"And am going to start with you"

Aegon's claw came down, reality itself seeming to scream beneath the weight of his strike. Kelvin braced, scythe rising in a desperate defense—

But before the blow could land, a blinding flash erupted between them. Steel rang against scale.

It was Kaelen.

The Blade of Eternity locked against Aegon's crimson talons, sparks of cosmic energy bursting outward in dazzling arcs. His body shook under the pressure, knees nearly buckling, but his voice thundered with an authority that froze everyone in their place.

"Go! All of you—flee!"

Kelvin staggered back, stunned. His scythe lowered, his expression torn between fury and disbelief.

"Kaelen, what the hell are you—"

But he couldn't finish. Kaelen's blade pulsed with Eternity's light, forcing Aegon's claw just barely away from Kelvin's chest. The air vibrated violently, as if space itself couldn't decide whether to shatter or mend.

Aegon's eyes narrowed, irritation bleeding into his voice like poison.

"You dare stand in my way, Avatar? You… a child playing with my brother's scraps?"

With a flick of his arm, Aegon's power surged. Kaelen was blasted backward like a comet, his body tearing through layers of cloud before crashing hard against the fractured skies themselves.

"KAELEN!" voices cried from below—Lila, Morris, Ethan, Guinevere, even Kelvin.

But Kaelen refused to yield. His body trembled, bruised and battered, yet his grip on the Blade of Eternity never wavered. He propelled himself forward in a streak of radiant light, meeting Aegon's descending claw with a defiant slash that rang like a bell across Aetheris.

Their clash shook the heavens. The battle became a dance of titans—Aegon's crimson fury versus Kaelen's radiant defiance. But even as Kaelen swung with all his might, the truth was undeniable: he was being pushed back.

Every blow from Aegon seemed to crush him further, each strike heavier, more relentless, more absolute. Sparks of eternity light clashed with waves of destructive crimson energy, but Kaelen's breaths grew ragged, his movements slower.

Down below, the warriors of Eldoria looked on in horror.

Drake clenched his sword, knuckles pale.

Lila's seer's eyes burned with desperate visions of Kaelen being swallowed by crimson.

Kelvin's chest heaved, torn between leaping in or obeying Kaelen's command to flee.

And in that storm of desperation, Eternity's voice spoke within Kaelen's mind, calm but heavy with resignation.

"You cannot hold him like this, Kaelen. Not as you are now."

Kaelen's teeth clenched as he barely parried another strike that sent his arm trembling.

"Then tell me what to do, damn it!"

A pause, then Eternity sighed—a sound that carried both sorrow and inevitability.

"You already know. To wield me fully, you must absorb what remains incomplete. My essence fractured long ago into three: myself, chaos, and void. I returned to you. But some of these two rests within Kelvin… and the other festers inside Endless."

Kaelen's eyes widened mid-battle, nearly costing him his head as Aegon's claw grazed past his cheek, carving a bloody line.

"You're saying…"

"Yes. If you are to become whole—if you are to truly stand against Aegon—you must absorb them both. Chaos… and Void. Without them, you are but half a god. With them… you will be Eternity reborn."

Kaelen's blade locked again with Aegon's claw, sparks erupting as their faces came inches apart. Sweat and blood mingled on his skin as his heart pounded like war drums.

Down below, Kelvin's scythe pulsed violently, reacting to the words it could not hear. Endless, who had steadied himself after being thrown aside earlier, suddenly stiffened, as though he, too, felt the pull of Kaelen's half-spoken fate.

Kaelen gritted his teeth, staring into the abyssal rage of Aegon's eyes. He could feel the truth of Eternity's words weighing upon him like chains.

Absorb Kelvin. Absorb Endless. Unite chaos, void, and eternity into one.

But at what cost?

---

Kaelen's chest tightened as Eternity's words echoed like a death sentence in his mind.

"The only way… is to be one with all my power… which means taking the fragments from Endless… and from the heir of chaos, Kelvin."

His grip on his blade faltered. The weight of the battle slipped away from him, replaced by a crushing storm of doubt and horror. From Kelvin? Someone who only has me left? The thought shattered his focus—

—and that single lapse was all Aegon needed.

With a flicker of godlike speed, Aegon's strike landed. The blow was a cataclysm of force, a dark shockwave tearing through the battlefield. Kaelen's body was hurled down like a meteor, slamming into the ground with bone-shattering impact. The earth caved beneath him, leaving a crater that swallowed him whole.

The sound was deafening.

A gasp rippled through the watching crowd—Eldoria's valiant warriors and even it's allies. Anxiety gripped their hearts. Could Kaelen, their hope, really fall so easily?

Drake's eyes widened, but his instincts snapped into command. "Fall back!" he roared, his voice cutting through the panic. "Everyone—retreat, now!"

The students scrambled, torn between fear and duty, but Drake's authority pushed them into motion. Feet pounded against the torn battlefield as they fled, their retreat a mixture of shame and desperation.

