Chương 314: The Fall

Kealix remained suspended high above the fractured heavens, his dark figure hanging between collapsing constellations and bleeding realities while the broken Tower trembled beneath the weight of gods at war. Beneath the onyx mask, frustration slowly rotted into fury. The emotions he had spent ages suppressing clawed their way back to the surface one by one. Anger coiled through him like venom. Anger at his friends. Anger at their refusal to understand. Anger at the absurdity of their resistance.

They stood before him demanding salvation while rejecting the only path that could grant it. They fought against their own freedom with desperate conviction, clinging to a future he knew would end only in annihilation. And worst of all, they did it for him. Kealix could not understand it. He was not worth this struggle. He was not worth their suffering. Yet they continued regardless, throwing themselves against inevitability with all the stubbornness that had once made him love them.

His thoughts drifted for only a fraction of a moment. Chains erupted around him instantly. They wrapped around his torso, arms, and throat like living serpents forged from divine law itself, binding him before he could react. The force behind them shook the air as the chains tightened violently around his body. Kealix shuddered as the weight of conceptual restraints crushed against him, and in the next instant Unyielding Steel seized the chains with both hands.

"Now!" he roared. With monstrous strength, the silver-haired founder hurled Kealix across the sky. The world blurred.

"Shatter," called Original Arcana calmly. Reality itself obeyed. The sky before Kealix fractured into countless crystalline shards, each fragment reflecting entire realms within its surface. Then came the second command.

"Reform." The broken pieces snapped back together around Kealix instantly, sealing him inside a prison of fractured reality. Space folded inward. Concepts overlapped. Entire laws of creation compressed around his body until even movement became difficult. Kealix groaned as the chains constricted tighter, their pressure multiplying endlessly.

"These chains cannot break," declared Pale Monarch coldly. Her golden eyes glowed. A new rule was born. The durability of the chains multiplied infinitely. Then Cowardly Flame stepped forward. Flames erupted around his body in violent spirals of orange and azure, consuming the chains and the prison alike. Fire poured into the shattered reality surrounding Kealix until the prison itself became a furnace. The trapped god vanished behind oceans of divine flame. Above them all, Mother of Dragons rose into the heavens.

Her colossal wings blotted out the fractured stars. Several beams of pure destruction gathered around her jaws. Then she unleashed them. They crashed into the prison simultaneously. Heat, destruction, and collapsed reality fused together into a cataclysmic storm centered entirely upon Kealix. Mountains dissolved. Entire regions of the Tower folded inward. Space itself began tearing apart under the pressure. Within the inferno, Kealix gritted his teeth. And finally, he snapped.

"I will not allow this insolence." His arms tore free from the chains through sheer force alone. A shockwave erupted from his body and rippled across reality itself, so powerful that the dormant consciousness of existence awakened once more to witness their battle. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. The shattered prison disintegrated into streams of light. The divine flames were blown apart. The beams fractured and collapsed into nothingness.

Kealix emerged from the devastation with his blade already in hand. Darkness gathered around it. Then he swung. A slash of pure void tore across the heavens. The founders shuddered as the attack split reality apart in its wake, but before it could reach them, another figure exploded upward from below.

"What the hell are you doing?!" roared Black Lion.

"Attack!" He tore through the sky like a living catastrophe. His clawed hands collided with the slash directly. The void attack resisted him violently, capable of erasing almost anything it touched, yet he rejected its very nature. He ripped the attack apart with raw force alone before bursting through the remains and reaching Kealix in the same motion. Then he grabbed him. The impact alone shattered continents. The Black Lion hurled Kealix downward. Kealix crashed into the earth below. Mountains erupted into dust.

Oceans split apart. Entire realities hanging from the Tower's structure began collapsing one after another. It should have been impossible. This Tower had once contained all reality. Countless realms. Entire cosmologies. Yet now it cracked apart under a single battle between gods and one weakened mistake.

"How pitiful," Kealix muttered as he rose from the crater. The Black Lion landed before him with enough force to split the ground further.

"You took the words right out of my mouth," he replied, cracking his fists as he walked forward. The two stared at one another. Then both clenched their hands.

