Silence.
Not the kind that brings peace. The kind that presses down, thick and absolute. The kind that follows a song too old for the world to remember.
Kael knelt in the ruins of the cathedral, hand gripping his staff, eyes locked on Ryne.
His heart felt… wrong. Off-beat. As if something inside him had been shifted, re-tuned by the Choir's melody.
"Why does it feel like it's still playing… even now?"
The Choir's song had ended, yet its echo lingered in his veins—an aftertaste of godhood and madness. One wrong step, one wrong thought, and he knew he could tip from man to monster.
Ryne rose again, barely standing, but smiling with blood on his lips.
"You heard it. Didn't you?" he asked. "The first stanza. It spoke to you. That… is your true beginning."
"I'm nothing like you," Kael muttered, though he wasn't entirely sure anymore.
"We're both instruments, Kael. But only I have learned to play myself."
He raised a hand, and behind him, a tear in space flickered open. Not a portal—but a wound. A glimpse into somewhere darker, deeper. A sea of pulsing stars that blinked like eyes.
"This is what awaits those who embrace the second verse," Ryne said.
Kael took a shaky breath, staring into the tear.
And for a moment, he saw himself—but not as he was now.
This Kael had no eyes. No skin. Just light and gravity, wrapped in a humanoid form, like a star pretending to be a boy.
It terrified him.
"If that's what I become by following this path…" he said, voice tight, "then I'll forge my own."
"Even if it kills you?" Ryne asked.
Kael rose to his feet. "Especially if it saves who I am."
The Weight of Humanity
Elsewhere in the ruined cathedral, Sera and Aeris pulled Darius to safety. The building groaned under the pressure of unstable dimensional energy, stones suspended midair as if caught in Kael's shifting gravity field.
"He's changing," Aeris whispered. "Did you see it? That glow. He's not just using gravity—he's becoming part of it."
"We need to pull him back," Sera said, eyes narrowing. "Before he loses himself completely."
But neither girl moved yet. They felt it too—that weight pressing down from Kael. It wasn't malicious. It wasn't evil. But it was inhuman.
The Choice
Kael stood now at a crossroad only he could see.
Before him: two futures.
One led down Ryne's path—becoming a vessel for the Choir, embracing the full Void Song, rewriting the world in his own image.
The other was smaller, dimmer. It led through pain. Through restraint. Through self.
"There's always a price," he thought. "But maybe… I can find another way to pay it."
He lifted his staff and with a roar, slammed it into the ground.
The wound Ryne had opened snapped shut.
The shadows around Ryne shrieked, ripping away from him as if torn by unseen force.
"I won't sing their song," Kael said. "I'll write my own."
Ryne collapsed to one knee, breathing hard, shadows flickering and unstable.
"Then I hope your story has a strong ending," he hissed.
Kael stepped forward. "It's only the end if I give up. And I'm not done rising."