Chapter 21: Even the Skies Trembled
The battlefield had become a void of sound.
All that remained was the echo of Kaien's aura, pulsing like a broken heartbeat through the air.
He didn't move.
Didn't have to.
The celestial legions stood frozen at the edges of the shattered coliseum—wings tucked, halos cracked, spears trembling in their hands. They'd trained for centuries, fought against horrors that tore galaxies asunder… but this?
This was something worse.
This was a boy with nothing left to lose—and power the gods couldn't name.
Kaien tilted his head slowly. His gaze swept across the gathered army like a guillotine. "You feel it, don't you?" he said, his voice cutting through the tension like a falling star. "The fear. The doubt."
He took a step forward. The ground cratered beneath him.
"I'm not divine," he whispered. "I'm not chosen. I wasn't forged in the fires of heaven or born with light in my blood."
His aura spiked.
BOOM.
Lightning—not gold, but violet and black—snapped around his body like chains waking up. Fellchain pulsed in his grip, its whispers louder now, speaking the tongue of dead gods.
Kaien raised the sword and pointed it toward the sky.
"But I am inevitable."
The moment he said it, the clouds above began to churn. The false heavens—the artificial canopy created by the divine order—started peeling back. Blue turned to scarlet. Stars blinked into view, but they bled. Reality itself was starting to warp from his mere presence.
Then—a scream tore from the crowd.
A celestial knight, unable to withstand the pressure, dropped his spear and fell to his knees. "He's... He's not just mortal!"
Another followed. Then another.
One of the arch-seraphs turned to flee. His wings disintegrated before he took a second step.
Panic.
Pandemonium.
And still, Kaien stood still. Calm in the storm. He glanced at his hand—at the brand glowing along his wrist.
The Heavenbreaker Seal had cracked.
Another trial was coming. He could feel it.
But first…
A ripple tore across the battlefield.
From the back of the coliseum, a presence stepped forward.
Golden robes. Radiant skin. Twelve wings of celestial flame.
The Divine Executor.
"You have broken protocol," the Executor said, voice thunderous, echoing through a thousand timelines. "You've desecrated a sacred rite. You have declared war on the gods."
Kaien's lips curled into a grin.
"No."
He raised Fellchain.
"I declared freedom."
The Executor raised his hand—and a blade of pure judgment formed in the sky, miles long, burning with cosmic light.
It fell toward Kaien like the hammer of eternity itself.
Kaien exhaled.
And ran straight into it.