Godslayer's Legacy: THE PATH TO SUPREMACY

The faint hum of mana conduits filled the medical bay, a rhythmic pulse that barely masked the quiet tremors in Kovar's hands. His glass dome, normally glowing with sharp precision, flickered with dim amber light as residual diagnostic runes hovered in the air.

Rui lay motionless on the crystalline slab, his chest rising and falling in fragile, shallow breaths. The faint silver glow of his cracked mana core pulsed weakly beneath his ribs, threading faint veins of light across his pale skin.

But despite the stabilizers, despite the serum coursing through his veins, every reading screamed fragility.

Kovar stood frozen at Rui's side, his gloved hand hovering inches above the boy's trembling chest. His shoulders shook faintly, and his breath came sharp and uneven within the confines of his glass dome.

"Fourteen percent integrity. That's it."

It was a patch. A fragile, fleeting patch on a shattered foundation. And Kovar knew better than anyone: time was not on their side.

The AI's voice cut through the stillness, cold and sterile.

"Mana stabilization at critical baseline. Core integrity remains compromised. Continuous infusion recommended."

Kovar's head dipped, shadows pooling beneath his glass dome.

"Continuous infusion."

It was a bandage, not a solution. The serums and stabilizers would eventually run out. And when they did…

Kovar's gloved fist clenched, trembling as it hovered in the air before slamming down against the edge of the slab.

"No." His voice cracked, sharp and raw. "No. I'm not letting this happen."

He turned abruptly, his boots clanging against the grated floor as he stormed across the bay. His glass dome glowed faintly with cascading streams of data as he barked out commands.

"AI, stabilize the infusion matrix. I want core threads monitored every second. Alert me the moment there's any deviation."

"Understood."

Kovar's pace slowed as he reached the reinforced cabinet along the wall. His trembling fingers hovered over the latch before pulling it open with a sharp hiss.

Inside were the last of the serums—small, crystalline vials containing faint glows of silver, gold, and violet. Resources that shouldn't exist. Prototypes and experimental compounds pulled from the edges of forbidden knowledge.

He stared at them, his gloved hands tightening at his sides.

"This isn't enough. Not for what he's done. Not for what he's become."

The weight of the moment pressed against him—the impossibility of saving someone who had already shattered the rules of existence itself.

His voice trembled as he spoke aloud, a whisper meant for no one but the sleeping boy behind him.

"You shouldn't have been able to do it, Rui. No one should."

His breath hitched.

"And yet, here you are. Broken. But alive."

His gloved hands were braced against the reinforced glass viewport, his shoulders hunched beneath the weight of exhaustion and something sharper—guilt.

Outside, the void shimmered faintly in the growing dawn light—a hollow black wound on the horizon, pulsing faintly with fractured mana threads like spiderwebs stretching across glass, it was almost like it was...spreading?

The sky itself seemed… afraid of it.

Behind him, the AI's voice crackled faintly.

"Stabilization matrix holding at current parameters. Mana output remains consistent."

Kovar exhaled slowly, his breath fogging against the glass for a brief moment before fading away.

His voice was barely above a whisper.

"This can't last."

His glass dome glowed faintly with fragmented streams of data—projections, warnings, countdowns ticking down in sharp crimson digits.

The fragile patchwork he'd built around Rui's shattered core would not hold forever. Days. Hours. Minutes, if something shifted.

He leaned his forehead against the glass.

"Why do you keep surviving?" he whispered, his voice trembling. "No one—no one should've been able to endure this."

His glass dome flickered faintly with amber light as cascading streams of data continued to scroll across his peripheral vision. His eyes darted to the exposed veins running up Rui's neck—thin, silver threads pulsing faintly, their glow weak and fragile.

What are you becoming, Rui?

But there was no time for answers, and no point in asking questions that Rui, unconscious and broken, could not answer.

Kovar forced himself to move, pushing off the slab and staggering back across the grated floor. His boots clanged against the metal, the sound hollow and sharp in the confined space.

The reinforced glass window lining the far end of the medical bay caught his eye. Beyond it, the Abyssal Scar loomed, a wound carved into reality itself, its edges faintly glowing as fractured mana threads twitched and snapped in irregular pulses.

The air shimmered faintly around the void—a trembling silence that carried the weight of something vast and incomprehensible.

Kovar's breath fogged against the glass as he leaned his forehead against it, his gloved hands braced against the frame.

"What did you do, Rui…"

The words escaped him in a faint whisper, lost in the hum of conduits and the distant tremor of the ship's stabilizers struggling to maintain altitude.

And then, faintly, almost imperceptibly, the Scar pulsed—a slow, heavy tremor that rippled outward into the sky.

Kovar froze, his amber-lit dome flaring briefly with a flood of new data.

The Abyssal Scar pulsed again—deeper, heavier this time—as if the world itself was gasping for air. The edges of the wound trembled, flickering with chaotic mana threads snapping and writhing in erratic patterns.

Kovar stumbled slightly, his hand bracing against the edge of Rui's medical slab as his glass dome flickered with overlapping warnings. Then...

