The world had forgotten the true sound of war.
Not the clash of swords. Not the screams of men.
No — the shattering of realities themselves.
That was what Kael prepared for.
Above Dominion Citadel, the skies twisted into endless spirals — black suns, red moons, rivers of fire threading through the heavens.
The world convulsed, sensing the tearing of the veil.
Sensing that something ancient, something colossal, was awakening.
And Kael stood at its center — untouched, unbowed.
The Spear of Eternity hummed faintly in his grip, whispering promises of dominion over all existence.
At his back, the Legions of the New Order assembled — not merely soldiers, but avatars of Kael's will:
The Black Cohorts, draped in veils that shimmered with dying stars.
The Ashen Host, skeletal knights crowned in molten iron.
The Voidwalkers, magi whose spells tore sanity from the weak.
And above them all — Kael's Chosen, returned from the Beyond, their bodies and souls hardened by the trials they had survived.
The heavens cracked.
Out of the rent sky descended the Assembly's Vanguard — a thousand thousand war-forms, beings who once ruled entire planes:
Colossi woven of crystalized thought.
Leviathans trailing oceans of oblivion in their wake.
Paladins of pure law, their armor forged in the furnaces of dead stars.
They formed a massive phalanx, floating in the broken sky, their banners stitched with the sigils of dominions forgotten by mortals.
And leading them — a being of indescribable presence:
Vael'Zyr the Unbroken, First Blade of the Assembly.
He was a creature of impossible angles, his body gleaming with the light of collapsed galaxies.
His voice rang out across all planes:
"Kael of Dominion.
You have been judged.
Cease your heresy. Kneel, and your world may yet be spared."
For a moment — the entire universe seemed to hold its breath.
Even the most loyal among Kael's forces wavered — the sheer weight of the Assembly's authority pressing against their souls.
And yet — Kael only smiled.
Not mockingly. Not arrogantly.
But like a man who had already foreseen this moment — and conquered it a thousand times in his mind.
He stepped forward, Spear glinting with a terrible hunger.
His voice was calm. Clear. Absolute.
"Your gods are dead.
Your laws are broken.
Your Assembly is a relic of a dying age."
Kael's gaze pierced Vael'Zyr as easily as his spear would later pierce flesh.
"You seek to judge me?
I am judgment."
And with a single gesture, Kael unleashed the first blow.
From Kael's raised hand surged a tide of black fire — not mere flame, but the raw negation of existence.
It roared upward, devouring light, devouring sound, devouring being itself.
The front lines of the Vanguard shuddered.
Crystalline titans cracked and fell screaming into the void.
Leviathans howled as their endless bodies withered and collapsed into nothingness.
The Black Cohorts charged, cloaked in war-songs that split the mind.
The Ashen Host thundered forward, their iron steeds breathing black lightning.
And Kael led them personally — a living spearpoint thrust into the heart of the enemy.
In the center of the maelstrom, Kael and Vael'Zyr met.
Their collision was not a clash of blades — but of concepts.
Reality fractured around them:
Time looped and shattered.
Space screamed as it folded.
Causality frayed like old rope.
Vael'Zyr struck first — a sweeping arc of force that could shear a mountain in half.
Kael parried with the Spear of Eternity, the impact sending shockwaves that leveled mountains hundreds of miles away.
They traded blows that echoed across worlds, each strike rewriting the battlefield in their image.
Vael'Zyr summoned blades of judgment — each forged from the guilt of a fallen civilization.
Kael answered with spears drawn from the inevitability of victory itself.
Their duel was a symphony of devastation — and Kael, inexorably, pressed the advantage.
"You fight for dead kings," Kael said, deflecting another blow.
"I fight for the future."
Vael'Zyr roared, his form expanding, becoming a cathedral of blades and fury.
"You fight for nothing but yourself!"
Kael's smile was cold.
"Exactly."
And with a single perfect thrust — Kael drove the Spear of Eternity into Vael'Zyr's heart.
The moment Vael'Zyr fell, the Vanguard faltered.
The will that had bound them cracked, and the forces of the Dominion surged.
Selene led a brutal charge, cutting down paladins with her cursed blade.
Elyndra danced through the ranks, her silver armor slick with alien blood.
Arden whispered into the minds of the Leviathans — and they turned on their masters, their endless hunger unleashed.
Cassian rained down spells of ruin, painting the skies with the deaths of a thousand war-forms.
Victory was no longer a question.
It was an inevitability.
One by one, the Assembly's champions fell — screaming, begging, cursing — until the last of them were driven into the waiting jaws of the Maw.
The sky cleared.
The stars blinked in confusion — as if uncertain how to shine over a world no longer bound by their ancient laws.
Kael stood atop the ruins of the battlefield, Vael'Zyr's broken blade at his feet.
All who saw him knew — this was no mortal.
This was a force of nature given flesh.
The consequences rippled instantly across creation:
* In the Elder Courts, where the surviving gods had hidden, alarms tolled for the first time in eons.
* In the Crypts of the World-Roots, ancient kings stirred uneasily in their slumber.
* In the Vaults of the Veiled Ones, forbidden oracles wept blood, their prophecies burned away by Kael's impossible victory.
* Even in the Citadel of Silence — where beings beyond good and evil observed all things — the Watchers turned their gaze, truly concerned for the first time.
Kael had done more than defeat an army.
He had committed the ultimate heresy.
He had proven that the Assembly was not invincible.
That the old orders could be broken.
That new dominions could rise.
And now — every power in existence would have to decide:
Oppose Kael...
Serve Kael...
Or be destroyed.
Kael returned to Dominion Citadel, a trail of silent devastation behind him.
His Legions, bloodied but victorious, knelt before him in the throne chamber — the great hall where once mortal kings had ruled.
Kael ascended the black marble steps.
He turned — not to the mortals — but to the unseen gods who watched from afar.
And he spoke.
"You sent your Vanguard to break me."
His voice was quiet — yet it carried across realms.
"You failed."
He lifted the Spear of Eternity high, its blade dripping the essence of fallen titans.
"You hid behind laws. Behind myths. Behind fear."
A pause.
A smile.
"Now hide behind walls of stone. Hide behind the fabric of reality itself."
The hall trembled.
The world trembled.
"I will find you."
Kael's voice became prophecy, a curse, a promise.
"I will tear down your palaces of light and fire.
I will burn your laws into ash.
I will forge a new throne upon the bones of the multiverse."
And as Kael sat upon his black throne, the Dominion's banners unfurled — not made of silk, but woven from the very concepts of victory and inevitability.
The drums of war began again — deeper, louder, infinite.
The Second March was about to begin.
To be continued...