"Rest"

and right at that moment....

The battlefield went eerily silent.

The dark winds that once howled with hatred and ruin now lingered still, their fury trembling beneath the weight of one simple truth — the end had come.

Kaelen stood before the being that had once drowned worlds, his left hand glowing faintly with divine calm. His eyes, no longer blazing with rage or fear, carried a sorrow that even the stars could not measure.

Across from him, Endless—the Abyss, the Devourer, the Fallen Eternal—knelt upon the fractured ground, his monstrous form flickering like a fading shadow.

His chest heaved, and for the first time and unknown reason since the dawn of Aetheris, he looked tired. Truly tired.

"So… this is what it comes to," he rasped, his voice still vast, but trembling. "A god… slain by a child."

Kaelen didn't respond. His hand hovered inches from Endless's forehead, the gentle hum of eternity radiating around him like a hymn. The light was warm—merciful even.

But before that touch came… something stirred deep within Endless's mind.

A spark.

A memory.

A time before the fall.

---

He saw himself again.

Not the titan of shadows he had become, but a boy of light, laughter spilling from his lips as he ran across endless meadows of gold. The Land of the Celestials — pure and unmarred, where thought and creation danced together.

Beside him ran another—a boy with hair of white and eyes of calm dawn. His brother.

The Eternal of Balance.

They chased glowing motes of mana, weaving shapes in the air with their hands, creating miniature worlds that pulsed with life and color. The elder boy—Balance—laughed softly and said,

"Endless, you can't make life without form. It'll just vanish."

And little Endless giggled, his eyes filled with wonder.

"Then I'll just keep making it until it stops vanishing!"

Their laughter echoed through eternity.

---

Then came the day of their ascension.

They along with ten others, stood before the Twelve Concepts, whose towering visages shone brighter than suns — Time, Judgement, Knowledge, Balance, Origin, War, Peace, Life, Death, Dreams, Dominion, and Order. Twelve beings who were the structure of all that existed.

The Concept of Origin spoke first, her voice both infinite and tender.

"Children of the Eternal Veins… you shall shape Aetheris. You all will maintain harmony, and will guide the flow of energy unending. Together, your existence will bind this world's fate."

And so, it began.

For millennia, they created and refined after they were sent down from the land of the Celestials. Endless, with his love for motion, for evolution, for chaos that led to beauty. Balance, with his calm, his restraint, his peace.

Together with the rest, they sculpted the rivers of time and the hearts of men, threading magic and life through the veins of Aetheris.

But over time… Endless saw it.

The flaw.

He watched civilizations rise and crumble, watched beings born only to die in despair. He saw how fate favored some while others were crushed beneath the weight of divine indifference.

"Why must they suffer?" Endless asked once, standing upon the edge of the stars.

"Because that is balance," his brother had said quietly.

"Balance?" Endless turned to him, eyes burning. "Or cruelty, dressed in symmetry?"

Balance looked away. "It's not ours to change."

Those words became chains.

And so Endless rebelled.

He reached into the heart of the system, tore apart the threads that bound mortals to suffering, and tried to remake them. To give them freedom from fate, from death, from the tyranny of the Concepts.

But it went wrong.

It always goes wrong.

The Twelve saw his defiance as corruption. His creations—life without end—became abominations. The energy he tried to liberate devoured the worlds instead of saving them.

The Concepts decreed punishment.

Banished.

Cursed.

And worst of all—abandoned by Balance.

He still remembered his brother's face that day. Calm. Distant.

"I'm sorry," Balance had said.

"You're sorry?" Endless had screamed. "You're sorry while they lock me away?!"

The Void opened beneath him, swallowing his light, his laughter, his dreams.

And from within that endless darkness, he changed.

His radiance twisted. His hope shattered. His love became hatred.

But beneath all of it—deep, deep down—was still that boy who only wanted to make the world better.

---

Back in the present, the memory flickered like dying embers as Endless raised his gaze to Kaelen, who still stood motionless before him. The divine glow from Kaelen's palm now bathed his darkened face in soft gold.

Endless chuckled weakly.

"Heh… I remember now."

His voice cracked, almost wistful.

"I only wanted to make things right. I wanted to free them from pain. And look where it led me…"

Kaelen's eyes softened slightly. For an instant, he saw not a monster—but a lonely, broken creator.

"Was it worth it?" Kaelen asked quietly.

Endless smiled. For the first time, it wasn't cruel. It wasn't twisted. It was sad… and proud.

"Every second of it."

His laughter echoed faintly through the still air. "They'll never understand. The Twelve. My brother. Even you, child of eternity. You'll fight their wars until you see what I saw. The flaw."

Kaelen's hand trembled slightly, the light on his palm flickering.

"Then… rest now. Maybe one day, someone will understand."

Endless closed his eyes.

"Rest, huh?" He chuckled softly, the sound fading like a dying star. "If there's truly an end… then maybe, just maybe—this is peace."

Kaelen's fingertips brushed Endless's forehead.