The sky split open.

A fracture of golden light tore through the heavens above the Abyssal Scar, pouring down in radiant, silent torrents. The chaotic mana threads that had been writhing and snapping around the wound in reality froze, held in place by an incomprehensible presence pressing down on the world itself.

Kovar staggered backward, one hand braced against the medical slab as the weight of something immense and absolute flooded the airship. His glass dome flickered violently, data streams cascading in erratic patterns before cutting out entirely.

Every system on the ship went silent.

Every warning alarm died.

Every flickering rune dimmed.

For a brief, terrifying moment, there was nothing but golden light and silence.

Then… he appeared.

A figure descended from the tear in the sky, wrapped in cascading layers of light and shadow. Their presence was not physical—not entirely. They were a force, an idea made manifest, and yet they walked upon the fractured air as though it were solid ground.

Their face remained obscured by an endless veil of shimmering gold, and yet… there was a tear, a single crystalline fracture running down the smooth mask where an eye should have been. It glimmered faintly, like liquid starlight eternally frozen mid-fall.

The airship trembled, its stabilizers groaning under the weight of an entity that did not belong in the mortal realm.

Kovar could do nothing but stare.

His breath caught in his throat, his knees trembling as he fought the overwhelming urge to kneel, to look away, to stop existing entirely under the crushing weight of this presence.

This was nothing like the god (God of Grief) that Rui faced. 

No.

This… was something else.

The god raised a hand, their slender fingers etched with runes that shifted and shimmered like living light.

And with a single, fluid motion, they reached out toward the Abyssal Scar.

The world responded.

Golden threads began to spool outward from the god's fingertips, thin and fragile, yet carrying a weight so vast it felt like the air itself would shatter under their presence. These threads wove themselves into the chaotic mess of severed mana threads around the Scar, stitching, mending—healing.

It wasn't perfect. The Scar itself would remain—a scar was still a scar—but the violent hunger, the raw instability radiating from it, faded. The chaotic tremors softened, the sky stopped twisting, and the dreadful pull at the edge of reality slowly… eased.

The god lowered their hand, the golden threads snapping off and fading into faint embers of light.

The chasm was quiet again.

For a long, still moment, nothing happened.

And then, impossibly, the god was inside the airship.

They stood at the edge of Rui's medical slab, their form a blur of light and shadow. The golden tear in their veiled visage dripped faintly, a droplet of starlight vanishing before it hit the sterile floor.

Kovar froze. His glass dome flickered erratically as every data stream failed to register what was happening.

The god's head tilted ever so slightly downward, toward Rui. Their presence washed over the boy's fragile, trembling form—a weightless warmth, calm yet immeasurable.

For a brief moment, Rui's cracked mana core flickered brighter, steadier. The faint silver veins glowing beneath his pale skin grew more defined, their light no longer sputtering and faint.

The god reached out—not with a hand, not physically, but with something deeper, something woven into the very fabric of their essence.

A single thread of golden light flickered above Rui's chest before sinking gently into him, vanishing without a sound.

The trembling in Rui's body stopped. His shallow breaths grew slightly steadier. His mana core, though still fractured, felt anchored—as though a faint, invisible hand now held it together.

It wasn't a cure. Not truly. But it was enough.

The god turned their veiled face toward Kovar.

Their voice, when it came, was not a sound but a resonance, an echo deep within Kovar's chest—impossible to block out, impossible to fully comprehend.

"He is mine. My Champion."

The weight of those five words pressed against Kovar's mind like an iron seal, carving themselves into the deepest parts of his being.

Kovar couldn't speak. He couldn't move. He could only exist in that moment, frozen under the god's impossible gaze.

The god tilted their head slightly, the golden tear shimmering faintly as their form began to blur at the edges, light bleeding outward in thin wisps.

"Do not let him break… thank you."

The light flared—brilliant and blinding—and then collapsed inward, vanishing into a single point of golden radiance before shooting upward into the sky like a comet.

The weight lifted.

The glass dome on Kovar's head rebooted, faint diagnostic data streams flickering back into existence. The airship's systems hummed softly as power returned, stabilizers compensating for the earlier strain.

Kovar staggered backward, his knees buckling as he slumped against the edge of Rui's slab. His breaths came sharp and ragged, his chest heaving as if he had just surfaced from drowning.

His glass dome flickered faintly as he stared down at Rui.

The boy's face was still pale, his body still weak—but there was a difference now.

The faint glow of his cracked core was no longer erratic. The silver veins along his neck and chest were steady, glowing softly with a faint, calm light.

Kovar closed his eyes briefly, his forehead coming to rest against the edge of the slab.

"My Champion…" he whispered, the god's words still echoing faintly in his mind.

Outside, dawn's light fully broke over the fractured horizon. The Abyssal Scar remained, thin and fragile, a mark on the world that could never be erased.

But for now… the air was still.

And within the silent hum of the medical bay, Rui slept—alive, steady, and carrying within him a fragment of something vast and unfathomable.

And somewhere above, far beyond mortal eyes, the god watched.