But one figure didn't move.

Kelvin.

He stood at the edge of the crater, his fists trembling as dust and smoke rose from Kaelen's broken form. For a moment, he froze—seeing his comrade, his brother-in-arms, lying bloodied and battered. Then, with fire igniting in his chest, Kelvin jumped down.

"Kaelen…!" His voice cracked, raw with desperation. He slid into the hole, reaching down to pull Kaelen up, his arms straining as he lifted the half-conscious boy from the rubble.

Kaelen's breath was ragged, his lips trembling as if still caught between Eternity's damning revelation and the pain tearing through his body.

And above them—Aegon loomed. His shadow fell across both of them, eyes gleaming with cruel amusement.

"Today will be the dawn of a new era"

At this moment, Aegon's wings has already appeared on Christopher's body as it stretched outward, blotting out the fractured sky above. The air around the crater thickened with his killing intent as he descended, shadow and fire curling in his palm, aimed directly at Kaelen and Kelvin.

"Pathetic gnats," he sneered, eyes narrowing. "I'll erase both the fragment and its pitiful vessel."

But before his strike could fall—

The heavens shook.

A chorus of bells, not of this world, rang through the battlefield. The ground quaked as light tore open the sky itself, splitting it into twelve radiant fissures. From each rupture descended figures clad in armor of stars, halos of flame, ice, storm, and shadow shimmering above their brows. Their very presence warped the air; mana, qi, and even time itself bowed beneath the crushing weight of their arrival.

The Celestials had come.

They hovered in formation, a legion of radiance and judgment. Not mortals, not gods—but something far older, embodiments of law and permanence, the unseen hands that had shaped Aetheris since its dawn. Each bore a weapon that pulsed with the essence of creation: a sword gleaming brighter than the sun, a staff woven with rivers of galaxies, a shield humming with runes older than language itself.

Their voices united, and the land itself trembled at their decree:

"Aegon. On behalf of the Godly Twelve Concepts, your presence is a flaw upon Aetheris. You bring imbalance, and imbalance must be erased. For the sake of all that lives—you will not draw another breath of this world."

The battlefield froze. Every survivor, every being from Eldoria, even the retreating figures in the distance—all gazed upward with eyes wide in awe and terror. To see the Celestials descend was to watch the sky itself judge the earth.

"HA....HA...HAHA...HAHAHAHAHA!!"

But Aegon… laughed.

A cruel, thunderous laugh that rolled across the plains like a storm of mockery. "Flaw?" His blackened aura erupted outward, swallowing the light of day. "I am not a flaw. I am the truth your laws could never bury."

And he met their charge.

The Celestials descended like meteors, twelve beams of power slamming into the earth with the fury to split continents. Their weapons sang, arcs of holy fire and cosmic radiance cutting toward Aegon from every angle. Each strike was designed to kill not just flesh, but existence itself.

Yet Aegon moved like a nightmare unbound. Still with Christopher's body, he caught the first blade in his bare hand, the divine steel screaming as cracks spread along its length. A single backhanded blow sent its wielder tumbling through the air, crashing into a mountain far beyond the horizon. Another thrust at him with a spear burning with celestial flame, but Aegon shattered it with a punch, the explosion lighting up the battlefield like a second sun.

One after another, they fell into disarray. Their coordinated attacks, meant to cage him, broke against the tide of his overwhelming strength. His laughter echoed as he tore through their formation, wings ripping through shields of starlight, fists caving in barriers older than kingdoms. The Celestials—the eternal arbiters of balance—were being driven back, blood drawn from beings thought untouchable.

And in the crater below, Kaelen trembled.

Every impact above sent tremors through the ground, rocks falling around him and Kelvin as the battle of legends raged overhead. He clenched his fists, his body weak and broken, but the true torment was not in his wounds. It was in Eternity's words, gnawing at his heart.

Kelvin gritted his teeth, holding Kaelen upright. "Dammit, Kaelen! Talk to me! What did Eternity say? Why did you lose focus?!" His voice cracked under the roar of destruction above.

Kaelen's lips moved, slow and trembling. He turned to face Kelvin, his eyes heavy with pain—not just physical, but the weight of truth.

"…The only way…" he whispered hoarsely, "…the only way I can ever stand against him… is to become one with all of Eternity's power."

Kelvin's breath caught. His hands tightened around Kaelen's shoulders. "What do you mean?"

Kaelen coughed blood, but forced the words out, each syllable a blade.

"…It means I'll have to take the fragments… from Endless… and from you."

"What?"

The words seemed to stop the world around them. Even as the Celestials screamed in defiance above, even as Aegon tore through their ranks with merciless strength, Kelvin could only stare at Kaelen—his brother-in-arms, his comrade—frozen in shock.

And the battlefield raged on, a storm above and a silence below, where one confession threatened to shatter everything.