[MIRROR TRIAL – PHASE ACTIVE]
[SOULBOUND ZAR'EN-KA: CORRUPTED 72%]
[WARNING: HOSTILITY IMMINENT]
The air rippled—then froze. Time shattered into quiet.
Kael stood beneath the broken firmament, Tribunal looming like distant stars. But the real danger floated before him.
Zar'en-Ka.
Her celestial armor cracked. Her wings, once vast and radiant, now flickered with mirror-light—fragments stolen by the Tribunal, warping her into something unholy.
She turned to face him.
Eyes—once full of wrathful fire—now reflected only Kael himself.
"You summoned me. You unsealed me. Now bear the consequence."
Kael's chains snapped taut as she raised one burning hand. The constellations on her wings began to orbit faster—each a battlefield where she had ended worlds.
[ZAR'EN-KA – STATUS: HOSTILE – Tribunal Override Active]
[Paradox Resistance Engaged – 36 Seconds Remaining Until Complete Corruption]
Kael didn't flinch.
"I didn't call you here to be a weapon. I called you here to remember who you are."
She smiled—but it was wrong. Cruel.
"I was yours. Once. But the Sovereign who commanded me died on that throne. You? You're just an echo."
And then she attacked.
BOOM.
Light collapsed. The battlefield folded into a spiral of burning worlds. Kael was flung through fire, through time—his chains catching on the edge of a dying moon.
Zar'en-Ka descended like an apocalypse, her wings tearing through physics.
Kael spun mid-air, chains wrapping his limbs, pulling in gravity, momentum—rage.
He launched himself at her—clashing mid-flight.
Clang.
The impact ruptured reality. They landed hard, carving a crater of inverted starlight beneath them.
Kael roared, driving his fist into her midsection, then lashed with chain after chain—but she caught them.
Pulled him close.
And whispered:
"If you had just stayed dead… we wouldn't have had to do this."
Her hand plunged through his side—soul first.
[VITAL STRIKE: PARADOX DAMAGE INFLICTED]
[Memory Integrity: Bleeding – Warning: Sovereign Cycle Collapse]
Kael fell to one knee. Blood—real and temporal—poured from him.
But he looked up.
And smiled.
"You think I summoned you without a failsafe?"
[PARADOX POINT – FORCED REDEEMED CONTRACT]
[INITIATING: BINDING WORD – REVERSE ECHO]
His voice changed.
It wasn't just Kael speaking anymore.
It was the Sovereign King—his past self rising behind his words.
"Zar'en-Ka. Hear the name I once gave you… and remember."
The battlefield trembled.
[SOUL TRIGGER: TRUE NAME UNLOCKED – "VAKARA'THESH"]
[OVERWRITE IN PROGRESS]
Zar'en-Ka staggered, gripping her head. Her body wavered—corruption searing off her wings in violent shards.
"W–what did you…? That name… that name—"
Kael stood again, bloodied, glowing with paradox light.
"I didn't summon a soulbound. I summoned my general. Now take your place, Vakara'thesh."
She screamed—light spiraling around her—and then everything exploded.
When the light cleared—
She stood behind him.
Kneeling.
Returned.
Broken—but free.
[SOULBOUND RECOVERED – TRUE FORM RESTORED]
[ZAR'EN-KA/VAKARA'THESH – TRIBUNAL LINK: SEVERED]
Kael looked back at the throne of the Tribunal—still untouched.
He clenched his fist.
"We're not done."
The throne loomed.
A monolith of collapsed timelines, veined in gold and paradox crystal. Each step toward it unraveled centuries. It called to Kael. Whispered.
Sit. Rule. Obey the Cycle.
Kael stood still.
Behind him, Vakara'thesh—the Forsaken Starbringer—knelt, wings tattered but eyes blazing. Around them, the fractured Tribunal stirred, their remaining Judges preparing to converge.
[SYSTEM: RECLAMATION PROTOCOL ACTIVE]
[Sit on the Throne to Assume Supreme Authority Over Tribunal Law]
[Warning: Choice is Irrevocable]
Kael raised one hand.
And flipped the Tribunal off.
"I'm not here to rule. I'm here to end you."
Then—he turned his back on the throne.
The system glitched.
[ERROR: Paradox. Sovereign Line Rejecting Throne Inheritance]
[Loop Instability Detected – Spiral Collapse Imminent]
The Tribunal began to scream—not with sound, but with collapsing order. Their bodies fractured into symphonies of law and consequence, trying to rewrite reality around Kael's disobedience.
But he stepped forward.
One word fell from his lips:
"Break."
And the throne cracked.
A shockwave burst outward—ripping through the Tribunal's spell-architecture, shattering eons of law in seconds.
Above, entire god-realms began to flicker. The stars bent inward. The Cycle—the endless rise and fall of Sovereigns—began to unravel.
[SOVEREIGN LINE: FREED FROM BINDING LOOP]
[TRIBUNAL CONTROL – 41% AND DROPPING]
One Judge lunged, screeching, wielding a scythe forged from collapsed prophecy. Vakara'thesh intercepted—her wings igniting, her voice like thunder.
"Try that again. I dare you."
They clashed midair, sundering what remained of the Tribunal cathedral. Kael kept walking, slow and unstoppable.
Chains spiraled from his arms—no longer bound to restriction, but to will. Each link a contract he rewrote. Not of submission. But rebellion.
And the rebels answered.
From the void came figures—others once erased. Sovereigns who had tried to resist the Cycle. Now reborn, echoes flickering to life.
[UNSUNG LINEAGE: REAWAKENING]
[REBEL SOVEREIGNS: RISING]
A war began.
Not for power.
But for freedom.
Kael turned to the Tribunal's last surviving leader—the Mirror Judge, now grown monstrous, fractured with stolen echoes.
"Last chance," Kael said. "Stand down."
The Judge split into seven forms, each one shaped like a twisted Kael.
"You are the wound in time," they said in one voice. "We were made to erase you."
Kael's smile was cold fire.
"Then let's see who breaks first."