Chapter 116 – The Avatar

The ground split as a shadow fell across the battlefield.

The first Avatar had arrived.

A towering figure, its body etched with molten sigils, each rune glowing like a wound in reality. Its face was hidden behind a helm of fractured starlight, but its voice rolled across the land like thunder dragged through iron.

“Fragment of a soul. Defiance made flesh. You do not belong here.”

Its hand descended. With that single motion, an entire valley caved in—forests pulverized, rivers boiled into steam. The clash was not between man and god. It was between existence and erasure.

Kael’s blade shivered in his grip, not from fear, but from resonance. The weapon—born of shadow and stolen myth—screamed to be used. He moved, a blur through collapsing stone, cutting upward. Sparks erupted like dying stars as steel met divine flesh.

For a heartbeat, the impossible happened.
The Avatar staggered.

Aria’s voice tore through the chaos, laced with fury and brilliance. “Now! While it reels!”

Sigils of her own bloomed in the air, counter-runes woven from human defiance. Lightning cascaded down, wrapping Kael’s strike in fire.

The Avatar roared. The sound broke mountains, scattered clouds, bent reality itself. But Kael did not flinch. His blade sank deeper, runes along its edge devouring those of the titan.

The world watched.

For the first time, a god’s herald bled.

The clash ignited more than a battle—it sparked a war. Across the scarred earth, other Avatars stirred, answering the wound carved into their brother. From the horizon, silhouettes rose, each titanic, each burning with the weight of annihilation.

But so too did the mortals.
Ragged soldiers found their courage. Mages unleashed forbidden power. Even the broken and the lost raised their hands against the divine.

Kael stood at the center of it all, sword dripping with radiance, eyes fixed on the storm that gathered.

“Then let it come,” he whispered. “I’ll carve my own destiny—through gods if I must.”

And the heavens trembled.