Chapter 77 – The Council of Shadows

The obsidian doors thundered shut behind them, sealing out the desert.

The chamber stretched impossibly wide, its walls veined with pale fire, every line pulsing like the heartbeat of something ancient. A circular dais rose at the center, surrounded by twelve thrones of black stone. Upon them sat the Council—hooded figures cloaked in shifting shadow, their faces hidden, their voices echoing as though spoken by countless mouths.

“Kael, the one who should not exist,” they intoned together.

The air itself seemed to recoil from the words.

Kael stood at the center, Aria at his side, his allies forming a hesitant circle behind him. Though outnumbered, he did not bow. His gaze swept across the Council like a blade.

“I didn’t choose this existence,” he said. “But I won’t let you bind me for a sin I never committed.”

A ripple of laughter stirred among the shadowed thrones.
“You claim innocence, yet your very breath bends the laws of this world. Where you walk, reality fractures. Where you fight, gods fall silent. Do you deny what you are?”

Kael’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer, and in that silence, the chamber warped. Images swirled in the air—visions pulled from his past. Cities burning, allies falling, the black mark of Erosion spreading like ink through his veins.

The company gasped. Some stepped back. Doubt infected them again.

Aria’s hand found his, her voice steady. “Enough. You drag his past here to break him, but all you prove is how much he’s endured.”

The Council’s presence darkened. Their shadows rose higher, blotting out the light-veins along the walls.
“Endured… or inflicted?”

Suddenly, the ground split beneath Kael. A hand of darkness surged upward, claws curling toward his chest. Instinct roared through him—Erosions crackled at his fingertips, straining to answer violence with violence. But if he unleashed them here, the Council would take it as proof: that he was a danger, that he had lost control.

For the first time, the chamber fell quiet, every gaze fixed on his choice.

Would he let the shadows crush him, or would he show them the abyss they so feared?

Kael lifted his head, eyes burning with restrained fire. “You want judgment? Then judge me by what comes next, not by what you’ve twisted from my past.”

The hand of darkness froze an inch from his heart. The Council stirred. The trial was far from over, but a new battle had begun—one not of steel, but of will, where a single word could damn or redeem him.