The air in the cathedral grew heavy, the atmosphere thickening with the scent of ozone and chilled earth. Asha-Vei did not touch the ground; she hovered inches above the white marble, her presence casting shadows that seemed to crawl away from her radiance.
"You speak of debt, little ghost?" the Goddess laughed, a sound that sent a jolt of pain through Taz's temples. "Your people were not a nation. They were fuel. Their lives were the oil that kept our stars burning. You should thank us for giving their pathetic deaths a purpose."
Kiron's grip on Lament tightened. The "Blood-Prayer" didn't flare hot this time. It settled into the blade, turning the charcoal steel into something that looked less like metal and more like a tear in reality.
She's fast, Kiron observed, his mind strangely calm despite the ringing in his ears. But the sword... it's hungry. It doesn't want to block her. It wants to consume her.
Asha-Vei moved.
She was a blur of golden light, her whip of electricity snapping out in three directions at once. The first strike shattered a marble pillar; the second seared the air inches from Nyra's face; the third aimed for Kiron's heart.
Kiron didn't retreat. He stepped into the strike.
He swung Lament in a wide, horizontal arc. The blade didn't clatter against the whip. As the charcoal steel met the divine lightning, the electricity was sucked into the sword's edge, vanishing into the dark metal as if it had never existed.
"Impossible!" Asha-Vei hissed, her composure finally shattering. "No weapon of the mud can nullify the First Dawn!"
"This isn't from the mud," Kiron said.
He lunged. His movement wasn't the frantic scramble of a scrapper anymore; it was the predatory glide of the "Sand-Walkers" he had just faced. He slashed upward, the void-steel of the blade leaving a wake of absolute blackness that erased the light of the cathedral.
Asha-Vei screamed, a high, piercing note as she twisted in mid-air. The tip of Lament grazed the golden plate of her shoulder armor. The divine metal didn't dent—it dissolved. A jagged, black scar appeared on her shoulder, weeping a pale, shimmering fluid that looked like liquid starlight.
She can be hurt, Nyra thought, her eyes wide as she shielded Taz. A God... bleeding in front of us.
"You... you dare touch the divine?" Asha-Vei's face contorted, her beauty twisting into a mask of solar fury. "I will burn this entire cathedral! I will turn this sand into glass and bury you in it!"
She threw her arms wide, her body erupting in a supernova of blinding gold. The heat was instantaneous. The white marble began to glow red, and the chemical light on Nyra's belt melted into a puddle.
"Kiron, get back!" Nyra yelled, shielding her eyes.
Kiron didn't blink. He raised the sword, holding it vertically in front of his face. He remembered the entity's words: Do not let the light blind you.
He closed his eyes and whispered a single word he didn't know he knew.
"Devour."
The sword Lament didn't just absorb the light; it began to pull. The supernova didn't explode outward—it was sucked inward toward the charcoal blade. The blinding gold was stretched and distorted, spiraling into the steel like water down a drain.
The cathedral plunged back into indigo darkness.
Asha-Vei fell to her knees, her radiance gone, her armor dimmed and cracked. She looked up at Kiron, her eyes filled with a primal, ancient terror. She saw the ghosts behind him—the thousand grey-cloaked figures of Koda—all standing with their heads tilted, watching her.
"The Underworld..." she whispered, her voice trembling. "The King of Graves... has returned."
"Go back to your brothers," Kiron said, the tip of his blade resting inches from her throat. "Tell Juro-Gai that the 'seed' he tried to bury is now the shadow over his throne."
With a flick of his wrist, Kiron sent a wave of void-pressure forward. It didn't kill her, but it shattered the remaining light in her form, hurling the Goddess back through the hole in the ceiling and high into the white sky above.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Kiron stood in the center of the hall, the sword Lament slowly cooling in his hand. The golden glow in his eyes faded, replaced by a deep, hollow exhaustion. He looked at Nyra and Taz, who were staring at him as if he were a stranger.
I did it, Kiron thought, his legs finally giving out. I made a God run.
But as he collapsed onto the cold marble, he heard a new sound—a deep, rhythmic drumming coming from the very bottom of the cathedral. It wasn't a heartbeat. It was the sound of thousands of armored boots hitting the ground in unison.
The "People of the Prayer" weren't just ghosts anymore. They were waking up.