The Floating Cathedral Shifts the Page
Reality convulsed.
The saints did not descend—they rewrote the distance between themselves and Kael, stepping into existence where there had been nothing. Pages of light unfurled behind them, scripture muttering like teeth grinding.
SSSSKKKRRRRTCH—
The sound of reality being erased.
Dominus walked forward, seven halos orbiting his skull like execution moons.
"You misunderstand," he explained, tone unbearably calm.
"No one takes a throne. One is written into it."
Behind him, scripture-lines began wrapping around Kael's limbs like glowing chains.
Kael Tries to Move — the World Refuses
He reached for Wrathbinder.
His hand stopped halfway.
Not by force—
by revision.
Aurelius lifted his golden fingers.
"You are now unarmed," he announced.
The sword dissolved from Kael's hand, rewritten out of the moment.
His muscles convulsed as story-logic tried stitching him back into a role he never wanted.
They're rewriting me.
They're actually rewriting me.
Like I'm a paragraph.
Pages of divine decree snapped around him—
FLAP-FLAP-FLAP-FLAP—
each one a prison.
But Kael Isn't a Paragraph Anymore
The Throne behind him growled.
Not metaphor.
Not symbol.
A throne made of memory and story-light emitted a sound like a mountain learning to speak.
GROOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR—
The scripture binding Kael flickered.
Kael inhaled—and the breath didn't belong to lungs.
It belonged to the Abyss That Loved Back.
Shadows poured from his ribs like black fire.
Narrative tried to overwrite him.
Kael overwrote back.
Aurelius Is the First to Fail
Aurelius snapped his fingers.
"Your shadow is gone," he declared.
Nothing happened.
Kael's shadow didn't vanish.
Instead—it spread.
Like spilled ink.
Like a continent cracking.
The golden saint blinked.
"…That's not—"
Kael stepped forward.
The shadow moved like a tidal wave.
Every word Aurelius tried to add to the moment combusted in midair with BZZT—POP—CRACK.
"Stop rewriting me," Kael warned, voice low, voice wrong, voice beautiful in a way that terrified everyone listening.
Aurelius attempted one last edit.
"You are—"
Kael's shadow surged up his legs and tore his sentence out of his throat.
Belladonna Lunges
Belladonna rushed from the right, rose-thorn armor bursting open like a blooming corpse-flower. Spine-vines whipped toward Kael's face.
She didn't bother with rewriting.
She wanted the meat.
"You bleed prettily," she moaned, thorns scraping the air.
Kael caught one of her thorned arms.
Tightened.
And tightened.
KRR-KRRRRRCK.
Her arm burst like rotten fruit.
Petals, bone shards, and arterial sprays filled the air with a sickening splatter-hiss.
Belladonna screamed as her entire rose-gauntlet dissolved into mulch.
"You—monster—!" she screeched.
Kael's voice was a dead star collapsing.
"You don't get to define me."
Caelum Tries to Scatter Him
Caelum rose into the air, wings of storm-cloud and scripture-wind beating violently.
"Stories that defy the sky," he chanted,
"are scattered by the sky."
Storm sigils formed overhead—
—but the shadows bending around Kael swallowed the wind.
Caelum's wings spasmed.
Feathers of lightning evaporated.
Kael lifted his hand.
The wind saint's entire storm collapsed inward like a lung imploding.
Caelum dropped, choking on his own weather.
Vesper Attempts Finality
Vesper raised a hand, embers falling from his fingertips.
"Endings burn," he hissed.
"And you will accept yours."
Flames of ash-death roared toward Kael.
They hit the shadow…
…and froze.
Literal fire frozen mid-bloom.
Kael walked through it.
The flames didn't thaw until he was past.
Vesper's face cracked in terror—hairline fractures lacing across his skull as his composure shattered.
"You aren't… possible."
Kael looked at him with eyes that held collapsing galaxies.
"I'm not supposed to be."
Lyria, Mother of Mourning, Cries Out
Lyria's veiled form quivered.
"Child," she begged, multiple voices trembling,
"let me rewrite your pain—let me soothe what you carry—"
Kael shook his head.
"You mourn everything," he murmured.
"But you don't understand me."
He placed his hand on her veil.
The thousand grieving faces inside recoiled.
"You mourn what's lost," he confessed.
"I mourn what I almost lost."
His palm burned with darkness.
Lyria's veil turned to smoke around his fingers.
She staggered back, genuinely afraid.
Nocturne the Blind Breaks
Silver-threaded eyes lifted toward Kael.
"I saw this future," Nocturne whispered,
"I just… didn't believe it."
Kael's voice dropped to a whisper-black rumble.
"You can't rewrite what refuses to be written."
Nocturne trembled.
"Then what are you?"
The shadows behind Kael answered for him—
stretching, growing, rising—
Abyss… but gentle.
Calamity… but chosen.
Darkness… but loved.
Dominus Makes His Final Mistake
"ENOUGH."
Dominus stepped forward, halos blazing with the fury of a rewritten sun.
"You are a child throwing tantrums in a library of gods," he barked.
He raised his hand.
"Your story ends now."
A page of pure command appeared.
A divine edit.
Kael's death, written in perfect script.
He pressed it to Kael's forehead.
The page ignited.
Burned.
Disintegrated.
Dominus froze.
Kael lifted his hand.
Placed two fingers over Dominus's heart.
And rewrote one thing.
"You don't get to decide my ending."
Dominus staggered, clutching his chest—
because Kael had removed his certainty.
His absolute calm.
His godlike composure.
Dominus felt fear for the first time.
Kael's Final Line
He stepped into the center.
Throne at his back.
Shadows at his feet.
Seven saints broken, trembling, terrified.
Kael looked at all of them.
"This time," he announced,
"the story answers to me."