The heavens split open.
The battlefield stretched for miles—black stone scorched by ancient blood, sky aflame with divine fury. Hell had never seen war like this. Not in millennia. Not even when the first gods fell.
And at the heart of it all stood Lina.
Crowned in ash and starlight. Flames wrapped around her like a living cloak. Behind her, the legions of the underworld waited—beasts, warlocks, bone-winged angels long exiled, and shadows made flesh. Andra stood to her right, sword glowing with hellfire. Cael to her left, his magic coiled in silence and pain.
Across the field, the gods landed.
Five of them. Shining and perfect. Untouched by the dirt and fire of the lower realms. Each carried a weapon older than death. Each wore a piece of the VoidCrown—the artifact forged to unmake the First Flame.
Lina's voice rose, calm and cold. "I gave you mercy once. I won't offer it again."
The gods didn't answer.
They attacked.
—
The battle began like a storm given breath.
Blades clashed. Magic screamed. Sky and earth cracked under the weight of celestial war. Lina moved like fire made flesh—every step a dance of ruin. Her crown burned so bright that demons around her wept just to look at it.
Andra tore through divine warriors like a beast unchained. Blood soaked his claws, his eyes fixed only on her, guarding her flank as if hell itself would pay if she were touched.
Cael's magic was a different kind—quiet, coiled, insidious. He struck through illusions, weaving fate itself with trembling fingers. He never stopped watching her, even as the gods descended like lightning.
Then came Aetheron, Lord of Order. The leader of the divine host.
He struck with a spear forged from the heart of a collapsed star. It shattered the sky as it fell.
Lina caught it.
With her bare hand.
She turned to him, hair wild, fire swirling. "You still don't understand, do you?"
Aetheron stared. "You are a mistake."
"No," she said. "I am your reckoning."
She crushed the spear.
—
But the gods were prepared. Each time Lina pushed back, they twisted time around her. Moments slipped. Power drained. The Void Crown grew stronger. She could feel her flame dimming—flickering in places it once blazed.
Aetheron smiled cruelly. "The more you fight, the more it unravels you."
Andra lunged to stop him, but another god intercepted, slamming him into the rocks.
Cael screamed a spell that tore a hole in the fabric of the field, but it only delayed them.
The gods were winning.
Until Lina did what no goddess was ever meant to do.
She bled.
—
She collapsed to one knee. Her crown cracked. The First Flame sputtered like a dying candle.
The gods closed in.
But something… changed.
In the cracks of her pain, she heard a voice. Not divine. Not demonic.
Her own.
Not Lina.
Not Yrielle.
Something new. Something that had lived through death, through betrayal, through love and captivity and war.
The one who chose herself.
Her flame flared. Not white. Not red. But violet, deep and ancient and pure. The First Flame responded—not to her power—but to her will.
She stood, blood running down her cheek.
"No more gods. No more cages. No more lies."
She raised her arms.
And the sky burned.
—
What came next was not war.
It was rebirth.
The gods fell back as the world twisted around her. Realms cracked open. Every soul Lina had ever been—all her past lives—flashed through her, giving her strength. She didn't just fight now.
She remembered everything.
Andra dragged himself to her side, bloodied and grinning. "There's the queen I love."
Cael limped beside her, one arm burned to the bone. "Finish it."
Lina looked to Aetheron, his golden armor scorched, his expression unreadable.
She walked to him slowly. He raised a hand, but it trembled.
"You made me forget," she whispered. "Now I'll make you remember what fear feels like."
She placed her palm against his chest.
And turned him to ash.
—
The remaining gods fled.
Not because they feared Hell.
Not because they feared Andra or Cael.
But because she had become something else.
Not a goddess.
Not a ruler.
A force.
Lina, bearer of the true flame, destroyer of crowns.
When the battlefield fell silent, when the ash settled and the skies healed, she stood alone at the center.
Andra limped toward her, chest rising and falling. "You alright?"
She nodded, then pulled him into her. "You stayed."
"I always will."
Their kiss was slow—unlike the chaos around them. As if, for a moment, time itself bowed to their fire.
Cael watched from a distance. Then turned away, his task done.
He had lost her again.
But the world had gained something far greater.