Now Kent stood beneath a vast, thundering sky.
The Storm God.
His voice bood—not in anger, but in disappointnt.
"I gave you everything."
The divine specter’s golden eyes bore into Kent’s soul.
"From the day you touched the lightning seed, I watched over you. I guided your wrath. I tempered your body. I offered you every scroll, spell, and inheritance my lineage held. And what did you do in return?"
The world shook as bolts of lightning forked through the sky like cracks in reality.
"You abandoned my realm. You broke the oaths to my temple. You ascended on your own path—slaying the gods of this realm. You trampled everything I forged over eras of blood and fire."
Kent’s breath trembled as sweat ford on his brow. His eyes could not et the Storm God’s face.
"You dared to embrace godhood, but you forsook your ho. My people suffer... My temples lie shattered... Because you, their champion, vanished."
"I chose you, Kent Hall. Do you carry no burden for those you left behind?"
A storm of voices rose behind the Storm God—thousands of prayers, curses, cries for help from the Lower Realms. The haunting chorus dug into Kent’s soul like rusted nails.
Each plea from the realm he once vowed to protect echoed louder than the last.
"You were supposed to beco the shield of thunder. But you beca... a shadow of selfish ambition."
Kent gritted his teeth, his head bowed under divine pressure.
Before he could recover, the lightning clouds parted into silky violet mist.
From within the mist stepped a woman in flowing crimson and gold silks, her body soft, her beauty bordering on myth. Her eyes—those mysterious violet orbs—were soaked in longing.
The Lust Goddess.
"Have you forgotten , Kent?"
Her voice was not loud. It didn’t roar like the Storm God or scream like Thea. Instead, it coiled gently around Kent’s heart, like a mory reborn.
"You once promised eternity."
She took a step forward. Her bare feet left petals of fla in the air.
"In the Lower Realms, when no god dared show you the way, it was I who ca. When the heavens rejected you, I opened the secrets of desire and soul to you."
Tears shimred in her divine eyes.
"I waited... centuries, through realm after realm, for you to co back. But instead, you found others. You called them goddess. You called them divine."
She bit her lip, and her voice grew softer.
"But when I needed you... where were you?"
Kent could not bear it anymore. His heart felt like a battlefield. Each regret struck like a blade. Each voice reminded him of those he hurt—not by cruelty, but by neglect.
Yet he had no excuses. No explanations. No righteousness to stand behind.
Only the silence of guilt.
-
From beyond the realm of illusion, Sky Naga watched Kent’s crumbling figure from her eternal throne.
Her golden eyes dimd slightly, filled not with scorn, but pity.
"Such a mortal... burdened with so many heart demons. A life soaked in conflict, promises, betrayal... affection tangled with ambition. Even the divine fla cannot cleanse guilt forged from love."
She closed her eyes briefly.
"He won’t survive this. This trial... will destroy him."
-
Inside the divine illusion, Kent stood alone now. The sky above shattered into a mirror of mories—his sins laid bare. Thea’s blood. The Storm God’s disappointnt. The Lust Goddess’s silent tears.
He was not struck down by a weapon. Not impaled by claws. Not burned by divine fire.
He was dying... within.
As the winds of the trial swirled in maddening circles, Kent finally dropped to one knee, gasping—not from physical pain, but from the weight of hearts he had broken.
And then—
Through the swirl of broken emotions, a final figure appeared.
She didn’t say a word.
But when Kent raised his eyes...
The darkness around him trembled—not from wind or magic—but from the approach of shadows cloaked in mories.
From the swirling black mist, a group erged. Figures he once knew... mbers of the King Family.
Their robes were tattered, their faces pale, eyes filled with betrayal and despair.
"You said... you were one of us," a middle-aged man said, his voice hoarse, hollow. "We thought the King Family had finally found its star... but you..."
Another elder, her face covered in tears and ash, stepped forward, pointing a trembling finger. "You provoked Emperor Kai. You challenged the imperial bloodline! And now look at us! Look at what your arrogance brought!"
The air grew heavy, pressing like a mountain on Kent’s chest.
"We’re tortured day and night," another man spat. "Our young are slaves. Our daughters are humiliated. While you, Kent Hall, sit far away in your throne of silence, bathing in divine light!"
Kent’s throat tightened. He wanted to speak—but his lips wouldn’t move.
And then, the mist parted... revealing a towering figure dressed in worn ceremonial robes—the Old Patriarch of the King Family.
His once-mighty aura had been reduced to ashes, but his spine remained unbent. He walked with a cane carved from the old ancestral sword-sheath.
He stopped before Kent, eyes calm yet colder than death.
"Return it," he said softly. "The sword of our ancestors."
Kent’s hands instinctively reached for the hilt on his back. The weapon buzzed in recognition of the old man’s voice.
"You are unworthy," the Patriarch said. "This sword was never ant for soone who forgets his roots and abandons his blood."
The other family mbers nodded in silence.
Kent’s head lowered.
And at that mont—
The sword vanished from his back.
Like a part of his soul had been ripped away.
The world cracked again.
From its broken pieces erged ghosts of regret, crawling, whispering, gnashing their teeth. Kent’s heart pulsed wildly, the veins around it turning black as ink. It was no longer beating—it was rotting.
He fell backward.
And the ground did not catch him.
He plumted into a bottomless abyss, the color draining from his body as he dropped into the choking shadows of his failures.
The wind howled like cries of the damned. Illusions clung to his skin like chains. The warmth of life retreated as he passed through centuries of pain in monts.
"Why are you still alive?" the abyss whispered.
"You left them all... and you still breathe?"
His arms turned cold. His legs numb. His chest hollow.
And still—he fell.
Then...
He landed.
Not on earth.
But on ashen ruins.
It was Red Sword City.
No longer the bright, bustling land he once called ho—but now a graveyard. Flas licked the sky like tongues of hatred. Crumbled towers, shattered gates. Smoke rose in black coils.
Screams pierced the wind. Blood painted the stone roads.
Kent staggered forward.
The bodies of guards and mages were strewn across the city square. Every corner was soaked in red.
And in the center of it all... lay Alia.
Her once-spirited eyes were dim. Her crimson dress torn. Her lips quivered as she reached toward Kent with her final breath.
"You said... you’d protect us..."
His heart felt like stabbed as he realised Kai family found his won and slaughtered them.
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