Chapter 62 – Eclipse of Resolve

The battlefield was silent.
Ash drifted in the air like snow, settling on broken weapons and shattered stone. The silence was not peace—it was the breath before the scream.

Kael stood in the center, chest rising slowly, eyes locked on the veil of shadows tearing open above. The horizon warped as if the world itself was rejecting what was trying to crawl through.

“...So, it begins,” whispered Seris, her staff trembling in her hands.

From within the fracture, countless eyes blinked—cold, ancient, inhuman. They peered into the realm like predators examining prey. The seal was weakening. The Forgotten Depths were about to spill over.

Kael clenched his fist. His body ached from the battles past, but his will was sharper than ever. I’ve come too far to break now. I won’t let this world be devoured… not again.

Behind him, the survivors gathered—the last remnants of soldiers, mages, and wanderers who had not fled. Their faces bore fear, but when their eyes landed on Kael, that fear hardened into something else.

Hope.

“Kael,” whispered Mira, stepping beside him, “if you step into that rift, there’s no guarantee you’ll return.”

“I know,” he answered. His tone was calm, but inside, his resolve twisted like fire.

He raised his hand toward the rift. The shadows reacted, writhing violently. It was as if they recognized him—the one they once consumed, the one who had clawed his way back from oblivion.

“Then let them remember,” Kael muttered. “Let them remember the soul they erased.”

The ground cracked under his feet. His power, dormant for too long, surged upward—an echo of forbidden strength, not given by gods nor prophecy, but born from scars and defiance.

The rift widened. Screams, whispers, and claws pressed against reality’s edge. The world quivered on the brink.

And Kael stepped forward.