“SCALES OF DESTINY!!” Kaelios roared, his voice ringing like a divine proclamation across the battlefield.
His golden eyes blazed, radiant enough to push back the surrounding darkness that was creeping in from all sides.
The oppressive weight of shadow seemed to recoil at the sheer brilliance of his aura, light clashing against the encroaching void.
But the price was heavy.
Activating the skill cost him 200 Destiny Points.
Now, he had only 12 left, barely enough to trigger one more resurrection.
Still, he didn’t hesitate.
Fwish! BOOM!
The space above them, no longer a clear sky but a cosmic field streaked with shadow, began to ripple.
The air quivered as though something immense had torn through the boundaries of reality itself, and suddenly a colossal object surged downward.
“…?”
Veyrion and Nocturne, who had just pushed Alex back and dismantled his latest attack, paused and turned their gazes upward.
Alex had tried launching his [Universal Orbs] again, flinging them at his enemies with desperation.
But their radiance, imbued with light, proved to be their downfall.
The moment they appeared, Veyrion’s [Shadow Dash] skill allowed him to instantly close the distance and slice through each orb before they could even activate.
Even his two most potent orbs, [Orb of Annihilation] and [Orb of Dominion], were intercepted and destroyed.
They had completely neutralized his arsenal.
‘And I thought [Universal Orbs] would carry me all the way,’ Alex thought grimly, narrowly dodging an arc from Nocturne’s gleaming [Sword of Darkness].
Then, the battlefield shook.
A massive object, burning gold and wrapped in strands of divine energy, crashed into the earth with earth-shattering force.
BOOOOOOM!
The impact created a shockwave that blasted outward in every direction.
Dust and shattered stone surged into the air as the ground splintered beneath the weight of the descending force.
A new structure now stood in the middle of the battlefield, tall, regal, and ancient in presence.
The [Scale of Destiny] had arrived.
Two golden plates floated on either side of a towering central pillar, suspended in perfect equilibrium.
Wisps of fate shimmered between them, curling like glowing threads from one side to the other, as if the future itself was being measured.
Alex’s eyes narrowed.
He’d never seen the scale in its full form before.
This wasn’t a weapon. It wasn’t even a spell. It was a force.
A ritual of the divine, a trial bound by fate itself.
Kaelios floated beside it, arms crossed, his golden aura intensifying by the second.
There was a seriousness in his eyes now, not fear, but a somber understanding, like someone flipping a coin that could end the world.
From above the scale, another figure appeared, no, not a figure, a wheel.
A golden wheel, immense in size and rotating slowly in the air, with hundreds of symbols etched into its rim.
None of the symbols resembled any known language, yet somehow, looking at them conveyed meaning that bypassed thought.
It was the [Wheel of Destiny].
Alex stared at it silently.
It didn’t look stable. Or safe.
“Here we go, partner,” Kaelios said, not taking his eyes off the wheel.
“If it lands on something hard, we’re screwed,” Alex shouted back.
Kaelios let out a dry laugh.
“Chance of death is high, start preparing your final words.”
“I will.”
They spoke with a strange calmness, despite standing on the edge of death.
Even now, surrounded by gods and destruction, they found humor in their impossible odds.
“Should we kill them now?” Nocturne asked, idly spinning his [Sword of Darkness] in his hand.
“No need to wait,” Veyrion answered coldly, raising his blade.
He never wasted time.
Never gave his enemies breathing room.
But Kaelios turned to Alex with a serious look.
“We can’t let them get near. If the wheel is disrupted… we lose.”
Alex nodded.
The gods of darkness advanced immediately.
“You charged enough darkness into your blade?” Veyrion asked without glancing at his partner.
“Yes,” Nocturne said, scanning the battlefield, “Let’s end the Chosen One first.”
“So be it.”
Veyrion plunged his sword into the ground.
From the cracked earth, multiple shadowy entities rose, faceless beings born of pure darkness.
He had used [Darkness Summoning].
Meanwhile, Nocturne flung his sword skyward.
The moment it left his hand, thick black clouds formed above, crackling with electricity.
The blade returned to his grip, pulsing darker now, wrapped in sparks of violet lightning.
Alex stood his ground.
“The end is near, human,” Veyrion declared.
Alex’s grin was cold.
“Yeah. For you.”
The shadow-beings charged.
But Alex raised his hand.
A hum filled the air.
The second [Void Blaster], now fully charged to its [Second Phase], rose behind him, floating silently.
“FIRE.”
The Blaster opened its jagged maw.
A blinding purple beam exploded from its core, vaporizing everything in its path.
He still had one more Blaster, the third one, charged only to its first phase.
But even as the second one fired, he commanded it to begin powering up.
To the third phase.
“DODGE!!” Veyrion roared, sensing the magnitude of what was coming.
His instincts screamed at him.
Blocking wasn’t an option.
Both he and Nocturne vanished using [Shadow Dash].
The beam obliterated all their summoned minions in one blast.
“Chase them,” Alex commanded, and the [Void Blaster] obeyed, pursuing the gods while maintaining its deadly beam.
As they evaded destruction, Kaelios placed his hand on the golden wheel and gave it a spin.
The [Wheel of Destiny] turned.
There was no telling what it would land on.
It could grant salvation. Or doom.
The wheel spun faster, symbols flashing too quickly to register.
Seconds passed.
The Blaster’s beam dimmed.
Ten seconds later, the wheel began to slow.
Kaelios glanced at Alex.
“You ready?” he asked, his voice carrying a strange mix of hope and dread.
Alex gave a stiff nod.
“Now or never.”
Veyrion and Nocturne panted hard, barely dodging the searing blasts.
But not without cost. One of Veyrion’s legs had been vaporized.
Darkness coiled around the wound, forming a crude limb in its place, pulsating like a weak shadow.
He had temporarily patched himself using pure aura.
“You’ll regret that,” Veyrion snarled.
Nocturne’s gaze turned to the remaining Void Blaster.
He raised his sword, pointed it to the sky, and gave it a sharp flick.
From the blackened clouds, a bolt of lightning, black and wild, descended.
It struck the charging Blaster dead-on.
Its core flickered, then dimmed. Its mouth closed.
The Blaster sank into the earth, inert.
Alex said nothing.
No more Void Blasters. No more attacks. He was out of skills.
Kaelios had no Destiny Points left either.
“You die here,” Veyrion said, stepping forward.
His new leg dragged slightly behind him, but his rage made up for the imbalance.
Fwish! Slash!
Before Alex could react, Veyrion was already in front of him.
The [Sword of Darkness] pierced clean through his chest.
[You have died.]
Ding!
Destiny Shift!
[Undoing death…]
Alex’s body staggered back to life.
But something was wrong.
He turned, Kaelios wasn’t smiling.
He was staring at the slowly spinning wheel with panic in his eyes.
And then Alex remembered something Kaelios had once told him.
A quiet warning from months ago.
A detail he hadn’t thought about… until now.
The [Sword of Darkness] wasn’t just a weapon.
It was a Forbidden Skill.
[Sword of Darkness: Can cut through almost anything.
Those struck by it are either killed instantly, or dragged into the wielder’s domain, never to escape.]
Both of them had been hit.
“Nocturne!” Veyrion yelled.
“They’re both marked!”
Nocturne’s eyes gleamed.
He nodded.
“Now!”
Together, the two raised their swords.
Alex’s blood ran cold.
They spoke the two words he feared more than anything.
“DARKNESS DOMAIN!!”
The world vanished in an instant.
Light collapsed. And Alex was swallowed by pure, endless dark.