Silence, at first.
But not peace.
The kind of silence that comes after the bomb—when ears ring and the air tastes like blood and ozone. Where even breathing feels like betrayal.
Kael lay on the broken floor, body shaking, face slick with gore and ash. One eye swollen shut. Runes still faintly glowing across his ribs like afterimages of near-possession.
Alive.
But not saved.
Not yet.
Yami didn't look at him.
He couldn't.
Because the thing across from him—what used to be Lucius—was still standing.
The right side of his body hung in ribbons. Bone exposed. Regeneration trying and failing to keep up. His expression was no longer composed, no longer celestial.
It was human.
And full of rage.
"You shouldn't have been able to do that," Lucius hissed, voice layered—his many minds speaking in unison. "That spell doesn't exist. It has no place in this world."
Yami rolled his shoulders.
Blood rolled down his lip.
"Yeah, well... neither do you."
His aura hadn't calmed.
If anything—it was still rising.
Darkness boiled from his skin in chaotic waves, gravity-warping pulses of mana that made the edges of the world flicker. Like the room couldn't decide if it was real anymore.
Even his own grimoire struggled to keep pace—its pages now charred, smudged with something that wasn't ink.
Void residue.
The price of casting beyond your limit.
"That spell cost you," Lucius said, tilting his head. "You're dying. I can feel your soul burning out at the edges."
Yami smiled through cracked teeth.
"Still enough left to kill you."
Lucius moved.
Faster than thought.
Not a teleport—just time folding. He appeared behind Yami, already mid-incantation, a spell meant to crush a heart and rewrite it.
But Yami didn't dodge.
He turned his sword into a gate.
A slash—horizontal, wide, raw with instability—
"Dark Cloak: Rift Splitter."
And space itself buckled.
Lucius's arm disappeared.
Not sliced.
Deleted.
A perfect scar hovered midair where the magic had landed, pulsing like a wound in reality.
Lucius reeled back—still healing, slower now, visibly faltering.
"You're not casting Dark Magic anymore," he whispered. "You've created something else."
Yami breathed hard.
Didn't deny it.
Didn't understand it.
Didn't need to.
He just gripped his sword tighter.
---
Kael stirred.
Barely.
The world around him flickered in double-vision. His body was numb in places where nerves had simply died. His mana well was cracked—not empty, but bleeding. It felt like his soul had been through a meat grinder and stitched back with barbed wire.
But he was still here.
Lucius hadn't finished the overwrite.
Yami had stopped it.
Kael clenched his jaw as blood leaked from his nose again. One arm wouldn't move. His vision swam. And yet—
Get up.
Not out of bravery.
Out of spite.
Kael's fingers clawed into broken stone. His teeth grit. He dragged himself up, not to stand, but to kneel—like a demon clawing its way back from a grave made just for it.
He had no strength.
But he had presence.
Lucius turned—and paused.
Because even now—burned, broken, bleeding—Kael's eyes were locked on his. No fear.
Just hatred.
"I'm still not yours," Kael croaked.
Yami didn't glance back. He didn't need to. That one line was enough to fire more adrenaline through his veins than any spell ever could.
Lucius—wounded, slowed—grew stranger now.
The human shape began to falter.
His voice doubled, then tripled, speaking in chords.
"Then die as nothing."
A massive glyph formed behind him. Dozens of layers deep, rotating against each other like celestial gears—runic alignments from magics never recorded. Light. Soul. Gravity. Fate.
The spell wasn't meant to kill Yami.
It was meant to erase Kael from every timeline.
"I have seen the outcome where he kills me," Lucius spoke calmly, divinity bleeding from every word. "This is the branch I sever."
The glyph charged.
Reality bent.
Time howled.
And Yami—
Didn't blink.
"Kael."
Kael looked up, vision flickering.
"Yeah?"
"Don't die until I say so."
Then Yami plunged his sword into the ground.
"Dark Magic: Underworld Burial – Final Gate."
The floor shattered beneath him—not down, but inward—revealing a bottomless spiral of black roots and smoking glyphs that should not exist. The air screamed. Mana collapsed inward like a dying star.
And from the depths—something answered.
A tidal wave of black tendrils surged from the gate, forming a wall between Kael and Lucius's spell—not blocking it…
…but eating it.
Lucius's eyes widened.
The massive celestial spell—his finest craft—was being devoured, unravelled like silk in a furnace. The wall of Yami's spell didn't reflect. It fed.
"Your fate's not yours to write," Yami growled. "Not anymore."
---
Lucius staggered back.
Not far.
Just enough to betray it.
Fear.
