Sothing cracked.
Not space.
Not a star.
Not even a bone.
It was deeper. Sowhere inside Joshua — sothing broke open.
He didn't scream.
He exhaled.
A shuddering breath that didn't belong to a man anymore.
Kaelor—no, the Root God—stopped mid-step. His white eyes narrowed, the vines around his shoulders twitching like they sensed it too. Mael's broken scales hovered in stillness, frozen in balance, but even he tilted his head, curious.
Joshua didn't glow this ti.
He burned.
Golden light pulsed once—then inverted. Darkness bled into the cracks of reality around him, followed by crimson arcs of lightning. His skin didn't just shine—it peeled, like a shell being torn away.
And beneath it—
Sothing older.
Older than law. Older than balance. Older than roots.
Horns.
Not large. Not towering. But ancient. Black, twisted, and beautiful. They curled up from his skull like forgotten crowns, each one etched with runes that pulsed of their own accord.
His remaining sleeve shredded. The tattoo running up his arm started moving. It slithered like it was alive—then lifted off his skin entirely. The ink turned into chains made of shadows, swirling around him, binding nothing but dancing like fire.
His eyes opened.
Not blue.
Not gold.
Black. With thin, vertical slits of red in the center.
Demonic.
He flexed his hand once.
The void blinked.
Behind him, wings unfolded. Not two.
Four.
The first pair — black as night, feathered, vast and rippling like a storm. The second — skeletal, like a dragon's, glowing with cursed sigils and demonic flas. They moved together — graceful, nacing, wrong in all the right ways.
Mael's expression shifted. Not fear. But concern. That ant sothing.
Joshua floated higher.
His voice dropped — not deeper, but truer.
"…You should've killed earlier."
The Root God smiled, tilting his head. "You think that matters now?"
Joshua didn't reply.
He moved.
Faster than thought.
One mont he hovered, the next — he was in front of Kaelor, fist buried in his chest.
No vines. No shields. Just impact.
Kaelor's body snapped backward — spiraling, roots flailing, bark shattering. He crashed through five asteroids, a jungle planet, and an entire dream realm before catching himself midair.
He looked down.
A hole.
Through his chest.
It was already healing — but slower. Much slower.
Joshua appeared above him — silent — and kicked downward.
Boom.
Kaelor smashed into a molten world.
The planet imploded.
Not exploded — imploded.
Joshua didn't wait.
He folded space, arrived behind Kaelor again, and summoned a weapon — no chant, no cast.
Just will.
A spear ford — long, black, wrapped in living runes and flaming threads. The tip pulsed with a heartbeat.
He swung.
Kaelor blocked — barely — with a vine-arm grown mid-motion.
It snapped.
The spear stabbed into his shoulder, spinning, drilling through root and bark until it burst out his back.
Kaelor roared — grabbed the weapon — and ripped it out.
But it didn't vanish.
It burned. Inside him. Like it hated being removed.
"Demon…" Kaelor hissed.
"No," Joshua said, hovering, blood-red shadows crawling across his wings.
"Nephalem."
Kaelor froze.
Even Mael flinched.
That word.
Not demon. Not angel.
Sothing between.
Sothing beyond.
Joshua spread his arms — and the chains from his skin unfurled.
They lashed across space, binding laws, tearing through realities, cracking concepts like glass.
He stepped forward.
The void trembled.
Kaelor surged back, vines whipping through galaxies — each one thick enough to strangle stars. He roared and twisted — summoned an entire planet of trees and launched it.
Joshua sliced through it.
One swing.
The planet shattered.
No flare. No shockwave.
Just a clean, dead silence.
Kaelor grew desperate.
He expanded his body — thousands of roots reaching everywhere, dragging tilines into himself, absorbing more, feeding more.
But Joshua was faster now.
Too fast.
He zipped forward, sliding under a vine the size of a mountain, grabbed it — and bit into it.
His teeth glead. Kaelor scread.
The root died instantly — blackening, crumbling, turning to dust.
"Stop feeding," Joshua muttered. "You're done growing."
He zipped again — this ti he grabbed Kaelor's neck.
Lifted him.
One-handed.
Wings flared behind him — casting a crimson halo across the broken sky.
Kaelor snarled — stabbed a root into Joshua's side.
It didn't go in.
The tip cracked.
Joshua looked down at it — then back at Kaelor.
"…My turn."
He spun — once — and flung Kaelor toward Mael.
"Hey, balance boy," he called.
Mael blinked. "What?"
"Trade hits?"
Mael caught Kaelor mid-flight — in the gut — with a palm glowing with Absolute Balance.
Kaelor exploded.
Not body. Not mind.
His essence.
The Root God was shredded — vines, bark, green light, screams — all flying in every direction.
Mael didn't flinch.
He stepped back, calm as always.
Joshua landed beside him, folding his wings.
They stood, side by side, over the remains.
"I thought you were annoying," Mael said.
"I still am," Joshua replied.
"Fair."
Kaelor's pieces twitched.
Started pulling back together.
"Still not dead?" Joshua frowned.
"I told you. He's a Root God now," Mael murmured. "He doesn't end. He grows."
"Then we end growth."
Joshua raised his hands.
Two spheres ford.
One white. One black. One made of corrupted ti, the other made of demonfire laws.
He compressed them. Hard.
Mael added a fragnt of Absolute Mass.
The spheres whined.
They shook the entire battlefield — past, present, and future.
Kaelor's reford body — now taller, larger, bark plated in stars — stopped.
Stared.
"…Don't," he growled.
Joshua grinned, fangs showing.
Mael just said, "Goodbye."
They launched it.
The Forbidden Collapse.
It hit Kaelor directly.
No scream.
No boom.
Just—
Silence.
Everything folded inward.
Light vanished.
Ti blinked out.
The jungle planets, the vines, the laws, even the floating scales — gone.
The void held its breath.
Then—
Crack.
Kaelor's essence — all of it — was sealed.
In a tree.
Small.
Glowing.
Trapped in mory.
Mael picked it up. Studied it.
Joshua floated beside him, blood dripping from his mouth.
"You keeping that?"
Mael shrugged. "Balance must be maintained."
Joshua snorted. "Creepy."
They turned.
The battlefield was empty now. No planets. No sound. No fury.
Just quiet.
Just them.
And the end of a god.
Joshua's wings slowly folded away, the horns dimming. The red eyes faded.
But sothing inside him stayed awake now.
The demon.
The angel.
The Nephalem.
And sowhere — far off — sothing else stirred.
Because the Root God may have fallen.
But seeds always sprout again.
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