Chapter 52: The One Who May Split The World
The blade swung downward.
It was neither fast nor slow. It simply was, carving through the void like a sovereign rewriting law. No wind, no friction, no resistance--just clean, unrepentant severance. The black aether dancing along its jagged edge cried out, burning brighter as it tore through the demon’s upper torso.
"GRHHHHK!" it screamed, the sound bending in on itself, fragmented like a dying chorus choking on its final note. Rowan yearned for its pain--relished in it, even. And he was going to exert all his being into finishing it off.
The cut didn’t stop.
It extended--not just through the demon--but through the fabric of the mindscape itself, splitting the infinite black from its unseen crown to the belly of nothingness far below. Time staggered at its edges. Space folded in protest. Cracks, like shattered porcelain, spiraled out from Rowan, their points blooming outward in jagged veins.
Beyond them... light.
Not warmth. Not peace. Not hope.
Just light--pure and blinding.
A pulse surged from the line, and with it, the air in every direction flattened, quieted, died.
Far above, in the real world, Pope Tharos stood suspended in place. His staff quaked in his grasp, holy energy orbiting the tip like it’d burst if not restrained by his own will. The light radiating from it was almost white enough to break through thought--bright enough to sear the soul. And it very well would have, had Rowan been a second too late.
Tharos stood atop the fractured earth, robes alight with gold shimmer. Beneath him, the demon writhed in its divine cage.