Something he hadn't felt since ascending—since absorbing devils, rewriting his body, fusing with divinity, and reshaping fate like clay. For all his vision, all his perfection, all his threads across time—
He hadn't seen this.
Yami's eyes now burned void black, ringed in a halo of ruptured mana. His spell had not ended with the devouring of Lucius's attack.
It had only just begun.
The Final Gate yawned wider behind him, abyssal roots coiling through the air, pulsing with unformed ruin. They didn't obey gravity. They obeyed wrath.
Kael, barely kneeling, felt it in his bones—what Yami had done.
He hadn't just broken through to a new spell.
He had reached beyond the structured boundaries of Dark Magic itself. He had cast something that wasn't learned.
It had been carved out of him.
Like his rage had forged the spell through sheer force of will.
Lucius snarled.
"Do you even know what you're touching?"
Yami finally looked at him fully.
"No," he said. "But it knows you."
Lucius launched forward, abandoning elegance. Speed over grace. His body cracked time again, and in an instant, a construct of fused holy and gravity magic hammered down on Yami's head like the hand of a god.
Yami didn't flinch.
He lifted his blade—and sheathed it.
For a second.
Then—
"Dark Slash: Prayers Fall Silent."
The draw was so fast it looked like nothing happened.
Until Lucius froze mid-attack.
Until the massive construct around him crumbled silently, lines of severance glowing across its face.
Until his jaw fell off.
Lucius reeled backward, tongue writhing, re-knitting bone with unnatural speed—but slower this time. Much slower.
Yami lowered his katana.
Still emiting aura.
Still bleeding.
Still walking forward.
Each step made the world tilt, like the center of gravity was trying to follow him.
The roots from the Final Gate moved with him now—forming a halo behind his back, jagged and divine, like a corrupted saint leading judgment to the world.
Lucius was smiling again.
But it was brittle now.
Trembling.
"You're not even a Magic Knight anymore," he spat. "You're a godkiller."
Yami raised his sword again.
"Nah. Just a pissed-off teacher."
He lunged.
And the battlefield broke again.
---
The clash was silent.
Because sound had no time to exist.
Yami's strike hit so fast, so absolutely, that the air forgot how to carry vibration. His blade caught Lucius mid-frame—slicing not just through flesh, but through the spells embedded in his atoms.
Blood sprayed.
No—light sprayed—Lucius's blood didn't stay red anymore. It flickered between gold, silver, and black void, like his body was collapsing across realities, trying to stabilize between human and divine.
He stumbled back, ribs exposed, eyes manic.
"You are not meant to exist!" he howled, voice shattering the wall behind them into powder.
Yami didn't answer.
He just kept walking.
One step.
Then another.
Each one summoned another eruption of black mana from the gate behind him. Darkness no longer moved around him like smoke—it moved like tide, high-pressure waves rolling forward to erase everything Lucius tried to summon.
Wings of light? Devoured.
Time rings? Split and inverted.
Soul anchors? Eaten from the inside out.
Kael coughed blood behind the rubble, vision flickering as he tried to crawl closer. He knew what this meant. Yami's mana—his life force—was overdrawing. He could feel the cracking around the captain's aura. Not just fatigue.
Fracture.
This wasn't a sustainable power.
This was suicide sharpened into a blade.
"Stop," Kael croaked. "You'll kill yourself…"
But Yami wasn't listening.
He couldn't. Not anymore.
Something deeper had taken hold.
He raised his sword again—one final spell coiling around the edge like a promise made to death itself.
The Final Gate behind him shrank, compressed into a blade-thin slit—its roots rushing back inward like breath sucked before a scream.
Lucius stood, both arms regrown, face pale but smiling now with acceptance.
"You think you can end me with this?" he asked.
Yami whispered the spell.
It had no name.
It didn't need one.
He slashed.
And the Final Gate exploded forward—not as tendrils, not as beams—
But as a black sun.
The size of a city.
Its center a spinning knot of anti-light, rimmed with thorns and crosses, carved with the magicless hatred of gods and men alike.
Lucius screamed, for real this time.
Not in pain.
In fear.
The black sun hit.
And the world vanished.
---
The black sun struck Lucius like the hand of something that had never forgiven.
No sound.
No explosion.
Just annihilation.
The moment it touched him, his entire form collapsed inward, like a building made of ash beneath a hurricane. Not torn apart. Not even burned. Just undone. Wings, face, soul magic constructs—gone.
His scream didn't echo.
It imploded.
The roots of the Final Gate twisted into the spinning mass, pulling light, gravity, and even color into itself. Walls cracked. The floor liquified. Even mana couldn't remain stable near it—it either bent in worship or died in protest.
And at the center—
Yami stood.
Still holding his blade.
Still feeding the spell.
