Chapter 16
Smoke curled from his skin.
Kiro stood at the edge of the ancient shrine, his hands still trembling from the Core resonance. The Warden's Chain coiled faintly around his arm, half-real, half-symbol—a spiritual weapon born of memory and judgment.
It pulsed with weight. With a burden.
But he welcomed it.
He wasn't the same man who had stumbled into a cave with bloodied hands and a broken name.
Not anymore.
The echo of the shrine still lingered behind him. The fragmented throne whispered faintly to his Core, feeding his evolving presence with truths that had no voice. Not all gods had died with dignity. Some had watched their realms swallowed by the Void and chose silence over resistance.
Kiro would not make the same mistake.
He looked up, past the jagged treeline, toward the stars—where the faint shimmer of Gaeth-9's planetary atmosphere rippled far above. His eyes narrowed.
That world... was still ruled by the Masters.
Still infested by the Kargal Empire's poison.