The sky cracked with light.
Not the soft, polished radiance of Soltharion, nor the gentle glow that fell across holy banners. This was raw. Jagged. Unfiltered. It tore through the clouds like a wound, and Kaelith felt it even before he saw it.
A presence. Ancient, infinite, impossible to ignore.
A god.
The first he would meet in this war no one yet realized had begun.
He stood alone on a ridge above the Ashborne Plains, watching the horizon burn with the last embers of the sun. Smoke from the distant villages drifted in thick clouds, carrying the scent of fire and ash. The world had learned already that fear was often clearer than obedience, and Kaelith carried the memory of the sins he had absorbed that morning. Each one throbbed beneath his skin like a living pulse.
And yet he walked forward.
Not with dread. Not with hope.
With inevitability.
It whispered first.
A voice that belonged to no body, no tongue, no form. The air itself trembled with its resonance:
"Kaelith Veyr Ashborne… you dare bind what belongs to the divine?"
Kaelith paused, hand resting lightly on the hilt of his simple blade. Though he did not intend to fight, the weight of reality itself bent toward him, testing his will.
"I do not bind what belongs to the divine," he said. "I bind what belongs to the world."
Silence followed.
Then the air shimmered. Form began to coalesce. A figure, impossibly tall, radiating both beauty and dread, stepped from the rift in the sky. Feathers of pure light adorned its shoulders like a crown of stars, and eyes brighter than molten sun locked onto him.
"I am Solareth, Keeper of Order. You—mortal—have trespassed."
Kaelith regarded the being calmly. He had seen the patterns, traced the fractures. He knew the cost of hesitation.
"Trespass? No. Observation. Participation. Custody. Call it what you will. But I am no trespasser."
Solareth's wings unfurled fully, blotting the horizon. Light poured from him in impossible intensity. Shadows recoiled, not because they feared him, but because they had no place here.
"You presume to carry sins that even gods cannot touch."
Kaelith tilted his head. "I presume nothing. I do it."
The god's gaze sharpened. Its voice was like bells striking in a vacuum:
"Then you will fall as the world falls, and your soul will burn in the emptiness reserved for monsters."
Kaelith stepped forward. The earth trembled beneath him, responding to the latent power inside him. The sins he had absorbed—the weight of humanity's hidden cruelty, the moral compromises of centuries—flowed through him. He did not hesitate. He did not waver.
"If the world falls, it is because no one dared carry it," Kaelith said. "I will not let it die. Not for you. Not for Lux. Not for the righteous who refuse to see themselves."*
Solareth descended slowly, wings slicing the air like blades. The light shifted and bent, but Kaelith did not blink. Instead, he opened his palms. Shadows pooled around him, black and viscous, coiling like serpents.
The sins he bore surged outward, a storm of memories, pain, regret, and injustice. They met the god halfway, not as weapons, but as absolution.
The first touch of Sinbind on a divine being was… electric.
Solareth recoiled slightly, hissing like thunder across mountains. "What… what is this?!"
Kaelith smiled faintly. "I am the Black Mercy. And this is mercy."
Time slowed.
Lightning struck without sound. Mountains shivered. Cities far below felt tremors that no living creature could see. Yet Kaelith stood unmoved, absorbing the god's radiance as it tried to pierce him, turning it inward. Every strike, every accusation, every fragment of divine order—it became another weight, another chain in his Sinbind.
The god faltered. It had never been challenged like this. Mortals feared punishment. Heroes sought glory. Kaelith offered neither. He simply bore.
"Impossible… no mortal can withstand this!" Solareth screamed.
Kaelith bowed his head slightly. "I am no mortal. I am what you made me necessary to be."
A pause.
A whisper:
"Then you will be remembered… as the end of gods."
Kaelith's lips curved. Not with joy, not with pride. With inevitability.
"Yes. That is my destiny as well."
The first god fell silent. Not defeated. Not destroyed. But uncertain.
For the first time in eternity, a divine being did not know how to judge a mortal.
Kaelith stepped back from the ridge. He did not chase. He did not fight further. He only carried. Absorbed. Walked forward.
Behind him, the plains were quiet.
Ahead, the sins of the world stretched infinitely.
And in that moment, he understood something vital:
The world would never forgive him.
The gods would never forgive him.
Even humanity, if they knew, would not forgive him.
He would be hated. Condemned. Branded.
But the world would live.
And that was enough.
At dusk, as Kaelith descended into shadowed forests, the wind carried whispers of his new name.
"The Black Mercy… The Black Mercy… The Black Mercy…"
The syllables were not just sound. They were prophecy.
And somewhere, deep beneath reality, Null stirred again.
This time, it waited.