Black veins traced up his neck, through his face. His hand was shaking, not from fear, but from overload. His body wasn't meant to conduct that kind of power. Not for this long.
But he wasn't stopping.
Not yet.
Lucius's last fragments twisted in the vortex, trying to reform, trying to flee.
Too late.
Yami's voice broke the stillness.
"You don't get to crawl back."
One final command whispered through the gate.
"Consume him."
The black sun contracted in one instant—and then vanished.
Not with a blast.
With a blink.
Lucius was gone.
Not dead.
Erased.
The gate behind Yami crumbled. His sword cracked in his hand. The aura around him flickered, glitched—and finally, collapsed.
Yami dropped to one knee.
Kael screamed.
"YAMI—!"
He scrambled forward, dragging his ruined body across molten stone, feeling his fingers burn raw just to reach him.
Yami looked up—eyes bloodshot, iris flickering between black and white.
"Hey, dumbass…"
He coughed blood. A lot.
"…told you not to die."
Kael reached him—just barely—catching his weight as Yami slumped sideways.
"Don't. Don't do this," Kael said, breath ragged. "We—we won—just hang on—"
Yami smiled, slow and crooked.
"That ain't how this works, kid…"
His voice was fading.
So was his mana.
So was his soul.
---
Yami's body felt heavier by the second.
Not weight—gravity.
Like death had already gripped his soul and was dragging it downward through the roots of his own spell.
Kael held him tighter, trying to stabilize his breathing, pressing burned hands to his chest, willing mana into him like that could work.
"You're not dying here," Kael growled. "You don't get to do this. Not to me. Not after—after everything—"
Yami blinked, barely able to keep his eyes open.
He reached up—trembling fingers smearing ash across Kael's face. Not tender.
Just real.
"You did good, Kael…"
Kael shook his head violently. "No. No! Don't do the farewell talk, don't you dare—"
"You did real good," Yami repeated, forcing the words out like every syllable was tearing a rib out from inside. "You… didn't let him take you."
"Because of you—!"
"Nah. You already had that in you." He smirked, and it was bloody and crooked. "I just lit the match."
Kael's hands shook. His vision blurred with tears—but he didn't cry. Not yet.
Yami wasn't done.
> "You're gonna lead them," he said. "The Black Eagles… they'll follow you now."
"I'm not—"
"Yes, you are."
Silence.
Kael clenched his jaw so hard his teeth cracked. "You trained me for this," he whispered.
Yami nodded.
"That was the deal."
His voice dropped.
"You're the weapon. I was just the whetstone."
And then—his eyes went dull for a split second.
Kael felt it.
His soul had begun to detach.
"NO!"
Kael slammed both hands to Yami's chest—raw magic pulsing out of him, uncontrolled, unstable, desperate. His fingers sparked. His grimoire screamed in protest as pages flipped on their own.
One of them opened.
An old one.
Burnt around the edges.
"Don't you f***ing go!" Kael howled. "I will drag you back!"
The spell forming on the page was forbidden.
Kael didn't care.
It was the first sign of the debt he'd pay.
---
The grimoire in Kael's hand screamed.
Not metaphorically.
It emitted an inhuman wail as its spine split open, dark symbols pouring off the page in waves of cursed light. The language wasn't human. Not elvish. Not demonic.
Older.
Kael had never seen the spell before.
But his blood recognized it.
"Soul Reclamation: Price of the Living."
It didn't ask for mana.
It asked for years.
And Kael gave them.
He screamed as the magic ripped through his body—his life force severing in a thousand points at once, veins lighting up like brands. He bled time, literally, coughing up blood so dark it shimmered with age.
The spell responded.
A ring of inverted runes spiraled out from Yami's chest, rising vertically like a soul cage with barbs. At its center, a flicker—a pulse.
Yami's soul.
But it was floating away, half-torn, already dragged down by the Final Gate's gravity.
"You don't get to leave me behind…" Kael hissed.
He reached into the circle.
The moment he did, he felt Yami.
Not just the weight of his soul—but his will.
Tired.
Heavy.
Ready.
And that's when Kael heard it—
"Don't pull me back, Kael."
It wasn't said aloud.
Yami's soul was speaking directly through the link.
Kael gritted his teeth.
"You think I care what you want?!"
The circle started fracturing.
Because the spell wasn't meant to succeed without full ritual, a focus object, or a team of anchors.
Kael was alone.
But he kept pulling.
"You gave me everything, damn it! You taught me how to fight, how to survive, how to be me! And now you wanna just—just fade?!"
"You're not weak anymore," Yami said inside him. "You don't need me."
"That's not the f***ing point!"
