⚔️ Chapter 6:
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The village burned in silence.
Flames climbed the shattered huts like starving beasts, devouring wood, cloth, flesh—everything that had once been called home. Smoke rolled low across the ground, heavy and bitter, coating Kael's tongue with ash every time he tried to breathe.
He knelt at the center of it all.
One knee buried in broken earth.
One hand pressed into soil soaked with blood that was mostly his own.
Above him, she hovered.
Luneva.
The 99th Goddess.
Her presence bent the air itself. The fire leaned away from her, as if afraid. Even the smoke parted, forming a hollow space around her flawless form. Torn fabric floated gently around her legs, not by wind, but by will.
Kael lifted his head.
For a heartbeat, hope flickered.
There was a crack in her aura—thin, spiderwebbed, glowing faintly where the shadow had struck her.
I hurt her, he thought.
Luneva noticed his gaze.
She smiled.
It was not wide.
It was not cruel in the way beasts were cruel.
It was the smile of something far above mercy.
> "Did you really believe…"
"…that meant anything?"
She raised her hand.
The world collapsed.
Kael felt it before he understood it—pressure so immense it crushed the breath from his lungs. His body was driven into the ground as if the sky itself had slammed down on him. The earth caved inward, forming a shallow crater around his broken frame.
Bones screamed.
His vision exploded into white.
The shadow surged instinctively, roaring upward in defense—but Luneva merely closed her fingers.
The shadow froze mid-rise.
Then shattered.
Black fragments scattered like dying embers, dissolving before they could even hit the ground. Kael screamed—not from his throat, but from somewhere deep inside his chest, as if something vital had been ripped loose.
> "This power," Luneva said calmly as she descended,
"does not belong to you."
Her feet touched the dirt.
The ground cracked outward in a perfect circle.
> "You are nothing but a vessel,"
"mistaking itself for a weapon."
Kael tried to move.
His arms refused.
His legs refused.
Even his fingers lay limp, half-buried in dirt and blood.
Luneva walked toward him.
Each step echoed like a verdict.
She grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head up. His neck screamed in protest. Blood ran freely from his mouth, warm and metallic.
She looked into his eyes.
Disappointed.
> "I expected more."
Her knee drove into his ribs.
The sound was sickening.
Kael's body folded around the impact, air exploding from his lungs in a wet gasp. Something inside him cracked—once, twice—and the pain arrived a moment later, blinding and total.
He vomited blood onto her feet.
She did not react.
> "Look at you," she said, dragging him upright again.
"Slaughtering divine beasts made you arrogant."
She slammed his head into the ground.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The world blurred into mud and noise. His thoughts scattered, slipping through his grasp like smoke.
> "Humans exist to serve," she continued, her voice steady.
"To kneel."
"To die when we demand it."
She released him.
Kael collapsed face-first into the dirt, barely conscious.
Inside him, something raged.
The voice—no longer whispering—howled like a chained monster.
> LET ME TAKE OVER.
I CAN KILL HER.
I WILL TEAR HER APART.
Images flooded Kael's mind.
His father standing tall, refusing to kneel.
Light tearing through his chest.
His mother screaming before turning to ash.
Bodies hanging from crosses beneath a bleeding sky.
His fingers twitched.
The dirt dug into his nails.
> If I let go, he realized,
there will be nothing left of me.
The voice pushed harder, clawing at his thoughts.
> YOU WILL DIE LIKE THIS.
BROKEN. FORGOTTEN.
LET ME IN.
Kael's vision swam. Darkness crept at the edges.
With what little strength remained, he whispered—
> "Not… yet."
The shadow screamed in fury, thrashing against unseen restraints inside him.
Luneva watched with mild curiosity.
Then boredom.
She straightened, brushing dirt from her hands as though he were already dead.
> "You're unfinished," she said.
"Killing you now would be wasteful."
She pressed two fingers against Kael's chest.
Light burned.
A symbol carved itself into his flesh—searing, radiant, merciless. Kael arched violently, a soundless scream ripping through him as divine chains wrapped around the shadow within.
The curse shrieked.
Not in rage.
In pain.
Golden seals tightened, forcing it back, deeper, locking it behind barriers Kael could feel being forged inside his soul.
> "Grow," Luneva commanded.
"Suffer."
"Entertain us."
She turned away.
The golden fissure reopened in the sky, light spilling down like judgment.
Before leaving, she glanced back once more.
> "Next time," she said softly,
"I won't stop."
And then she was gone.
The light vanished.
The night collapsed inward.
Silence fell so suddenly it hurt.
Kael lay unmoving.
The village continued to burn.
Villagers hid in the shadows, too afraid to approach, whispering prayers that no longer reached the sky.
Hours passed.
The fire died down, leaving only embers and smoke.
At dawn, Kael's eyes opened.
They were empty.
The seal on his chest pulsed faintly, cold and heavy. The shadow was still there—but distant, muffled, restrained. Not gone. Never gone.
He rolled onto his side, coughing weakly.
Standing felt impossible.
He did it anyway.
Bones screamed. Muscles tore. Blood soaked his clothes.
But he stood.
Kael looked toward the horizon, where mountains cut into the sky like broken teeth—lands untouched by gods, places where monsters ruled instead.
His reflection stared back at him from a pool of blood and water.
Not a boy.
Not a hero.
Something unfinished.
> "She's right," he murmured.
"I can't fight gods as I am."
He turned his back on the ruins.
On the village.
On the life he'd already lost.
> "Then," Kael said, voice hollow but steady,
"I'll become something else."
And somewhere far above, beyond the clouds and thrones of light, the gods began to watch more closely.
Because the thing crawling out of the dirt—
Was no longer just human.