The Crimson Eclipse Begins
The sky over the Eastern Dominion had darkened—not from storm or spell, but from something older, something prophetic. A blood-red halo encircled the sun, casting long, crimson shadows across the ruined capital. The distant echoes of the last battle still lingered in the cracked stone, the scent of charred remains carried by the wind. Those who remained whispered of the Crimson Eclipse, a sign that the old gods were stirring again. A harbinger, they said, of the end. Or the beginning.
Kael stood alone on the obsidian balcony of his new palace, the bones of the old regime now serving as the foundation for his reign. The palace rose high above the capital, casting its dark silhouette against the crimson sky. Umbrael pulsed faintly at his side, its form swirling with whispers, as if it too sensed the change. The blade of the abyss resonated, throbbing with a dark hunger. Kael's eyes, calm and calculating, surveyed the horizon, his thoughts as sharp as the wind that whipped around him.
"They're watching," he murmured to no one in particular. His voice, low and dangerous, carried the weight of certainty. "Good. Let them see what ascension looks like."
Behind him, the grand obsidian doors groaned open, their hinges crying out like the last remnants of a dying empire. The Abyssal Council awaited in the throne room below. They had summoned him, but their motives remained veiled in shadows. Kael, however, already knew. Lilith had made her move.
With a quiet grace, he descended the spiraling staircase into the chamber, where the very air hummed with power. The walls shimmered, reality itself bending and twisting as if the room had been forged from the stuff of nightmares. The architecture was an amalgamation of strange, impossible angles, as though the Abyss itself had spilled into this realm. Shadows whispered his name—soft, coaxing, almost familiar.
There, at the center of it all, stood Lilith.
Her wings, dark as the void, were furled behind her, a tapestry of night stretched across her back. The air around her crackled with power, the remnants of a thousand souls twisted into her being. Her horns gleamed in the dim light, a stark contrast against the unnatural moonlight that bathed the room. She was dressed in ceremonial robes, their fabric woven from the souls of those long dead, lined with threads of gold spun from the very essence of the Abyss.
The other Lords of the Abyss stood in silent reverence, kneeling before her, their presence a mix of awe and fear. Their dark eyes flicked toward Kael, but none dared to speak.
"My son," Lilith's voice cut through the silence like a blade, sweet and venomous. "You've grown arrogant... even for you."
Kael did not flinch. He had known this moment would come. He had anticipated it, down to the smallest detail. His gaze met hers—cool, unwavering—and for a brief moment, their eyes locked in a silent battle of wills.
"You summoned me," Kael said, his tone cold and steady. "Speak plainly, or I walk back to the realm of the living."
A flicker of something passed across Lilith's face. Was it pride? Madness? Longing? It was hard to say, but it didn't matter. The offer she would make was already written in the stars. She took a step forward, her wings unfurling like a cloak of darkness.
"A war is coming," she said, her voice carrying the weight of inevitability. "Not against kingdoms. Not even gods. But against the very concept of dominion itself. I offer you the Abyss... your rightful throne. Beside me."
Kael's expression never wavered. His eyes, however, darkened, and for a brief moment, the air around him seemed to crackle with tension. He took a step closer, his figure casting a long shadow across the ground.
"I don't serve," Kael replied, his voice a whisper of destruction. "I conquer."
Lilith's aura flared, her dark wings expanding, sending ripples of shadow through the room. Her power surged, a tempest of pure darkness. The shadows screamed, the very foundation of the chamber trembling under the force of her wrath.
But then, she smiled—a dangerous, obsessive smile. Her eyes gleamed with a madness born of centuries spent in the Abyss.
"Then conquer everything," she said, her voice thick with a seductive promise. "And when there's nothing left... you'll come home."
Kael stood unflinching, his gaze unyielding. "I'll burn the Abyss to the ground before I bow to it."
He turned, his cloak swirling behind him as he walked toward the exit. Lilith's laughter echoed in the chamber, rich and full of dark promise, but Kael didn't look back.
In the mortal realm, Empress Seraphina held court in the Grand Solar Hall. The Empire was a fractured shell of its former self, but Seraphina's power was growing in the shadows. With Kael rising in the east, she had begun to activate her secret network—the Silken Chain, a web of spies embedded in every noble house across the Empire. Her eyes never left the throne before her, but her mind was elsewhere, calculating, plotting.
A courier arrived, a silent figure cloaked in darkness. He placed a golden letter on her desk—an invitation to Kael, sealed by blood and ambition. A proposal for a political alliance, though Seraphina's mind was already working on the strings that bound her. The letter was both a trap and a power play. It was a message to Kael that she could control him, that she could control everything.
"He'll think he's pulling the strings," Seraphina muttered under her breath, her lips curling into a smile. "Let him. Until the noose tightens."
The words hung in the air, as inevitable as the Crimson Eclipse above.
Far beyond the veil of mortal lands, inside the Celestial Bastion, the Archons stirred. The Crimson Eclipse had awakened an ancient protocol—a protocol older than time itself. The Extermination of the Abyssborn.
The Archons gathered, their ethereal forms flickering with power. Eryndor the Shadow Serpent stood apart from them, his mind a storm of doubt and confusion. His encounter with Kael had left a mark on him, a lingering question that gnawed at his thoughts.
"He is no longer a mortal threat," one of the Archons said, his voice like the crackling of a thousand stars. "He is a cosmic aberration."
The others murmured in agreement, their voices resonating with ancient authority. They voted—unanimously—save for Eryndor, who abstained. The decision had been made.
Kael was no longer a mortal man. He was something far greater.
As night fell, the first Tear in the Veil opened above the Dominion. A burning streak of light, a celestial harbinger, plummeted into the mountains. Kael watched from his tower, his gaze fixed on the burning streak. Umbrael pulsed at his side, hungry and eager for the chaos to come.
"Let them come," Kael whispered, his voice thick with ambition. "Gods. Demons. Queens. I'll show them all... what it means to defy the stars."
And somewhere, in a corrupted cathedral, Elyndra knelt in prayer. Her light flickered—no longer divine, but something else entirely.
To be continued...