CHAPTER 137: THE BROKEN SKY

The ground beneath my feet split as I stepped forward.

The God-Realm trembled.

Above, the sky twisted into something unrecognizable. Moons collided. Stars bled. And across the jagged plain stood Caelum—not as the traitorous celestial he once was, but something entirely *other*. His body radiated with jagged fractures of corrupted divinity, tendrils of ancient chaos winding through veins of starlight.

His eyes glowed like collapsed suns.

"You’ve changed," I said, voice calm though the storm within me raged. "But not enough."

He tilted his head, amused. "And you’ve become what you always feared."

I raised my hand, and the blade of the Moon reformed in my grip. It no longer shimmered with just moonlight—but with something darker too. The shadows of my former self. The cost of power.

Caelum’s form crackled as he stepped forward. "Then come, Goddess. Let us see which ruin is stronger."

We moved at the same time.

I lunged into the air, blade singing behind me, while he brought a spear of collapsed galaxies up from the ground. We clashed mid-flight. Sparks exploded in every direction—fragments of dying stars raining down around us. My blade struck his armor—he absorbed the blow like it was nothing, and retaliated with a backhand that sent me hurtling into the ruins of the fallen court.

Stone shattered. My lungs heaved for breath.

But I wasn’t the girl he once stabbed.

I rose.

"Your strength is borrowed," I snarled. "You leech from shadows you didn’t earn."

His feet lifted off the ground. "And you gave up your soul just to feel nothing."

I exploded toward him again.

Strike.

Parry.

Dodge.

Our blades met over and over, each clash ringing with the sound of eternity splitting apart. Magic flared from our palms, colliding in violent bursts that sent shockwaves rippling across the divine landscape. Gods watched from their torn thrones. Spirits fled.

This was no longer about revenge.

This was about ending a cycle of ruin.

He summoned a chain of voidlight and hurled it toward me. I flicked my wrist, catching the shadows around me and weaving them into a shield. The chain wrapped around the shield, but I yanked it, pulling him closer, and drove my knee into his chest.

He coughed, staggered, but turned the motion into a spin, bringing his spear around and slashing across my arm. Blood sprayed.

Real.

Burning.

My knees buckled for a second, but I used the pain.

With a scream, I unleashed the power buried in my bones. The ground beneath me became a pool of molten moonlight. Pillars of flame erupted, each carved with the names of the forgotten deities he had betrayed.

Caelum’s eyes narrowed. "You think justice gives you power?"

"No," I said. "But they do."

From the smoke rose the memories of the fallen gods, those he had consumed, betrayed, slaughtered. Their voices echoed in the wind, and with them came clarity.

I was not alone.

He snarled, raising his arms, and the entire sky came crashing down.

I braced as meteors tore through the veil of the gods’ realm. One smashed into the earth beside me. Another grazed my side. A third hit me square in the back, driving me to the ground. My breath left me in a gasp. My ribs cracked.

He landed beside me and pressed his boot to my neck.

"Look at you," he whispered, hate and regret tangled in his tone. "We could have ruled together."

I grabbed his ankle and poured *everything* into the touch.

His boot glowed for a moment, then shattered.

He screamed as I surged up, wrapping my magic around his throat and hurling him into the broken archway where the gods once judged souls. The stone exploded. He didn’t move.

My body trembled. Not from fear. From strain. I’d never wielded this much at once. My veins burned. My head swam.

He rose, coughing blood, the smile gone from his face.

"I loved you once," he said softly.

"I know," I replied. "And you killed her."

His scream was pure rage. He shed his skin entirely, revealing the beast beneath. No longer Caelum. No longer anything divine. He was chaos incarnate now. Wings of jagged bone. A mouth that opened across his chest. Eyes blinking on every surface.

He came for me like a storm.

And I met him like a rising moon.

Our magics collided in the air, forming a ring of destruction that stretched across the heavens. Trees combusted miles away. Oceans dried and reformed. The old gods fled into their temples.

We fought in silence.

For an hour.

Then two.

Until every swing became survival. Every parry a scream of purpose.

I was bleeding from a hundred cuts.

He was dripping with shadow ichor.

He struck me in the chest with a clawed hand, and for a moment, I saw everything. My old life. My wolf. Lucas. The girl I used to be.

"I can end you here," he whispered. "Just surrender. No more pain."

I smiled.

"Pain is proof I’m real."

And I bit his hand.

He shrieked, staggering back and I summoned everything. The power of the moon. The cost of the shadow. The memory of love. Even if I couldn’t feel it anymore.

A great spiral formed above us. A vortex of starlight and grief and broken promise. At its center, my blade spun and I let it drop.

Straight into his heart.

He screamed, the sound shattering everything around us.

And then silence.

His body disintegrated, first into light, then into ash, then into *nothing*.

The gods’ realm shook. Something ancient cracked open above us.

I collapsed, panting, gripping my blade as if it were the last anchor to reality.

Then a voice spoke.

Low.

Smooth.

Mocking.

"That wasn’t the enemy," it whispered. "That was just the gatekeeper."

A shadow peeled itself from the edge of the world.

And for the first time in centuries, I felt fear.

The stars bled out.

All around me, the wreckage of the gods’ realm smoked and crumbled. Stone spires cracked under invisible weight. The sky a ceiling of torn constellations, groaned above like it might split entirely.