"Do you remember who taught you how to fight when you were still weak, brother?" The Black Lion asked. Kealix let out an annoyed chuckle beneath his mask.

"Of course. It was you."

"But I surpassed my master long ago." The Black Lion smirked.

"Then show me!" He exploded forward. His fist tore through the air, but Kealix spun aside at the last instant. Leo's leg followed immediately after, crashing into Kealix's side before the air itself could recover from the first strike. Space shattered around the impact as Kealix was launched through countless mountains. He chased him relentlessly.

"Come on!" he roared.

"Fight me like a real mistake would!" Kealix laughed darkly as he caught himself midair.

"A real mistake would have killed you already!" The Black Lion descended again. Their fists collided. A shockwave detonated outward, flattening entire regions beneath them.

"I remember taking care of you when you first arrived here," The Black Lion shouted as they exchanged blows faster than reality could process.

"You came from another world weak and broken, yet you climbed higher than any of us imagined possible! You helped us reach those same heights!" He struck Kealix across the jaw.

"But I refuse to let you fall now that you've climbed so high!" Another presence appeared behind Kealix.

"Neither will I!" Unyielding Steel struck simultaneously from the opposite side. Kealix was smashed between both founders as countless beams descended from the heavens moments later, each one aimed directly at him. He stabilized himself midair and summoned his blade once more.

"Manifest." Darkness erupted outward. Countless black tendrils surged into existence and intercepted the beams head-on, devouring and neutralizing them before they could strike him. Then another figure emerged through the storm itself. A man cloaked in flame and frost. Joshua. The Cowardly Flame. The Black Lion and Unyielding Steel closed in behind him while the Pale Monarch descended from the side, her blade of rules glowing brighter with every passing second. Kealix scoffed bitterly.

"You too, Joshua?" The burning founder chuckled softly.

"How could I stand against my best friend?" he asked. His expression hardened.

"No. I'm here to save you from yourself. We all are." Kealix's eyes narrowed beneath the mask. The Black Lion closed the distance first. He struck. Kealix twisted aside and countered with a brutal punch to his abdomen, but the founder barely moved, smiling even through the pain. Unyielding Steel followed immediately after, summoning another divine weapon and bringing it down with overwhelming force. Kealix dodged once. Twice. Then retreated, only to feel two presences appear directly beside him.

A blade of light descended toward his chest. At the same time, a burning hand seized his arm from the side, holding him in place. Kealix struggled violently. Then he looked at their faces. And for a single moment, he hesitated. The blade of light pierced his heart. Kealix screamed.

"Now!" the founders roared together. Chains erupted from every direction. They wrapped around his limbs, neck, torso, and soul itself, dragging him downward until his knees slammed into the broken earth below. Flames surged through the restraints, not flames meant to destroy, but flames designed purely to suppress. Countless weapons followed next, piercing through his armor, flesh, and very existence itself. Each blade sealed another fragment of his power.

"These chains are as powerful as my love," the Pale Monarch whispered. A new rule formed. The chains glowed ominously. Their strength multiplied again. Kealix knelt there broken and restrained, his body pierced by countless weapons, divine flames burning through him while chains bound every part of his existence. Blood poured endlessly from beneath the black armor. Still, he lifted his head.

"Do you even know what will happen if I do not perish?" he asked quietly. The Pale Monarch stared down at him.

"It does not matter," she answered.

"Our only wish is for you to remain. We will do whatever is necessary to ensure that." Kealix's eyes widened. Then he laughed. A hollow, horrified laugh.

"You truly understand nothing…" The laughter faded.

"If I do not perish now," he whispered, "all of reality will fall." His voice rose.

"They will awaken from their slumber! They will tear everything apart! They will use the power I built against me, and when that happens even Xavior will die!" The Pale Monarch snapped instantly.

"You dare speak of our son's death so casually?!" Kealix lowered his head. His laughter finally disappeared entirely. Then The Black Lion stepped forward slowly.

"Let's make sure he stays down." He raised his fist. Every ounce of his power gathered into that single strike. The heavens darkened around it. Kealix stared upward silently as the fist descended toward him. And then, a voice echoed softly.

"Chains… shatter."