CHAPTER 1516: STORY 1516: WHEN TITANS TREMBLE

The battlefield convulsed beneath the weight of the Unborn. Its body towered like a cathedral of shadow and flame, its form neither solid nor smoke, flickering as though the world itself could not bear to contain it. The ground cracked, bleeding rivers of molten crimson, and the air writhed with the stench of burned bone.

Kael stood with his sword aflame in his grasp, his body wrecked yet unyielding. Every breath was a knife in his lungs, but his eyes shone with defiance. Beside him, Elara’s fire coiled anew, no longer a weak ember but a fragile halo fueled by his light.

The Unborn’s faceless head tilted downward, its voice seeping like venom through the marrow of the earth. “You deny the abyss, yet it is already within you. Each scar, each grief, is a seed of me. You will not kill me—you will become me.”

Kael raised his blade, its glow quivering but resolute. “Then you’ll choke on me first.”

The titan’s laughter rumbled like collapsing mountains. With a single gesture, it tore the earth upward, summoning spires of bone that jutted toward the heavens. From their jagged points dripped figures—screaming, half-formed corpses, their bodies strung like marionettes on threads of crimson mist. They writhed as if begging release, only to be hurled forward in a tide of flesh.

Kael met the charge with steel, his sword carving arcs of burning light through the horde. Each strike cut bodies down only for the mist to drag them upright again, forcing him to kill them twice, thrice, endlessly. His arms shook, blood slicking his grip, but he never faltered.

Elara moved behind him, her flames twisting into spirals that scorched the ground. She hurled fire at the mist itself, burning the strings that bound the dead, severing the Unborn’s control. Each cut thread released a tortured scream that echoed into the night like a broken hymn.

The titan recoiled—not in pain, but in irritation. Its faceless void split open, revealing a gaping maw lined with burning eyes. From it surged a wave of pure shadow, a tide that devoured flame and light alike.

Kael braced, but the force hurled him backward, crashing him into a shattered tree. His sword’s glow sputtered, nearly extinguished. Elara staggered, her knees buckling as the shadow wave smothered her fire.

The Unborn loomed, its voice now a chorus of a thousand mothers screaming in labor, a thousand infants wailing in death. “You cannot fight the womb. You cannot silence birth. I am the endless beginning.”

But Kael, bloodied and broken, rose once more. His sword’s light rekindled, brighter than before, fueled not by his strength but by his refusal. He looked at Elara—her fire dim yet alive—and his voice cracked like thunder.

“Then we’ll be your end, even if it kills us.”

Together, they lifted steel and flame against the titan.

And for the first time, the Unborn staggered.