The world went still.

Darkness peeled away like ash in wind, and with it went Endless's form, fading into nothingness—no scream, no resistance. Just quiet acceptance.

And as his existence unraveled, a faint whisper rippled through the void—

"Brother… I never hated you."

Then he was gone.

The skies of Aetheris shimmered faintly, mourning the loss of one who had once dreamed too greatly. Kaelen lowered his hand slowly, his expression unreadable, the glow of eternity fading from his palm.

Behind him, Lila and the others watched in silence, the weight of what they'd witnessed pressing on their souls.

And though the air was calm, the silence that followed wasn't victory.

It was mourning.

Because for the first time, even the Avatar of Eternity understood that not every monster was born evil—some were just dreamers who fell too far.

---

The silence that followed Endless' erasure was almost divine.

It felt like the entire world exhaled for the first time in ages — the wind slowed, the skies dimmed, and the pulsating rifts of darkness that had swallowed the horizon finally stilled.

Kaelen's hand lowered from where it had rested upon Endless' forehead. The being of ruin was gone — dissolved into motes of fading black and silver, scattered like dying stars in the void-ridden air. Yet the aftermath that followed… was nothing short of catastrophic.

A deep, guttural rumble tore through the battlefield. The ground beneath them began to quake, and a pulse — thick, raw, and unnatural — tore through the field of reality.

Guinevere felt it first. "What—what is that energy…?"

Lila's face paled as her eyes darted toward Kelvin. "Wait—Kelvin!"

Kelvin's body had begun to convulse violently, his aura flickering between the shades of purple voidlight and molten crimson chaos. His screams cut through the thick silence — wild, unending, piercing. It was as if his very soul was being ripped apart.

"The Chaos and Void energies…" Rodriguez muttered in disbelief, eyes wide with dread. "They're—merging into him!"

Kaelen's heart froze.

He could feel it too — the remnants of Endless' existence, the essence of Chaos itself, rejecting death and seeking refuge in the only vessel connected to it… Kelvin, who still bore a fragment of Eternity's power within.

"No!" Kaelen yelled as he dashed forward, his aura bursting out like a storm. "It's too much for him—he'll be destroyed!"

But before Kaelen could even reach him, the chaos around Kelvin erupted in a violent surge that flung everyone backward. Charlotte barely managed to raise her Divine Shield in time, the impact cracking its radiant surface. Eirana braced herself with her Juggernaut's gauntlets, her boots carving deep furrows in the shattered ground.

Kelvin fell to his knees, clutching his head, his veins glowing with an eerie, pulsating crimson-black light. His voice broke through the screams — raw, terrified, and yet defiant.

"Kaelen—! I can't—control it—!"

Kaelen's vision blurred from the rushing surge of chaotic essence spilling outward. He could feel the distortion — the reality around Kelvin bending, unraveling. Chaos and Void — two primal forces that even the Eternals once feared — were colliding inside a mortal vessel.

But instead of fleeing, Kaelen ran into the storm.

"Kaelen, don't!" Lila cried out, but it was too late. The Avatar of Eternity was already within reach of Kelvin's trembling form.

He gritted his teeth, reaching through the torrent of dark energy until his hand clasped Kelvin's shoulder.

"Kelvin! Listen to me—focus on my voice! You can fight this!"

Kelvin's eyes shot open, glowing with split hues of red and black, his voice cracking through clenched teeth.

"I—can't—Kaelen—it's—consuming me—!"

Then came the voice — not from Kelvin, but through him. Deep, ancient, twisted, echoing from the remnants of Endless himself.

"Chaos cannot die… it must live… through him…"

Kaelen's breath hitched. The essence that once belonged to Endless wasn't seeking destruction — it was seeking continuation.

And as the chaos flared to its peak, the storm suddenly imploded.

A single explosion of silence followed — pure, deafening silence.

When the smoke cleared, Kelvin was on one knee, his head bowed, his hair waving in the sudden calm. The air around him rippled with unrestrained power, thick enough to choke the skies themselves.

Lila's lips trembled. "Kelvin…?"

He slowly raised his head — and when his eyes opened, they no longer shimmered with the warmth of the boy they once knew. One eye gleamed with the abyss of Void, the other burned with the flame of Chaos.

Kaelen felt it immediately. The essence, the dominion, the command.

Kelvin had not died. He had become.

"The Heir of Chaos…" Eternity whispered faintly in Kaelen's mind. "…the successor to what once defied order itself."

Kelvin's gaze drifted toward Kaelen, heavy but steady. The storm had calmed, but its presence never left him.

"I didn't want this…" he said softly, his tone hollow yet resolute. "But maybe… maybe it chose me because it knows what I'll do with it."

Kaelen's chest tightened, torn between pride and sorrow. "Kelvin…"

Kelvin stood, the ground cracking beneath his feet, the faint pulse of chaos flickering around him like a heartbeat.

"I'll bear it," he said. "For the world that Endless tried to destroy… and for the brother he once lost."