The air was wrong.Kael could feel it before he even opened his eyes.It was heavy, thick with something he couldn’t name. It pressed against his skin, sinking into his lungs like a ghost of a long-forgotten memory. The temperature was wrong, too—too cold, too empty, like the world itself had been drained of its warmth.And beneath him, the ground wasn’t just solid. It was ancient.He could feel it through his fingertips—stone, cracked and splintered, like it had been broken and left to decay for centuries. Dust clung to his skin. The scent of something old—older than time itself—curled in the air.Kael’s fingers twitched. His limbs felt heavy, like they had been filled with lead. His body ached in ways that had nothing to do with wounds. He wasn’t just exhausted. He felt… rewritten.And then—His eyes opened.His breath caught.The world around him was ruined.A Graveyard of Forgotten TimeKael stood at the edge of a crumbling tower, looking down at a world that should not exist.The

The moment Kael’s fist connected, the world broke.Not in the way he expected.There was no blood. No scream. No collapse.The Tribunal enforcer didn’t fall.He vanished.One second, he was there—a living, breathing soldier of the most feared force in the galaxy.The next?Gone.No body. No remains. No broken armor.The air where he had stood was undisturbed, as if he had never existed at all.It wasn’t death.It was something worse.The Battlefield Freezes.For one terrible moment, the entire battlefield held still.Even the wind that had been howling through the ruins seemed to hesitate, like it, too, was afraid.The other enforcers staggered back.Their weapons, once raised with unwavering discipline, lowered slightly.Their helmets flickered with data streams, as if trying—and failing—to process the impossible.Kael just stood there.Staring at the empty space where his enemy had once been.His breath came sharp and shallow.His hands trembled, his fingers still tingling with the

The air vibrated—not with sound, but with a presence so vast it seemed to press down on the battlefield itself. Every soldier, every war machine, every broken body left in the dirt—they all seemed insignificant compared to what had just arrived.Above them, the sky ripped open.It wasn’t a ship.It wasn’t a machine.It was alive.A thing of shifting void and pulsing light, its form stretched and twisted, as if struggling to stay anchored in reality. It had no face, no solid shape—only a mass of tendrils, burning constellations trapped within its depths, and a presence that threatened to unmake everything around it.Pamela stumbled backward, her breath caught in her throat. “What the hell is that?”Marcus stood frozen beside her, his grip tightening on his weapon—a useless instinct, because they had no weapons for this.His voice came out hoarse. “That’s not something we can kill.”The Battlefield Erupts into ChaosThe Tribunal’s forces, so sure of their control, were now scattering li

The world was wrong.Kael could feel it beneath his feet—a pulse, slow and deep, like the heartbeat of something massive. The battlefield was no longer a battlefield. It had changed. Shifted.And Pamela and Marcus—they were breaking.Their bodies twisted, veins blackening with the corruption that had spilled from the monstrous entity above. They weren’t dying. They were becoming.Pamela clutched her chest, her breathing uneven, her eyes flickering between human and something inhuman. Marcus trembled, his muscles locking, his bones shifting as if his very form was being rewritten against his will.Kael clenched his fists, his heart hammering against his ribs.This was his fault.He had led them here. He had dragged them into this nightmare.And now they were paying for it.Pamela and Marcus Are DeterioratingPamela let out a sharp gasp, her spine arching violently. Her fingers clawed at her skin, as if she could physically tear the infection out of herself.“Kael…”Her voice was wrong.

The room felt too still.Too silent.It wasn’t just the kind of quiet that came from a lack of sound—but something deeper. Like the room itself had been holding its breath for centuries, waiting for this moment. For him.Kael stood there, unmoving. Frozen in place—not out of fear, but out of something far worse.Recognition.The man in front of him was tall, dressed in simple black, but his presence filled the chamber like smoke. Cold, toxic, inescapable. His face wasn’t familiar in the traditional sense—Kael had no memory of meeting this man before. But his bones did. His blood did. Something ancient inside him flinched at the sight of him.The man didn’t speak. He didn’t smile. He just stared at Kael like a sculptor looking at a statue he’d long ago abandoned, as if assessing the damage time had done to his perfect creation.The silence dragged on.Kael’s fists curled tightly at his sides, his knuckles pale. There was still residual energy crackling under his skin—remnants of the ci