The Cathedral screamed. Its columns creaked, stained glass shattered into light, and sacred tapestries burned in silver flames, writhing like desperate serpents.
On the ceiling, the suspended Heart stained glass — beating for centuries — faltered. Its rhythm failed. As if the very god inhabiting that place finally doubted himself.
Above the main altar, Kaelis hovered.
His outstretched wings filled the air with authority: one made of white feathers and golden light; the other, an amalgam of darkness, claws, and twisted metal.
The air around him shattered — not by physical force, but by absolute will.
The priest fell to his knees upon seeing him.
Tried to run.
Tried to flee.
Tried to pray.
But it was already too late.
Kaelis raised his left hand.
A dark, tortured flame was born in his palm — alive, pulsating, as if carrying a thousand trapped screams. The flame was cast and struck the priest head-on.
Screams.
Convulsions.
Pleadings to the Heart God.
Nothing saved him.
The flame devoured his flesh, but what it burned was the soul — fragment by fragment, until only horror remained.
After minutes of agony, the priest finally fell dead.
Kaelis watched it all in silence. He felt the priest's last thoughts — his fears, regrets, even his pain.
But he felt no remorse.
Kaelis was no longer human.
Pain no longer reached him. Doubt no longer touched him. Mercy... was only a distant memory.
He looked down.
Beneath his feet, under the black floor, lay the countless levels of the Inverted Cathedral.
Profane.
Hidden.
Unforgivable.
And then, with one movement, Kaelis pierced the ground with a beam of golden and shadowy light.
The destruction was instant.
The Inverted Cathedral — a symbol of perverted faith — imploded in a dance of stone and lightning, its ruins falling into the abyss of the Sky Below.
The sound of ruin echoed throughout the floating city like a final thunderclap.
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A few minutes before the ruin of the Inverted Cathedral.
Distorted bells rang across the city.
Trumpets, flowers, hymns. The devout celebrated: they believed the ritual had succeeded.
The vessel had awakened.
Salvation was near.
They were certain the vessel had awakened... and at the same time, terribly wrong.
Because what had awakened was not submission.
It was judgment.
An earthquake split the ground.
And then, the explosion.
The sound of collapsing rocks echoed like a wail from the heavens.
Residents, devout and skeptics alike, understood immediately:
The Inverted Cathedral had been destroyed.
And with it, every illusion of safety.
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Kaelis flew over the city that was once sacred, but now he saw it as profane.
Monumental wings — beautiful and corrupted — moved slowly. The right wing was made of light, like the hope of a world that no longer existed. The left, dark and sharp, seemed thirsty for condemnation.
From above, Kaelis saw the truth. The city was not made of stone. It was made of lies.
Children marked by blessings that were curses. Devotees with blood under their nails. Righteous men who watched injustice in silence. Impatient with all the city's rot...
Kaelis descended. He landed before the White Cathedral, where crowds gathered.
Some prayed.
Others sang.
Some knelt.
Kaelis walked among them. Everything around him unraveled — as if his mere presence revealed the lie of the place.
Some ran.
Others begged.
Some raised weapons.
But nothing helped.
Black flames consumed those who lied to themselves.
Golden, silent flames reduced the righteous to ash — a painless death, a final forgiveness.
Kaelis judged without hesitation. Man, woman, child. It didn't matter.
All had been part of the play... And the play ended there.
In an alley, Kaelis lifted a devout man by the neck.
"You knew?" — he asked.
The man cried. But didn't answer.
And in the blink of an eye, the man was consumed by black flames.
Kaelis calmly flew through the city.
His golden and dark eyes spun with living runes.
He entered the cathedral at the city's center where devotees waited — armed, kneeling, insane.
They fled.
They prayed.
They screamed...
But no prayer would save them.
Kaelis raised his hands before his face.
Two swords emerged: One made of golden energy — pure light. The other, made of black fire — curse incarnate.
The cathedral air twisted.
He spoke:
"You used the name of light to perpetuate darkness."
"You lied to the world and to yourselves."
"And now… You will be judged."
Kaelis crossed the swords.
The wind was cut. Sound ceased.
And then — the explosion.
Golden and black flames engulfed the cathedral. Hidden rooms, cells, secret passages — everything burned. Judgment spread like a plague to the farthest reaches of the city's underground, erasing the existence of all who hid there.
Nothing remained.
The floating city had been purified... completely.
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Above the skies, Kaelis hovered alone.
The blood in his veins — once golden and dark — was slowly turning red again. The runes disappeared. The wings lost their glow. The power was leaving him.
He looked to the other floating cities. There were more people. More sins. But his body could no longer endure. His mind threatened to shatter.
In his final act, Kaelis summoned a sword forged from both the sacred and the profane.
He cast it at the city's center.
The destruction was absolute and the explosion was so strong that all the floating cities shook before it.
As the city fell into the Sky Below, Kaelis's body finally reached its limit.
The runes on his skin and eyes vanished.
The sacred and profane powers disappeared, and his blood, once golden and dark, turned red and human once more.
His wings became white, like those of a common angel. They no longer glowed with divine energy — they were just wounded, tired wings and before he noticed is whole body went numb, and he let himself fall along with the city.
He fell...
And fell.
And fell until he could no longer see the other cities and floating islands.
He was in total darkness, in the empty vastness of the Sky Below.
Kaelis couldn't move. Even concentrating on thoughts or fearing the fall seemed impossible.
"I guess… This is it?"
"This is how I die? Falling into the infinite void?"
Kaelis looked at his hands, felt the blood of all the people he had killed.
That thought haunted him for a while.
He didn't want to kill innocents, didn't want to kill even the devout.
If possible, he wanted to keep living an honorable human life... But from that moment on, he knew that was impossible. He had already killed thousands from the holy city and now fell with them.
Tears fell from his eyes...
And before he could notice, there she was — the deity.
Falling alongside him.
She embraced him. Her body was made of light, her eyes were shadows crying black liquid.
"You… did what I could not. Thank you."
"They chained my body and soul after deceiving me. All I had left was this weak manifestation of part of my soul."
This time, the deity's words didn't give Kaelis a headache or harm his soul.
He felt her warmth, as well as her emotions.
Sadness, pain, and regret...
But above all, compassion.
"Kaelis. You survived all my trials in the Inverted Cathedral and destroyed it completely, releasing my last living soul."
"But letting you die here… would not be fair to all that you and the young Hadriel endured."
Suddenly, Heart God summoned the silver dagger Kaelis had lost somewhere in the levels of the Inverted Cathedral.
She placed the dagger in Kaelis's hands, closed his fingers around it, and pushed it toward his heart.
Kaelis had cut the deity's heart with the dagger.
"Live, suffer, love, and destroy everything you judge as worthy. Accept your divinity and accept me as your deity… And prepare for the merciless and unjust world you will live in."
When she finished saying that, Heart God vanished like dust in the wind.
Kaelis was alone once more. And then the spell whispered:
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[You have slain a Cursed Titan, the fragmented soul of the Heart God.]
[Your body has become the vessel for a deity's power.]
[Your soul bears the deity's mark.]
[Awaken, Kaelis! Your nightmare is over.]
[Prepare for evaluation...]