Let them wear it like a crown, or wield it like a blade. Let them use what once belonged to him. Why should it matter?
The moment he died, the story of his strength would no longer belong to him. It would belong to the living, those still able to shape the world, to rise, to fall, to remember or forget. There was a kind of peace in that truth.
To withhold power in death, just to spite the living, was to deny the natural order. All things passed on, names, strength, memories. Why should a mote be any different?
Let them climb. Let them reach the summit, even if they step on the remnants of his path to do it.
He would already be gone.
Kael stood before the King Wolf Tiger's massive head, arms crossed. Its once-vibrant eyes were now dull and unfocused, staring blankly into nothing.
'Quite an impressive beast.'
He reached out, dragging his fingers through its thick, soft fur.
He'd managed to control it, briefly, using the lure mote. But it hadn't been easy.
A normal Wolf Tiger might've taken 30 thousand thoughts to subdue. The King, however, had demanded nearly 50 thousand at once, and even then, it required a steady drain to maintain the connection.
'Controlling a Luminaire must be nearly as costly.'
It was a passing thought, but he was almost certain it was right.
Kael closed his eyes. With a single mental command, the air around him shifted, the temperature dipping subtly. A silent weight descended.
Behind him, a colossal stone coffin emerged from the earth without sound, towering upward in solemn defiance. It stood no less than seven meters tall, etched with the likeness of two majestic figures, each with vast, feathered wings, locked in eternal combat. Their forms were frozen in tension, one blade raised, the other mid-strike.
He gave another mental command, and the coffin doors began to part, dragging loose dirt with them as they creaked open.
It took a moment, but eventually the entrance revealed itself. What lay beyond wasn't the vast open space Kael could sense from the mote when it rested within his inner realm. Instead, he was met with a black surface, smooth and featureless. A wall of darkness, as deep and silent as the abyss.
Kael raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
A golden rod materialized beside him without a sound.
He flicked his index and middle fingers forward, then curled them inward in a sharp motion.
A brief stillness passed before the rod stirred.
It shot forward, piercing deep into the King Wolf Tiger's neck. At once, it began to move toward the coffin, dragging the colossal beast along behind it. The creature's weight meant nothing to the rod, it glided through the earth as though pulling something featherlight.
As soon as the beast had been pulled inside, the golden rod emerged from the black abyss and came to a halt beside Kael, hovering in place.
'Seems like living beings can't enter the stone coffin, but motes and objects still can.'
He studied the coffin with a cold gaze before dismissing the mote.
The door slammed shut, not with the gentleness it had opened with, but violently. Dust burst into the air, and a sharp metallic clang echoed through the crater. The sound rang out across the stone, then faded into silence.
Kael stood still for a moment, watching the coffin, his expression unreadable. Then, without a word, he turned his back to it and walked away, the silver specks of the dismissed mote drifting quietly around him.
Kael raised his hand and snapped his fingers again. The rod dissolved into golden specks, drifting away on the breeze before vanishing entirely.
He sighed inwardly.
Ever since reaching Rank Two, his Golden Pea mote had grown considerably in strength, something he was grateful for. But like all things, the heavens were fair, where new strengths emerged, new limitations followed.
He could no longer summon it silently from his palm like a hidden blade. Now, a snap of his fingers was required. It was faster, more lethal, and capable of precise movement, but every action demanded a physical signal. A flick to the left meant it would move left. A flick upward, and it soared. He could stack movements in sequence or issue them one at a time, guiding it in real-time.
The Obsidian Shard mote had advanced as well, though its progression lacked the flash of the Golden Pea. It was a quiet evolution, refined rather than redefined. Now, it allowed him to sense materials with far greater precision, reading their composition, strengths, and flaws with sharper clarity.
As he walked through the crater, Kael turned his head toward the direction where him and Elara was previously. His eyes narrowed for a moment, then he moved on without pause.
He had considered killing her.
He wasn't blind to her feelings, if anything, he understood them better than Elara herself. But sentiment had nothing to do with her survival. Many factors had stayed his hand, and her feelings were only a minor thread in a much larger weave.
