Chapter 49 — The Eleventh Toll

DONG.

The sound rippled through the ruins, low and resonant, like a heartbeat amplified across the heavens. The world quivered. Buildings that had already crumbled disintegrated into dust. The girl covered her ears, but the toll sank into her bones all the same.

Kael staggered. His fractured blade flickered in his hand, unstable, its edge shifting between form and formlessness. His lungs burned with each breath, but his eyes—those eyes—were locked on the sky.

Above them, the bell of the Sovereign swung, vast and intangible, made of nothing but memory and will. With each sway, it tore strips of light and shadow from the air.

The Sovereign’s voice resounded, smoother now, almost calm.
“The eleventh toll. Few worlds survive to hear it. You should be honored, anomaly.”

Kael spat iron into the dirt. “If you think I’ll bow to your funeral hymn, you don’t know me at all.”

The Sovereign’s countless eyes narrowed, glittering with strange delight. “On the contrary. I know you more than you know yourself. You think you resist me? Every strike you make… every word you speak… feeds the chain you despise.”

The girl looked up at Kael, her silver eyes wide. “Kael… what does it mean? Why does the bell sound like it’s inside me too?”

Kael clenched his jaw. He wanted to answer—but the truth pressed against his skull like knives. The toll was not just shaking the world. It was rewriting it. He could feel pieces of his existence bending, the edges of his memory smudging out.

His name flickered. For half a heartbeat, he almost forgot it.

The fractured blade pulsed, anchoring him. He hissed through his teeth, forcing his focus back.
“They’re trying to erase us again. To finish the job.”

The girl bit her lip, trembling. “Then what do we do?”

Kael’s gaze never left the bell. “We cut the toll before it finishes.”

The Sovereign laughed—rich, endless.
“Fool. To silence the toll is to silence the story itself. Even gods have never dared touch it. But you…”

Its chains descended again, slower this time, not to crush, but to bind. They wrapped the ruins, the ground, even the air, linking everything to the tolling bell.

Kael lifted his blade. His arms shook, his veins darkening with the strain. He could feel the toll pressing deeper, dragging not just his strength, but his existence, toward null.

And then—
a whisper.

Not the Sovereign. Not the girl.
Something older, buried in the toll itself.

Kael… don’t fight the sound. Become it.

His grip faltered for an instant. The world lurched. The girl shouted his name, but it was drowned beneath the rolling toll.

DONG.

The eleventh toll swallowed the horizon.