Chapter 10: Godkiller
> "The enemy is no longer out there.
The enemy is within me.
And it remembers everything I ever destroyed."
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Location: Between Realms – Rael's Mindscape
Rael floated in a void of shifting red and black, suspended inside his own collapsing psyche.
The Bleed had begun.
Each dead god whose power he'd absorbed was now trying to resurrect inside him—clawing at his soul, screaming to reclaim dominion.
> "Who are you without us?"
"You were just a man. We made you a god."
"Let us in, and we'll rewrite the stars again."
Their voices echoed in alien tongues, their faces flickering like corrupted data across Rael's skin.
His eyes glowed brighter. Crimson lightning licked across his fingers.
But cracks began forming on his body—each one leaking multiversal energy.
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Lyra's Choice
Outside, Lyra stared at Rael's floating, burning body—hovering inside the wreckage of the First Gate.
> "He's not coming back," whispered Riven, the AI war-savant who'd survived the Bleed Wars.
"He's merging with what he destroyed. That's how the Pale Emperor was born."
Lyra's grip tightened on her plasma blade.
> "He asked me to end him if he lost control," she said, voice trembling.
"But what if this is him becoming something more?"
Riven tilted his head.
> "Or something far worse."
The decision would haunt her forever.
She stepped into the bleeding void.
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Inside the Mind of a God
Lyra walked through the halls of Rael's subconscious—each corridor a nightmare carved from history.
She saw:
Rael as a boy, abandoned and starving.
Rael killing his first god—not with glory, but with tears.
Rael alone, again and again, even when he wore crowns.
And then, she saw herself.
A thousand versions of her—some where she loved him, others where she killed him.
> "You were always the constant," whispered a memory-Rael.
"But now I don't know if I'm the same me anymore."
Lyra stepped into the center of the storm.
Rael stood there—eyes blind, hands trembling, power flaring dangerously.
> "They're winning," he said.
"I'm forgetting who I was. They want me to be everything they were… and nothing I was."
She placed a hand on his heart.
> "Then remember me."
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The Last Dead God
Suddenly, the storm stilled.
A presence emerged—tall, golden-eyed, armor forged of silence and flame.
The Last Dead God.
The one Rael never killed.
The one who gave him his throne.
> "You carry our sins. Our triumphs. Our rage," it said.
"You carry our curse."
> "I never asked to be a god!" Rael roared.
"I wanted revenge!"
> "And now you have it.
But what comes after revenge, Crimson King?"
The Last God lunged.
Rael didn't flinch.
He let go of all control.
And in doing so… he became more than control.
He became balance.
Rael embraced the god. And in that embrace, burned it to ash.
Not through hate—but through will.
He rejected its corruption.
And rewrote his own myth.
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Final Scene: Return
The storm faded.
Lyra blinked… and Rael stood before her.
Alive. Whole. Changed.
His eyes still glowed—but now with clarity.
The Crimson Throne floated behind him silently, now just an artifact.
> "It's done," he said.
"They're gone. I'm me again."
Lyra smiled through tears.
> "No…
You're more."
But just as she reached for him—
Reality trembled.
A crack split across the stars.
And a voice—one that chilled even Rael's new godblood—whispered:
> "So… you killed the dead gods.
Now let's meet the ones who are still very much alive."
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End of Chapter 10