The world trembled long after the light faded. The ashes hung motionless in the air, suspended like forgotten prayers. Mael stood in the center of what used to be a mountain, surrounded by the shattered remnants of the Heralds. Their divine armor lay scattered like broken stars.
He didn't breathe. He didn't need to. The Crimson Mark across his body glowed faintly, the heat of its fury fading into a dull ache.
"I didn't kill them," he murmured to himself. "The world did."
The silence that followed was thick, unnatural — as if the air itself feared to echo his voice.
Then a whisper crept through the cracks of reality.
> "You broke the cycle, Mael."
It was not Lirien. It was something older. A voice without a mouth, a thought that carried the weight of eternity.
He looked up — and saw the sky bleeding backward. The sun collapsed into itself, replaced by a burning ring of black light. From its center descended a shape too vast to comprehend — the Remnant of the First God, a being that existed before memory, before the laws of life and death.
The world bent around its presence. Seas boiled. Mountains reversed their fall. Every shadow began to chant the same word in perfect unity:
> "Rebirth."
Mael fell to one knee, clutching his chest as the Mark pulsed violently. Every heartbeat echoed like a drum of war.
His memories came flooding back — thousands of lifetimes, every sin, every war, every time he had chosen destruction over salvation.
He saw the Covenant — the agreement made in the dawn of creation. The gods had sworn to bind chaos into one vessel, one will, one name: his.
He was the anchor that kept reality stable.
And every time he rebelled, the world reset.
Now, the Covenant was breaking.
---
Lirien appeared from the mist again, her silver eyes wide with terror.
"You shouldn't have remembered this," she said. "The First God — He only exists when someone recalls Him. You remembering Him brings Him back."
Mael's voice was hollow. "Then He's already here."
The Remnant's gaze — if it could be called that — fell upon him. Space itself folded inward. Every atom of Mael's being screamed, recognizing its creator and its curse.
> "Child of My Will," the voice thundered. "You were born to contain Me. But now you remember, and remembrance is rebellion."
"I am not your vessel," Mael spat through blood. "I am your failure."
The Remnant laughed — not a sound, but a distortion that rippled through time. "Then fulfill your nature. Destroy Me… if you can."
A spear of darkness tore through the clouds, striking Mael in the chest. The Crimson Mark erupted, the runes forming wings made of pure light and shadow intertwined.
Lirien screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the roar of creation breaking.
---
Time fractured.
For one instant, Mael stood outside existence.
He saw the countless worlds that had come before — all versions of himself, all burned, erased, remade. He saw the gods watching in fear, rewriting history every time chaos threatened to awaken.
He whispered, "You made me your prison. But even prisons crumble."
With a roar that split heaven and earth, Mael unleashed the full power of the Crimson Mark. The light wasn't red anymore — it was alive, a shifting storm of every color and none.
The spear shattered. The Remnant recoiled. For the first time, the ancient god feared.
> "You can't exist without Me," the Remnant cried.
"Then I'll take you with me," Mael answered.
He plunged forward, his wings slicing through the fabric of space, driving the Mark into the Remnant's core. The world inverted again — light devouring darkness, darkness devouring light.
When it ended, there was no sound. No sky. No earth. Only Mael, floating in an endless white void, trembling.
He opened his eyes. The Mark was gone.
---
"Mael?"
Lirien's voice broke the silence. She stood before him, untouched, though her eyes now carried the reflection of a thousand suns.
"Where… are we?" she whispered.
Mael looked around. "Nowhere. Or maybe… the beginning."
"Did you kill it?"
He shook his head. "No. I became it."
She stepped closer, fear and awe mixing in her tone. "Then what are you now?"
Mael looked down at his hands — no longer human, no longer divine. Just light trembling between existence and memory.
"I am the covenant itself," he said quietly. "And the covenant is breaking."
The void shuddered. Cracks of crimson light spread across the white horizon. Through them, the echoes of reality began to bleed back in — voices, prayers, and the faint hum of creation trying to rebuild itself.
Lirien reached for him. "We can still fix this, Mael—"
But he stepped back. His eyes were calm, distant. "There's no fixing chaos. There's only surviving it."
As the void crumbled, his final words echoed through the forming world:
> "If the gods remember me… they'll regret it."
And then he vanished into the light.
---