Kael screamed again, blood pouring from his nose, eyes burning.
The ring shattered.
Yami's soul lurched downward.
Kael lunged.
Both hands gripped a shape made of memory and death—something that should not be touchable—and yanked upward.
Yami's soul screamed.
So did Kael.
---
Kael screamed.
And the world screamed back.
The moment his hands yanked Yami's soul from the maw of the Gate, a backlash surged through him—raw, primal, cosmic magic not meant for any living being to wield. His spine arched. His skin cracked like overfired clay. His heartbeat stopped for seven full seconds.
The circle exploded.
Not outward.
Inward.
The rings of soul magic collapsed into Kael's chest like a collapsing star—sinking straight into his heart.
Yami's soul went with it.
And everything stopped.
---
Kael dropped, twitching—choking on blood and smoke.
His eyes flickered wildly, rolling back, vision cascading through realities—shadows, fragments, shattered timelines where Yami's soul had failed to return. He saw himself screaming across all of them.
And in the center of it all—
A core.
Small. Black. Bright like a shard of God's own bone.
Yami's soul.
Floating inside him.
Not whole.
But not gone.
Bound to him now—anchored.
Kael's chest was scarred with it. Not burned—branded. A sigil, black and crawling with curse-veins, etched directly over his heart.
A chain had formed.
Not physical.
Spiritual.
---
Yami's voice didn't speak aloud.
It echoed within.
"…Kael?"
Faint.
Tired.
But there.
Kael gasped in shock—every muscle in his body clenching as the voice rippled through his nerves.
"Yami…?"
"What… the hell did you do…?"
"I brought you back," Kael growled, coughing blood. "I refused to lose you."
Silence.
Then—
"…Dumbass."
But there was no hate in it.
Just… something else.
Kael collapsed forward, eyes burning with exhausted tears—but he grinned, bloody and raw.
"I'm not letting go. Not now. Not ever."
The silence inside him pulsed once.
Warm.
Grateful.
But heavy.
---
Kael didn't rise for minutes.
When he finally did, he was shaking. Pale. Changed.
Yami's magic flickered inside him now—not in his grimoire. Not in his veins.
In his soul.
He would carry him.
Not as a weapon.
As a promise.
---
Kael stumbled to his feet, his body a wound that refused to heal. His hands were trembling, soaked in both blood and the strange, dark aura that clung to him now. He could feel Yami inside him—like a presence that refused to rest, a pulse that beat in time with his heart. His every movement was heavy—as though something unspoken, something ancient and suffocating, was wrapped around his soul.
But it was a weight he would carry.
It was a debt he would pay.
As Kael stood there, amidst the broken ruins of the battlefield, his thoughts swirled like a storm. Lucius was gone. Not vanquished. Not killed.
Erased.
Yami's sacrifice had not been in vain. The chains that bound them, the bond that tethered him to life, had shattered that fate. And yet… the cost was now a permanent scar on Kael's existence.
The black sun—the darkness that had consumed Lucius—lingered in the air like a shadow that would never fade.
And the only thing that remained was Kael. Alive. Altered. Incomplete.
"So this is what it feels like…" Kael murmured to himself, his voice thick with exhaustion and an edge of something more—a warning. "To carry what others cannot."
But there was no comfort in those words. No release.
Behind him, the crumbled remains of the Final Gate were quiet now. The magic that had torn through it was gone, leaving only shattered walls and shattered dreams. And beyond that, Kael could sense the world outside, waiting for him to return.
The Black Eagles.
The Black Bulls.
The kingdom.
The people who had never once believed in him—the ones who would now have to follow him.
And Yami—still present, still pulsing within him like a heartbeat in the silence. He couldn't forget him.
Couldn't let go.
Kael's hand rested on his chest, where the sigil burned with a life of its own.
"I won't let you down," he whispered, staring into the void where his mentor's soul lingered. "I won't forget. I won't become like him."
The debt was far from over.
And the price for what he had done—what he would have to do—would haunt him forever.
But Kael had learned one thing from Yami.
"I'm not going to let anyone else fade."
And that promise, that weight, was what would carry him forward.
---------------------
Now, I wanted to ask, should I start with god vs man arc and finish it and tank him into another universe, or should I take the story longer, and spend more time in black clover?
I mean take my time make him erase the organisation that tied him down at the start, then make asta takenover hell, after that we can see through the fight between angels, fallen angels, demons and humans, after that I can yank him into another universe after searching for a suitable husk for yami....there are soo many timelines we can count and concentrate on, next chapter I am gonna take some time, decide what to do, meanwhile you can give your thoughts.....Mann why are my readers so silent, feels so sad.....sniff..sniff
Anyway have a nice day.