The forsaken starbringer

[TRIBUNAL TRIAL – INITIATED]

[FATELOCK ACTIVE]

[FAILURE CONDITION: TOTAL ERASURE]

The sky above the fractured Cathedral warped open like paper set on fire. Through it descended the Seven.

Each floated silently, masked in gleaming white, robes stitched from timelines, each one pulsing with shifting images—wars, births, endings.

The lead figure raised a hand.

"Kael Draven. You are charged with existence beyond erasure. Prepare for divine judgment."

Kael didn't answer.

He charged.

Chains lashed out, one wrapping around the masked arm of the first Judge. The moment it touched—

Reality exploded.

Kael was slammed into a battlefield he'd never seen—then another, then another—the Tribunal were dragging him through every war he'd ever caused, even ones he hadn't lived yet.

He fell through fire. Through oceans of glass. Through the broken skeleton of a star.

And still he fought.

His soulbound General tried to hold form—but the Tribunal was too much.

[SOULBOUND STABILITY: CRITICAL]

[RECOMMENDED: SUMMON SECOND CONTRACT]

[WARNING: LOCKED ENTITY – DO NOT UNSEAL]

Kael's breath burned in his lungs. "I don't care."

[Override Confirmed]

[SUMMONING: ???]

[COST: PARADOX POINT – 1]

BOOM.

A rupture in the void split open behind him—and from it emerged a being unlike anything Kael had ever seen or remembered.

A woman in obsidian armor, half her face missing, replaced by shifting runes. Wings of shattered constellations spread behind her.

Her voice cracked the sky.

"You dare summon me, little Sovereign?"

Kael fell to one knee, bleeding from the mouth. "I don't even know your name. But I know you're mine."

[SOULBOUND UNSEALED: ZAR'EN-KA, THE FORSAKEN STARBRINGER]

[Former Celestial Class: Divine Architect of the Second Singularity]

[Betrayed by the Tribunal – Soul Fragment Bound to Sovereign Lineage]

The Judges hesitated.

Zar'en-Ka laughed.

"Ah. So some of you still remember me."

And then she moved.

Time screamed. One of the Judges raised a defense—but she broke it with a single gesture, hurling him through a century's worth of agony in an instant.

Kael forced himself to stand as reality burned around them.

"You know what they're afraid of, don't you?" she said without turning.

He grinned.

"They didn't erase me by accident."

Together, they turned to face the Tribunal.

Round Two began.

Time itself recoiled.

The seven Tribunal Judges hovered high above—silent, unreadable—but their perfect symmetry was broken. One was missing, shattered by the arrival of Zar'en-Ka.

She drifted forward, not walking—gravitating. Planets flickered in her wake like ghost embers. Her wings of fragmented constellations stretched wide, each feather a galaxy devoured.

[SOULBOUND: ZAR'EN-KA – FULL PARTIAL MANIFESTATION – 4 MINUTES REMAINING]

[Celestial Class: Reality-Breaker]

Kael steadied himself beneath her, his chains glowing dimly in her presence, like iron before a sun.

"…Who were you?" he whispered.

She didn't turn.

"I was the last star left burning at the end of the Second Singularity. They begged me to unmake myself to reset the worlds. I refused."

Her eyes flickered—whole galaxies collapsing in her pupils.

"So they shattered me. And locked the pieces into every Sovereign they feared would rise."

Kael's blood chilled. "Then I'm…"

"…the cage. And now, the key."

Above, the Tribunal made their move. Four of them raised their hands in perfect synchronicity.

The sky broke.

Rings of pure logic spun outward, forming a prison of anti-time. Kael could feel his existence unraveling at the edges.

But Zar'en-Ka laughed.

"You dare speak causality to me?"

She raised a single hand—and her wings folded inward, focusing their cosmic weight into a burning spear of paradox.

She hurled it.

It pierced the temporal construct, shattering the Tribunal's attack into fractal stardust. One of the Judges fell, mask split in half—revealing a glimpse of something utterly nonhuman underneath. A face composed of shifting names, each erased the moment you tried to read it.

[JUDGE THREE – SYSTEM CORE: TERMINATED]

Kael moved, riding the chaos. His chains lashed out, guided now not just by will—but by a memory not his own. For a moment, he moved like someone else—fluid, divine, trained.

[ANOMALOUS COMBAT PATTERN DETECTED – MATCH: SOVEREIGN CYCLE 017]

[Echo Sync: 12%]

He didn't understand it—but his body did.

He fought like a ghost of himself. And the Tribunal began to falter.

[TRIBUNAL STABILITY: 64%]

[CELESTIAL REINFORCEMENTS REQUESTED – ACCESS DENIED]

Zar'en-Ka drifted beside him, smirking.

"Look at them. Bleeding logic. You broke the chain, Kael Draven. Now finish it."

But something changed.

One of the remaining Judges stepped forward—and shattered his own mask.

No features. No face. Only mirrors.

[MIRRORKIN SIGNATURE DETECTED – HYPER-EVOLUTION STAGE II]

Kael's breath caught.

It was the one he killed earlier. Reborn. Upgraded. Tribunal-forged.

The mirrored being whispered:

"You kill yourself enough times, Sovereign… eventually you learn to kill back."

[WARNING: MIRROR TRIAL PHASE – BEGUN]

[Your soulbound will be turned against you in 60 seconds.]

Zar'en-Ka turned sharply, startled. "No. He shouldn't be able to—"

And then Kael saw it.

Behind the Tribunal—a throne.

Empty.

Cracked.

Waiting.

And for the first time… Kael recognized it.

He had once sat there.

But not as a prisoner.

As their king.