The air didn't just feel heavier—it was.
Kael floated inches above the fractured ground, his eyes glowing that deep violet, his staff humming with a strange frequency that seemed to pull reality inward. The gravitational field he had released wasn't just a power surge—it was a statement.
Ryne stepped back, unsure for the first time.
"That power… it's not yours," he said, tone sharpened by disbelief.
Kael tilted his head, and for a moment, the space around him bent—as if his very presence warped the rules of the world.
"You're right," Kael replied. "It's not just mine. It's older. Deeper. Something I've been touching ever since the day my core awakened. I just never realized… until now."
Sera looked up, eyes wide. "Kael… what are you becoming?"
"The same thing Ryne's pretending to be," Kael answered. "A force."
Flashpoint
Kael's memories flooded in—not of the present, but echoes from something older. A vision spiraled across his thoughts:
A battle on a skyless plane. Titans of energy colliding in silence. A radiant being of starlight bound in golden chains. A voice, mournful and proud, whispering from the center of a collapsing galaxy:
> "You were born from the singularity we feared. But now… you're our last note."
The vision snapped away.
Kael exhaled. "There's more to this power than you or I understand, Ryne."
"I don't need to understand it," Ryne snapped, shadow tendrils writhing. "I need to master it!"
"That's why you'll lose."
Kael vanished in a flash of violet. This time, even Ryne couldn't follow. The staff struck from above, then from the left—then crushed Ryne into the ground with enough force to create a crater.
Ryne roared, shadows bursting out, but Kael's gravity condensed around him like a prison of invisible stars.
"You think you're using the Void Song," Kael said calmly, floating above him. "But all I hear is static."
Ryne howled—and the mark on his chest pulsed.
For an instant, time stopped.
A deep, mechanical choir sang—discordant, haunting, beautiful. The sound tore through Kael's barrier, shattering his control over gravity for a moment.
"You shouldn't have forced this," Ryne muttered. "I didn't want to use it. Not yet."
"What… is that sound?" Sera whispered, hands over her ears.
Ryne stood, his body trembling. "That's the first stanza… of the Void Song. The Choir… sings again."
The Weight of Names
Kael clenched his jaw. The song shook something inside him—not his mind, but his core. As if the note had been written just for him.
"What is the Choir, Ryne?" he demanded.
Ryne met his gaze.
"They're not gods. Not monsters. They're echoes. Remnants of the first civilization—before energy, before mana, before structure. They didn't wield the world… they were the world. And they want it back."
Kael's heart slowed.
And then he understood.
His gravity wasn't just a power.
It was a language.
He wasn't bending the world. He was conversing with it. The Void Song… was a conversation meant to rewrite the laws of reality.
"You didn't join them," Kael whispered. "You're trying to become them."
Ryne grinned.
"And now… so are you."