CHAPTER 373: “I WILL NOT DENY MYSELF”

Far above the highest reaches of Aetheris, where even Celestials could only whisper and the laws of nature bent like reeds in the wind, sat the Twelve Concepts in eternal convergence.

They were not gods, but they were the closest to one and even older than many. Each represented a pillar that anchored the existence of Aetheris itself, their wills shaping reality as effortlessly as a breath.

They were known by their domains—Judgement, Knowledge, Balance, Origin, War, Peace, Life, Death, Dreams, Time, Dominion, and Order.

In the astral convergence—a boundless realm bathed in crystalline light and shifting stars—twelve thrones remained suspended in a circle of divine geometry. Upon them, the Concepts gazed into the swirling reflection of Aetheris below, watching the delicate strands of fate as they twisted and trembled.

Dominion was the first to speak, his voice like thunder wrapped in silence.

"She grows stronger. Lila, the one we marked."

Judgement, clad in shifting silver flames, replied in a slow, absolute cadence.

"And Kaelen still walks with Pandora’s shadow at his side. The rebirth at the Ruptured Sky draws near."

Peace exhaled, a soft breath that calmed the winds of the void.

"To interfere again... would be to fracture the future we are bound to restore. Aetheris is already too frayed."

War, his eyes like molten blades, grunted.

"We should have seized the girl when she was still raw and unshaped. Now, she’s tethered to the will of two heroes."

Balance tilted his head.

"And if we did, we would unmake more than just her path. The reformation requires acceptance... not domination."

Order, the firstborn of the Concepts, finally stood. The void bent to her presence.

"Then it is decided. We will not interfere again. The girl walks the path of her own forging."

All twelve nodded in solemnity. Dreams fluttered her golden wings and smiled faintly.

"Let the dreamers dream, and let the waking fight for them."

---

A stormless calm lay over the Isle of Halor, where the Tower of the Ruptured Sky stood like a monument to defiance—tall, jagged, and scarred by the very hand of a god who once tried to reshape the world.

There, Morris, Ethan, Guinevere, Eirana with her Voidcloak, all sat in meditative stillness beneath the tower’s arch. Though the wind whispered no secrets, thee various attires rippled like mist around their seated form.

As for Morris Grey, his eyes were closed, but his senses stretched across Aetheris with the help of his unprecedented mana affinity.

He had seen the Vein Crossing, had done something that no mortals dared to do, which is to unseal an Eternal. A gamble most would not survive.

And now, he waited—not for war, nor vengeance, but for Kaelen.

The boy who had become more than a vessel for fate.

"Your rebirth draws near, brother," Morris murmured. "And I’ll make sure no one defiles this sacred ground."

While Morris and the others were there, they discovered from the realm keepers that the Twelve Concepts had branded this land with their sigils—a no-fight zone, a place where the unfolding of the great design must not be interrupted. Any battle that broke out here would incur the wrath of the very laws that built the world.

Even the Eternals dared not violate it, including Endless which made them to slightly have peace of mind.

But not long after, Morris stood, feeling the tremor in the ley lines that encircled the tower along with the others. A new presence stirred... something ancient, something returning.

"It’s almost time."

--------

A considerable amount of time prior to the tremor Morris felt in the Isle of Halor.....

A sudden stillness blanketed the twisted landscape of the Ruptured Sky, so absolute that even the air felt carved in stone. The void has suddenly changed into crimson-streaked void which shuddered gently as the silhouette took shape before Kaelen, hovering like a wound carved into the world. No true form could be discerned—only a dark figure surrounded by an ever-shifting halo of blinking, disembodied eyes. Some blinked with vertical slits like reptiles, others with triple lids or luminous pupils that swirled like galaxies. They hovered around the silhouette’s outline like guardians of a forgotten truth.

’What..... Is that?’

Kaelen thought as he stood rooted, the ground beneath him—a cracked tapestry of floating stones, gravity-defying debris, and mana-stained air—swaying beneath the sheer pressure of the being’s presence. Despite being in the core of one of the most forbidden places on Aetheris, he couldn’t help but feel something ancient stirring in his blood, something reverent.

Then, the silhouette spoke—not with sound, but with a voice that resonated within his bones.

"You have come, bearer of the shattered eternity... and the eye of the Eternal watches you now."

