The Dominion Gate had awakened.
And with it, the world wept.
The sky ruptured—not with thunder or rain, but with light. Veins of silver laced the heavens, pulsing like the arteries of a dying god. Oceans stilled mid-tide. Mountains trembled as if ancient giants beneath the earth stirred in their slumber. Somewhere, in the deepest sanctuaries of forsaken deities, scripture unbound itself. Texts erased and rewrote their truths in languages older than sound.
Reality bent—not gently, but violently. Without permission. Without mercy.
And at the center of it all stood Kael.
He hovered at the heart of the Dominion Gate, an ancient construct neither wholly physical nor entirely divine. Glyphs spiraled around him—shifting sigils of time, essence, memory, and will. They floated like judgmental eyes, blinking in and out of phase, each one echoing a point in history where fate had turned.
And now… could turn again.
Kael's cloak flowed like black smoke in the arcane wind. His silver eyes glowed with impossible clarity. One hand was lifted toward the infinite braid of threads before him—a cosmic river of light and darkness, memories and possibilities.
The Thread of Time.
"Find it," Kael said, his voice low, reverent, and absolute. "The moment the gods broke the pact with mortals."
The stream answered.
Reality fractured into images—blurred echoes of centuries long buried.
— The forging of the Celestial Accord, and its betrayal by the first Archons.
— A nameless king incinerated by divine fire for defying prophecy.
— The cries of a demoness as she cradled her infant, her body broken, surrounded by the corpses of her kin.
That last image throbbed like a wound.
Kael's breath slowed.
"That one."
He reached for the thread—not cautiously, but like a sovereign claiming his right. As he touched it, the glyphs responded, flaring violently.
Suddenly, he was within the moment.
Not watching. Not dreaming.
But living it.
A memory not his own. A war not yet forgotten.
The sky was aflame with golden judgment. The ground, torn apart by holy weapons, screamed beneath the weight of corpses. Abyssal warriors lay in pieces, their blackened armor melted into their flesh. A scent of ash and divinity soaked the air.
And in the center—surrounded, wounded, bleeding—was her.
Lilith.
The Demon Queen. The Warden of the Abyss.
Her wings were torn, bones exposed. Horns cracked. Her once-imposing figure now wrapped protectively around a crying infant. Her child.
The gods had struck first.
She had raised her banner in peace, called for truce. And they answered with genocide.
Kael appeared like a phantom, invisible, untouched by time's rules. He stared at her—this younger, more vulnerable version of his mother. There was no madness in her yet. No obsession. Just defiance… and unbearable grief.
"This was the moment," Kael whispered. "This is where everything unraveled."
He clenched his fists as divine fire rained from the heavens. Swords of light descended, aimed not only at the warriors—but at her. At the child.
At him.
"You called her a monster," Kael murmured, voice trembling with fury. "But you made her one."
He extended his will.
The memory quaked.
Time resisted… and then yielded.
Kael stepped in—not as an echo, but as a force. Reality bent around his form as he appeared beside the dying demoness.
Lilith gasped, half-conscious, her arm instinctively rising to shield her child.
"Who… are you?" she choked.
Kael knelt beside her, touched her bloodstained cheek.
"Your son."
Her eyes widened, but before comprehension could take root, Kael stood and raised his hand to the heavens.
"Enough."
The divine fire froze midair.
The swords paused inches from impact. The air thickened, golden flames halting like insects caught in amber.
And then… it all began to reverse.
The skies recoiled.
Light fractured. The weapons turned to dust.
The very decree of destruction—the command issued by the gods—unraveled.
Kael turned back to Lilith. "Not this time."
He reached out and, with a wordless command, teleported her and the infant to safety, casting them through time's weave into the depths of the Abyss.
Then, with a final gesture, he collapsed the battlefield.
The war that was never meant to happen was erased.
The memory dissolved.
Kael staggered out of the Dominion Gate, gasping.
The glyphs around him dimmed, their hunger sated—for now.
He had done the unthinkable.
He had not merely observed time.
He had rewritten it.
Far across the cosmos, in the celestial Temple of Echoes, screams echoed—not of pain, but fear.
Aurellion, the Starfather, fell to his knees, his armor fracturing beneath invisible pressure.
"Someone… someone has touched the root of fate."
The other gods assembled—wings of light, eyes of fire, voices forged in creation. They looked upon Aurellion in horror.
They felt it too.
A mortal had violated the Sacred Thread.
A mortal had interfered.
Not to change a detail.
But to challenge their judgment.
Back at the Dominion Gate, Elyndra watched Kael emerge from the rift. The wind around him no longer moved as air, but as time itself. She saw strands of forgotten history dancing in his shadow. Her divine blood twisted at his presence.
"What did you do?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
Kael looked at her—his gaze calm, distant, infinite.
"I corrected a lie," he said. "I gave justice where there was only betrayal. I saved my mother."
Elyndra took a step back. "You tampered with the sacred weave—"
"No," Kael interrupted, walking past her, eyes on the horizon. "I reminded the gods that they are not immune to consequence."
In the Imperial Thronehall, Seraphina stood beneath a sky that bled silver.
The nobles whispered in terrified tones, pointing to the unnatural light, the shifting air, the silent tolling of bells that had not rung in centuries.
"The heavens have changed," someone muttered.
Seraphina's voice cut through them like a blade. "You feel it, don't you? The Empire is no longer beneath the gods."
They stared at her.
"We are beneath Kael."
A nobleman stepped forward, trembling. "Then… do we serve him now?"
Seraphina turned slowly. Her sapphire eyes held no warmth.
"No," she said. "We survive him."
But the truth, unspoken, loomed in the silence.
There was no longer a throne above Kael.
There was only his shadow.
In the Abyss, Lilith convulsed.
Visions flooded her mind—memories she had never lived. A moment of death, undone. Her child, once marked by loss, now standing above time.
She fell to her knees.
"He… changed my past."
A tear slid down her cheek—dark as ink, bright as stars.
"My son… you've become what none of us could ever reach."
And yet beneath her awe, something else stirred.
Dread.
Because if one thread had unraveled…
The others might follow.
As silence settled again over the Dominion Gate, it pulsed.
Once.
Then… again.
Kael narrowed his eyes. Something answered his intervention.
A ripple in space widened. Out of it stepped a figure—tall, cloaked, face half-shadowed.
Not an enemy.
Not an ally.
A Reflection.
A version of Kael that had made different choices. Walked different paths.
Eyes locked. No words at first.
Then the Reflection spoke.
"You think this is victory?"
Kael said nothing.
"This is the first thread. And now, they'll come undone—every lie, every truth, every path the gods forced upon us."
Kael's jaw tightened.
"I'm ready."
The Reflection tilted its head. "Then let the war begin."
Behind them, the Dominion Gate sang. A low, ancient hum—growing louder.
History had been rewritten.
And fate would never forget.
To be continued…