For a moment after he drank the Saint's blood,
Kael felt nothing.
Not pain.
Not power.
Just a silence so absolute it felt like the universe holding its breath.
Then the world ripped open.
(SFX: SKRNNNNK—THOOM—KRA-THRAAAAAAAM as gravity folds and sound inverts.)
The Garden of Upside-Down Stars burst outward in a wave of black starlight, petals of void blooming across the sky. Veyra and Seraphine were thrown back—caught by their own shadows as reality spasmed around Kael.
Lyria staggered.
Her veil, her choir, her thousand mourning voices—
all flinched.
"Impossible…" she whispered.
"That blood should have shattered you."
Kael lifted his head.
And he was not the same boy who walked into the Garden.
He rose slowly, uncurling like a shadow learning how to stand upright.
His hood fell back.
Not the timid, hollow-eyed Kael—
but a sharpened version of him:
Hair black as collapsing galaxies, strands drifting weightlessly like they were underwater.
Eyes gleaming pale blue, but with rings of abyssal white orbiting the pupils—three faint crescents of light that pulsed like distant moons.
A serpent of ink-black shadow curled behind him, its eyes glowing the same crescent white, tongue tasting the edges of the world.
At his right side stood a tiger woven from smoke and dying stars, its stripes flickering like constellations refusing extinction.
Across his back rested a long, obsidian-edged blade, wrapped in sealing ribbons that fluttered like ghostly script—Wrathbinder reborn.
His presence didn't consume light.
It bent it.
Made it kneel.
Veyra stared, jaw slack and pupils blown.
Seraphine's breath caught like a prayer refusing to die.
Lyria took one step back.
Because for the first time in four thousand years…
she felt fear.
Kael flexed his hand.
Shadows poured from his fingertips like liquid night, crawling up his arm, forming a quilt of living darkness beneath his skin.
(SFX: WHOOOOOM—VOOOOOOM as the air vibrates around him.)
But the emptiness that used to howl inside him
…was quiet.
Warm.
Steady.
Alive.
Seraphine pressed a trembling hand to her lips.
"Kael… your heart… it's beating with two rhythms."
Veyra grinned, wild and proud.
"About damn time."
The serpent hissed approvingly.
The tiger rumbled like a dying star restarting.
Kael exhaled—
and the air crystallized into shards of frost-shadow that hung in orbit around him.
"I'm not empty anymore," he murmured.
"But I'm not full either."
He lifted his eyes to Lyria.
"I'm mine."
Lyria lifted her arms, the choir screaming through her bones.
"You don't understand what you've done!"
She stepped forward, veil whipping violently.
"That blood was not meant for mortals—
it was meant for rewriting prophecies!
You drank the power that crowns saints!"
Her voice cracked into a thousand wails.
"You should have become a monster!"
Kael tilted his head.
A small, tired smile.
"I did."
The shadow-serpent behind him lunged—
its fangs grazing Kael's throat.
Testing him.
Challenging him.
Claim me or die.
Kael didn't flinch.
He simply whispered:
"Down."
The serpent froze.
Then lowered its head.
The tiger bowed next.
Veyra exhaled something between awe and hunger.
Seraphine's knees nearly gave out.
Because only a true Abyss Sovereign
could make ancient shadows kneel.
Kael stepped forward.
Each footfall shattered gravity for a meter around him, petals of star-dust rising beneath his boots.
(SFX: CRRRSH—CRRRSH like glass breaking underwater.)
Lyria recoiled.
"Child—please—don't—"
"You're not my mother," Kael said softly.
He lifted one hand.
Shadows spiraled around his wrist like a halo made of night.
"You're just the first person I'm forgiving."
He flicked his fingers.
Reality buckled.
Lyria was thrown backward through three layers of her own cathedral—
collapsing into a crater of mourning-light.
(SFX: KRRRRRRR-THOOOOOOM)
Kael looked down at his hands.
At the serpent.
At the tiger.
At the blade humming with sealed fury.
And then—
to Veyra and Seraphine.
They approached him slowly.
Carefully.
As if he were a storm learning how to breathe.
Veyra touched his cheek first.
"You're still you," she whispered.
Seraphine touched his heart.
"And more."
Kael leaned forward, resting his forehead against theirs.
"I'm not done," he said quietly.
"This isn't power that burns."
His shadow halo flared.
"This is power that loves back."
He lifted his blade.
Turned his gaze toward the floating cathedral in the night sky far above.
"The Seven Crowns wanted a story edit."
His eyes glowed like three crescent moons.
"I'm giving them a rewrite."