’The eye of an Eternal?’

Kaelen clenched his fists.

"Who are you?"

"I am not a who, but a remnant. A last whisper of the Will that governs this place. You seek restoration... you seek power. But within the Ruptured Sky, nothing is given. Everything is taken."

The eyes surrounding the silhouette blinked in eerie unison, and the figure raised what could be an arm—or a shadow that mimicked one—and pointed toward the far horizon.

Far ahead, through the endless floating debris and jagged rifts of warped space, stood a towering monument of blackened crystal and pulsing crimson energy.It was at this moment that Kaelen could clearly see the Crucible. It rose high into the sky, piercing into a fold of fractured reality like a blade through silk. Hovering above it was a ring of rotating glyphs—twelve in total—each glowing faintly with the Concept it represented.

At its base, an ethereal forge burned without fuel, without sound, without explanation. That was the Crucible—Kaelen could feel it in his soul.

"Reach the Crucible," the voice declared. "But you must do so by resisting the Will of the Realm itself. This place does not welcome motion, it rejects intrusion. Every step forward will be resisted... not by monsters, nor traps, but by the laws of the world. The only force that can bend such a will... is your own."

The moment the words were spoken, a terrible shift occurred.

The Ruptured Sky screamed.

It began with the very air thickening into sludge, crashing down on Kaelen like an invisible avalanche. His foot jerked forward—and stopped. Not because of hesitation... but because the ground wouldn’t let him. As though the world had decided he should remain still. Even his thoughts began to warp. He tried to lift his arm, but it felt like forcing his muscles through a sea of hardened tar.

A blood vessel burst near his temple.

He dropped to one knee.

"Is this... the Will of the Realm?" he hissed through clenched teeth.

The silhouette said nothing now. The trial had begun.

Kaelen dug his fingers into the broken earth and pushed—no, willed himself upward. Inch by inch, every part of his being screamed in rebellion. Not because he was in pain, but because his very existence was being denied. The Ruptured Sky treated him like an anomaly, an aberration that should not be.

Even his mana refused to flow.

Then, instinctively, he remembered the teachings of the Nullcarvers. Qi flows not because it is allowed, but because it is aligned with the self. Drawing deep into his core, Kaelen abandoned mana for a moment and invoked Juggernaut level Qi along with the path of the Iron Will.

A ripple coursed through his body.

The world resisted harder.

His second foot moved forward.

Each step he took toward the Crucible was an eternity.

At the tenth step, his nails had been torn from his fingers from digging into the realm-bending floor. His muscles felt torn, raw, shriveled under the crushing weight of pure reality. The wind tried to peel his skin off. Gravity bent sideways. Illusions of his past—failures, betrayals, the death of comrades—flashed before his eyes to weaken his resolve.

But his will refused to shatter.

"I AM KAELEN DRAGONYX!" he bellowed, and the realm flinched.

The air cracked. The stone beneath his feet screamed. A force pushed against his chest like a mountain trying to reclaim its domain.

Then came the final stretch—he could see the Crucible now, floating just ahead, yet it may as well have been a world away. The eyes in the sky multiplied, watching, judging.

"You are not worthy," whispered the wind.

"You cannot surpass fate," screamed the earth.

"You will break," moaned the sky.

Kaelen’s knees gave out once more.

But his will burned brighter than the stars.

Images of Ethan. Kelvin. Morris. Lila. Guinevere. Eirana. His master. His past... and his future. The battles he still needed to fight. The endless war against Endless. The world he had to protect.

"Even if the world denies me," he growled, "I will not deny myself."

He stood. Step by agonizing step, he moved.

And finally—finally—after what felt like days, with blood leaking from his ears and cracks across his body glowing with overdrawn qi and willpower, Kaelen touched the edge of the Crucible.

A blast of light erupted.

The world quieted.

The silhouette with blinking eyes reappeared behind him, gaze unreadable.

"You did not walk forward," it whispered. "You forced the world to accept that you must."

Then, it bowed.

"The Crucible accepts you."

Kaelen collapsed beside it, breath ragged, skin pale, and heart still thundering. But in his chest... the first flicker of restoration began.

The blade of Eternity trembled within its broken sheath. And in that moment... the sky no longer looked so ruptured.