'I need to retrieve the other Wolf Tigers before heading back to Velthoria.'
Dust swirled low around his boots, still hanging in the air from the stone coffin, settling in his wake as he walked.
—
High up on the rim of the crater, a young woman sat hunched against a rock, her hands pressed tightly over her mouth.
'What… happened?'
Elara had watched the entire battle unfold from above, using her sensory motes to track every movement. But even now, she couldn't fully grasp it, no, she refused to.
"Is this my fault?"
The words slipped out in a faint whisper before she caught herself, pressing her hands harder against her lips. She couldn't risk Kael hearing her.
She had watched it all. How Sylas, Rielle, and Adam had fought desperately against the beast. How Kael had murdered all three, with a coldness that made her blood run cold.
'Please… forgive me, Rielle.'
And in that moment, something inside her broke quietly. Whether it would ever be rebuilt, no one could say
Tears streamed silently down her cheeks as the image of Rielle's lifeless body collapsing to the ground replayed in her mind.
Again and again, the scene played out, their bodies falling one after another.
And then, Kael.
She didn't want to see it. She didn't want to believe it.
But her mind refused to look away. The truth began to settle like dust in her chest, heavy, suffocating.
'I gave the mote to Kael.'
Elara clutched at her scalp, her fingers digging into her hair as the memories tore through her.
Kael had never loved her.
He had used her.
Every laugh, every smile, every gentle word, lies. All of it, scripted for one purpose.
For her trust.
He had made her feel safe. Had made her believe they were something real. And she—
She had handed him her mote like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He'd made it seem rational.
Logical.
"Oh God… Oh God…"
Her voice cracked under the weight of the truth. The tears fell faster now, hot and blinding, and breathing itself became a struggle.
And then it clicked.
That moment when the beast had rushed past her,
It hadn't been the creature's instinct. It had been his command.
Kael had sent it forward early, before they were ready.
Before the ambush was set.
'He rushed the attack. He forced the timing to make sure the beast would reach them before they were prepared… to make sure they would die.'
The color drained from her face. Her body gave way, collapsing forward onto the cold stone. She clutched at her chest, desperate to hold herself together, desperate to breathe.
Her thoughts blurred. Her emotions twisted and broke apart.
Guilt.
Fear.
Betrayal.
Grief.
They crashed together inside her like waves in a storm, forming something unrecognizable, something that gripped her lungs and wouldn't let go.
Panic.
Her mind didn't stop. Not even in her panicked state.
No, if anything, it only made it worse.
She had wanted to run.
She had wanted to scream, to warn them the moment she saw what was coming.
But she couldn't.
She had been afraid.
"Why… why didn't they react to Kael sooner?"
The words slipped from her lips in a whisper, hoarse and broken. She no longer cared if Kael heard her.
And then it struck her.
A realization so crushing it felt like the sky itself had fallen on her shoulders.
They hadn't reacted because they hadn't seen him.
They hadn't sensed anything.
Elara had watched from above, her sensory motes capturing every movement in perfect detail.
But she hadn't understood.
Her mind, fractured and trembling, hadn't been able to piece it together.
"Ah… I could've done more. Please, Rielle… forgive me. Please…"
She tried to sob, to cry out, to pray, maybe. But the grief caught in her throat and stayed there, unrelenting.
And then something changed.
It started with her breath.
Or rather, the absence of it.
She gasped, mouth open, chest rising, but nothing came.
She clawed at the dirt beneath her, trembling hands grasping blindly for anything solid to hold onto, anything to ground her.
She rolled, body seizing against itself, desperate to feel somethingelse.
But then—
Silence.
Her body froze, limbs splayed in the dust, eyes wide and unfocused.
Her mind gave out, like a flame snuffed by the wind.
Whether it was the brain trying to protect itself, or simply the body failing under the weight of it all, no one could say.
But in the end, panic had taken everything.
And high above her, the moonlight passed through the treetops, untouched by it all.