Beneath the silent weeping trees and the watchful, shattered statues of gods long forgotten, Kael moved deeper into the belly of the ruins.
His steps stirred no dust.
The demigods' cries had faded behind him, swallowed by the forest and the magic-warped winds. Ahead lay silence, deeper and more unnatural than before—like the world itself had stopped breathing.
He descended stone steps etched with faded Hellenic scripture, each slab slanted and worn by centuries of abandonment. Moss grew thick in the cracks, and the occasional flicker of ghostlight drifted by—phosphorescent wisps, remnants of spirits too weak to haunt but too stubborn to pass on.
The deeper Kael went, the more the air grew dense with age and warning. Runes glowed faintly along the walls—wards against intrusion. Or perhaps... against escape.
He passed murals depicting a god whose name had been scratched out—erased violently by those who'd come after. Only fragments of the story remained: fire raining from the heavens, a city overturned, a spear shattered across the stars. And always, in every frame, the god with no name—eyes like twin eclipses, hands tearing open the sky.
Kael reached a massive stone arch, half-collapsed. Beyond it lay a long corridor. He stepped through, and the air turned predatory.
A sound like rusted clockwork clicked behind the walls.
Snap. Hiss. Grind.
A gout of flame erupted from a nearby tile—Kael twisted aside just in time, his cloak catching the edge of the inferno and blackening further.
He rolled forward, barely dodging a flurry of darts that launched from the stone seams.
The floor beneath him lurched, and he threw himself sideways just as a false tile dropped into a pit of gleaming black spears.
"Still testing me," he muttered, rising to his feet. "Like you haven't already broken me."
Ahead, the corridor split into three identical paths.
A whisper brushed his ear—"Left."
He turned, startled.
No one.
But the whisper came again, softer, as if echoing from within the Shard itself.
He chose the center path.
The shadows deepened. Lichen pulsed faintly underfoot. Insects of bone and bark skittered away from his presence, and from above, the sound of chains brushing against ancient stone echoed like windchimes made of teeth.
Something watched him.
Not one thing. Many.
He passed statues that hadn't been there before.
Each time he blinked, another figure appeared—closer. Cracked stone warriors. Some missing arms, some fused into the walls, some whispering in a tongue long since erased from the world.
One turned its head to follow him. It did not move otherwise.
Kael kept walking.
Finally, he reached it.
A door carved from a single slab of black glass, veined with gold that pulsed faintly—like the heartbeat of a dying god. Symbols encircled its edge, shifting the longer he stared at them. The treasure room.
He reached out.
The instant his fingers touched the door, cold lightning surged through his body—not pain, but memory.
He saw a temple in the sky, burning.
He saw chains of light wrapping around his throat.
He saw her hand slipping from his again.
He screamed—not in fear or agony, but in rage.
The door opened.
Beyond, the chamber bloomed wide, impossibly vast, the walls vanishing into blackness. Gold littered the floor like dead leaves. Among it, relics—some humming faintly, others broken, bleeding sparks of ancient magic. Weapons. Tomes. Eyes in jars that blinked once, then closed forever.
But at the center…
A figure sat atop a dais of molten bronze. Slender. Radiant. Cloaked in robes of ever-flickering flame.
They opened their eyes—liquid white with no pupil.
A minor god.
Kael felt it instantly.
Not one of Olympus. Older. Forgotten. Perhaps cast down by the higher pantheons or bound here as punishment.
The deity stood, voice echoing with quiet condescension.
"Another scavenger… come to steal divinity. But you are not like the others."
Kael said nothing. He lowered his hood, revealing the Shard embedded in his chest. Its light pulsed once—acknowledging the god's presence like a challenge.
"Oh…" The god tilted its head. "You carry something that once stood against us. Something we helped bury. You should not exist."
"I don't," Kael replied flatly. "Not the way you think."
"Then die… in a new way."
The god moved.
Faster than Kael expected.
In a single blink, the flame-cloaked figure closed the distance between them, trailing embers like a comet falling to earth. A spear of condensed flame erupted in their hand, born from sheer will, and stabbed downward.
Kael dove and rolled, the heat licking his back as stone behind him vaporized with a shriek. He came up near a rusted weapon stand—relics littered its base like forgotten bones. His hand seized an ancient sword, its grip half-eaten by time, but the blade thrummed the moment he touched it. A sleeping force stirred—something old and vengeful. Fitting.
