Beyond Worlds, Beneath the Star God

Time slowed.

Kun and Velka clashed in the shattered chamber like stars caught in orbit. Every blow from Kun's Sovereign Form left trails of white-gold flame across the air, while Velka's ashen wings spiraled smoke tendrils that coiled and twisted with every motion.

They weren't fighting on the ground anymore.

They were fighting above it—hovering in the broken gravity of a chamber saturated with myth.

Below them, Elira stood beside Orlan as protective glyphs bloomed beneath their feet. The blood-crystal at the center continued to leak fragments of black flame, pulsing irregularly.

"She's falling apart," Elira whispered, watching Velka with narrowed eyes. "But so is the Mawhold."

Orlan nodded grimly. "If that seed detonates… the leyline under this entire region will collapse. It'll wipe out half the Ashclaw range."

Above, Kun's blade met Velka's claws again.

She shrieked—her voice splitting into six overlapping tones, none of them human.

"You are a mistake," she hissed. "A vessel gone rogue."

Kun's eyes glowed white. "I'm not a vessel."

He slashed upward, the sword bending light as it moved. Velka blocked, but he spun low, blasted her back with a burst of raw energy, then chased her mid-air with blinding speed. Each movement harmonized with the flame—no longer fighting it, but moving as one.

"I'm the one who chose this fire."

His strike connected.

Velka cried out as her wing tore free, dissolving into ash.

She landed hard, cracking the stone beneath her knees, body twitching.

The pulsing seed behind her began to react violently to her weakening state. Black tendrils burst from it, trying to latch onto anything—even Kun—as if desperate to survive.

Velka tried to rise—but her legs failed.

"I was… his Voice," she rasped. "Chosen by Kael. Promised... a new world... a world without chains…"

She looked up at Kun—her mask long gone, her true face flickering between forms: elven, human, beast, bone.

"Is that not… worth burning the old one?"

Kun lowered his blade.

There was silence.

Then: "A new world built on ashes… is still a grave."

He stepped forward.

The Starfire gathered around his palm, but this time it was not violent—it pulsed like a heartbeat, calm, accepting.

"Velka," he said. "You were a voice for someone else. Let me give you back your own."

He reached forward and pressed his hand to her forehead.

Light surged.

For one brief moment, Velka's eyes cleared.

She smiled.

And then disintegrated into white ash—peaceful, weightless, fading with no scream.

The black seed cracked, then shattered.

Its fragments fell harmlessly into the broken floor.

A silence deeper than before filled the chamber.

And then the ceiling trembled.

Orlan shouted, "This whole place is collapsing! We need to move—now!"

Kun turned, just as Elira tossed him his cloak—now repaired by Orlan's quick-cast enchantment.

"Let's go, hero," she said, eyes glinting.

They ran.

As the Mawhold fell behind them, the canyon split further. The walls cracked as leyline light poured upward like fire under pressure. The final explosion of magic lit the sky above the plateau in a burst of gold and violet.

The fortress of the Nethershade Covenant… was no more.

---

Two Days Later – Forest Camp, Border of Galtoth

The trio sat around a quiet fire, the stars above more visible now than they'd been in days.

Orlan had bandaged one leg. Elira was sharpening a new blade. Kun sat silently, watching his palm as small flames danced from finger to finger.

"They'll come for us," Orlan finally said.

"Kael?" Elira asked.

"No. The others. The ones who remember what the Celestora really locked away."

Kun looked up. "Let them come."

He clenched his fist—and the flame disappeared inside it, not quenched, but hidden.

Elira looked at him. "You changed. Back there. The power—was it really from you?"

"Yes," Kun replied. "But not just mine."

He looked at both of them.

"It's from everyone who stood against them. Everyone who didn't burn."

Far in the distance, a shadow moved across the stars.

Kael… was watching.

But now he knew: Kun would not run.