CHAPTER 1542: STORY 1542: ASH DIVIDES

The battlefield was no longer a camp of survivors. It had become a fracture, two armies born from the same despair.

On one side stood Kael, jagged blade raised, shoulders hunched as if holding the weight of the world. A handful clung to him, their faces gaunt but their eyes burning with the same defiance that kept him upright. On the other stood the scarred woman, her spear gleaming red with ember-light, her followers crouched like wolves ready to spring.

Between them, the spawn shambled forward, their forms lurching, drooling embers onto the ground. They came not in haste, but in hunger—confident that the survivors would tear themselves apart before their claws were needed.

“Stand aside!” the scarred woman roared, her voice raw, stripped of all pretense. “Every moment that thing breathes, another chain weakens. We kill it, or we all die!”

Kael’s reply thundered back, his blade sweeping wide as though to carve a barrier in the ash. “And if you do, we hand him freedom with our own hands. Do you think he laughs for nothing?”

Their words crashed like steel, louder than the clash of blades beginning to ring around them. Desperation boiled over, and the factions broke.

Steel struck steel. Survivor against survivor. Men and women who had once fought side by side against spawn now turned blades on one another, their fear stoked into madness. Screams rose into the ash-laden sky as human blood fell into the dust once more.

And above, the Gate shuddered, its chains glowing brighter with each life spilled.

The spawn howled at the taste of it. They surged faster now, embers scattering with every lurching step. The first wave crashed into the scarred woman’s line, clawing through shields, tearing into flesh. Her warriors screamed, but she did not falter. She drove her spear through one creature’s chest, molten ichor spraying across her arm, burning her skin raw. Her pain only sharpened her fury.

Kael fought like a cornered beast, his blade shearing through half-formed limbs, his body slick with blood—half his, half theirs. His followers closed around him, but they were too few, too battered. For every spawn they felled, another pressed through, ember eyes locked always on the child behind Elara’s trembling fire-wall.

Elara’s flames cracked again. She sobbed, clutching the boy, his glow flashing wildly in time with the Gate’s hungry pulse. “Kael!” she screamed, her voice breaking. “I can’t hold them much longer!”

Kael cut down another spawn and staggered back, chest heaving. His eyes darted to the scarred woman, who was locked in combat with one of the twisted half-formed. She fought with ferocity, but he saw it—she was slowing. Her followers, though many, were being dragged down one by one.

And the chains... the chains sang louder, each clash of steel, each drop of blood pulling another note into their terrible chorus.

Kael felt the truth sear into him like fire: it was not only the spawn that fed the Gate. It was them. Their division. Their rage. Their war.

If they did not unite, the next shatter would not wait.