He swung upward, intercepting the god's second strike.
Steel met flame with a thunderous clash. The chamber echoed like a war drum. Sparks burst outward in waves—orange and blue colliding in a chaotic dance of power.
The god tilted its head, white-hot eyes narrowing. "You would raise that against me?"
Kael's lip curled. "I've raised worse against better."
The god snarled—and the room exploded into chaos.
A dozen fire-lances rained from the ceiling, summoned with a flick of the god's hand. Kael sprinted through the falling inferno, each lance crashing into the marble behind him, leaving molten craters. The Shard at his chest flared cold in answer, shielding him in a thin aura of frost just long enough to keep his flesh from igniting.
He rolled beneath a flaming whip that carved a molten scar across the floor. Rising, Kael threw his blade in an arc. The sword spun through the air, singing with runes long dormant—and sliced straight through the god's shoulder.
A hiss of steam.
The god stumbled, ichor of liquid light dripping from the wound. It laughed again—this time not in amusement, but in rage.
"You think pain humbles me? I was birthed in agony!"
It raised both hands.
A tidal wave of fire rose behind it, arching toward the domed ceiling like a storm rearing back for wrath.
Kael didn't flinch.
He slammed his hand to the ground. The Shard blazed with ice and memory, and a wall of frost erupted around him—searing blue against the angry orange. Fire crashed down. Ice hissed. The world vanished in steam.
A moment of silence—
Then Kael burst forward from the cloud, dragging his sword behind him like a comet's tail. His cloak had melted in strips, his skin charred along one arm, but his eyes blazed with terrifying calm.
They met in the center of the chamber.
A dance of gods and ghosts.
The god's strikes came fast—burning glaives, bladed chains of sunfire, and arcing crescents of searing light. Kael ducked, twisted, rolled through them all with raw instinct. His blade moved not like a sword but like memory—every strike an echo of battles long since buried beneath the centuries.
Kael ducked a flaming elbow, drove his fist into the god's stomach, then followed with a headbutt that cracked its flaming mask. The creature stumbled back.
He didn't let up.
With a roar, Kael leapt and slashed downward, carving across the god's torso in a diagonal line. Golden ichor sprayed. The god screeched and retaliated with a spear of condensed sunlight, driving it through Kael's ribs—crackling with solar venom.
Kael staggered.
Coughed—black smoke and blood.
Then grabbed the spear, broke it in half, and drove the molten shard straight into the god's thigh.
The two reeled apart, both panting—one divine, one something far worse.
Kael's voice came like gravel sliding down a funeral bell. "You bleed."
"And you burn," the god spat, fury contorting its face. "Your kind always burns."
Kael said nothing.
He advanced.
Each step left frost on the scorched floor, countering the inferno that boiled around the god's aura. The heat peeled paint from the chamber walls, yet Kael pressed forward—relentless.
A final charge.
The god raised a hand to summon another volley of lances—
Kael threw the sword like a spear.
It buried itself in the god's chest, pinning them to the altar behind. They screamed, trying to burn it out—
Kael was already there.
With a grunt of pure defiance, he grabbed the Shard embedded in his chest and shoved it against the god's heart.
Light exploded between them.
Not fire. Not ice.
Memory.
The air screamed with voices long dead. Visions flickered—cities burning, oceans rising, gods weeping in judgment. The god wailed, and began to unravel—not dying in the mortal sense, but unmaking, reduced to pure thought and ash.
Its last words were not curses.
They were reverent. "He chose you...?"
And then it was gone.
Not flesh. Not bone.
Just… light.
And silence.
Kael collapsed to one knee, panting hard. His shirt had burned away. One side of his body glistened with blood and scorched frostbite. The Shard faded back to its place in his chest, pulsing like a tired heartbeat.
He stood.
Among the god's remnants—ash, scorched gold, and bone glass—something shone.
A compass.
Forged from black steel and inlaid with star glass, it looked impossibly delicate compared to the violence that birthed it.
Kael picked it up.
Its needle spun erratically—then stopped.
Pointing toward another place.
Another fragment of something once divine.
Another reckoning that he was sure would bring him closer to the truth he so desperately sought.
Kael pocketed it without ceremony, turned toward the open corridor, and vanished into the ruin's shadows.
He did not look back.
He never did anymore.