CHAPTER 1541: STORY 1541: THE FIRST SHATTER

The molten fragments still hissed in the ash when the survivors realized what had happened. A chain had fallen. Not by their hands, not by choice, but by the weight of their blood and fear.

The ground pulsed, heat surging through the cracked stone, as if the land itself shared in the Gate’s heartbeat. From the fissures at its base poured smoke so dense it writhed like living things. The ember-wrought soldiers lifted their claws high, their posture shifting from guardians to heralds, as though the breaking had granted them permission to act.

The scarred woman’s voice cut through the rising panic. “One chain gone—nine to follow. Do you see now? He will have them all unless the child is ended!” Her face was alight with both terror and grim resolve, her words lashing the survivors like a whip.

Some answered with shouts of agreement, desperation transforming into resolve. They gathered at her side, spears and blades clutched tight, eyes locked on Elara and the trembling boy. Others stumbled backward, their courage broken, unwilling to choose sides at all.

Kael stood rooted, jagged blade trembling in his grip. The truth of her words bit deep—but deeper still was the certainty that she was wrong. “You slit his throat,” Kael growled, “and nothing holds him back. We don’t slow the storm—we unchain it.”

Elara knelt, clutching the child so tightly her knuckles bled where ember-light seared her skin. Tears streaked her soot-blackened face as she whispered, “He’s fighting it... he’s still fighting it.” The boy whimpered, glow pulsing in broken rhythm, each flicker answered by the Gate’s booming tremor.

Before Kael could move, the smoke at the Gate’s base began to solidify. Forms crawled out of it—figures unlike the ember-wrought. These were less regal, more grotesque. Their bodies sagged as though half-formed, limbs too long, jaws hanging open with embers spilling from within. They shrieked as they stumbled forward, soundless to the ear but piercing the mind.

The survivors broke.

Some charged at the new spawn, hacking desperately, their terror drowning thought. Others fled into the ash plains, abandoning the fight altogether. The scarred woman shouted curses at the deserters, then turned her spear on Kael once more. “Stand aside. I’ll do what you don’t have the courage to.”

Kael blocked her path, steel clashing against spearhead, sparks bursting between them. Their eyes locked, hers wild with desperation, his burning with a defiance that would not yield.

Behind them, the spawn surged closer. Elara screamed as she raised a wall of fire around herself and the child, but it flickered, cracking under the weight of the Gate’s will.

The chains above groaned again, not breaking—but hungering.

Kael forced the scarred woman back a step, voice ragged. “Fight them, not us! Every strike against me is another chain he claims!”

But even as he shouted, he saw it—the survivors fracturing into two armies: one clinging to him, one rallying to her.

And in the ash between them, the Unborn’s children closed in, shrieking with the promise of the next shatter.