NOVEL WEB Chapter 21: Chapter 20 — The Day the Star Began to Fall
Kael didn't look away.
The star—no, the wound in the sky—bled across the heavens like a streak of molten gold laced with crimson. It moved slowly, unnaturally so. Like it wasn't falling through space…
…but through time.
Each second it drew closer, the world felt thinner. The air tighter. The boundary between body and soul more fragile.
And Kael? He stood still, atop the crumbled terrace of the Skybinding Temple, eyes fixed on that burning scar in the firmament.
His jaw clenched. The Primordial Brand on his palm throbbed with each heartbeat, like it could feel whatever was coming.
Something ancient.
Something returning.
---
He descended the temple.
There were no monks to stop him, no challenges left behind.
Just silence.
And a low hum beneath the ground—like the mountain itself was whispering prayers it didn't understand.
Kael didn't speak.
Words weren't enough anymore.
Only movement.
---
Halfway down the slope, the ground trembled.
Then again.
Kael stopped. Turned.
And the sky cracked.
Not loudly.
It broke the way glass shatters under silk—soundless, perfect, terrifying.
The bleeding star had crossed some invisible threshold—and now it screamed.
A shockwave tore through the clouds, and for the first time in centuries, the sky itself wept fire.
Streaks of flame rained from above—not random, not chaotic. Chosen. They curved like blades, slicing downward into the world in seven directions.
Kael watched the one meant for him.
It landed.
Far below.
Somewhere near the ruined kingdoms of the Emerald Desolation—a place once green and lush, now swallowed in thorns and ash.
---
He didn't hesitate.
He turned east.
---
⟢ The Emerald Desolation
It had once been the heart of a great empire—cities that reached the sky, cultivators who walked on sunbeams.
Now, the air was poisonous with rot and memory.
Trees choked on their own roots. Rivers flowed backward. The sky remained an eerie shade of green even at dusk.
And at the center of it all—where once stood a palace—was a crater.
Kael reached its edge at twilight.
Inside was no star.
No flame.
Only a mirror.
Large.
Silver.
Cracked.
It pulsed with a quiet rhythm.
Kael stepped toward it.
The closer he got, the more his own reflection began to twist.
Not morph.
Not distort.
Shift.
It showed not his face—but his intention.
He saw his ambition. His violence. His failure.
He saw a throne of bones.
He saw a blade forged from promises broken in silence.
He saw his own death.
And it was smiling.
---
Kael stood there for a long time.
No fear.
No denial.
Only one question on his lips.
> "Is this what I'm becoming… or what I already am?"
The mirror didn't answer.
It didn't need to.
Because Kael already knew.
The Sovereign's shadow wasn't something he cast on the world.
It was something the world had always been waiting for.
---
Above, the star burned hotter.
And it was no longer falling.
It was awakening.