"It seems that death is the only thing capable of washing away such issues," Morgan murmured, his voice flat as he watched the catastrophic assault on the barrier.
The upper heavens had abandoned all restraint. The black clouds pressing against the golden perimeter churned with a terrifying violence, weaponizing rivers of silver, draconic lightning that hammered the shell in a relentless bid to force an entry. Another massive bolt cascaded downward, and the entire golden grid rippled under the kinetic shockwave. Morgan's focus sharpened on the crown of the barrier where the structural fracture had widened. The damage did not threaten the dome with immediate collapse, but the systemic instability was growing critical. Inside his mind, the inheritance screamed endless warnings. Sigil's transformation was accelerating, the heavens had firmly locked onto his genetic signature, and every passing second dragged the island closer to a disaster Morgan refused to witness.
He dropped his gaze to the ruined plains below.
Sigil stood at the epicenter of a localized tempest. The black and white flames wreathing his body no longer behaved like standard energy, instead twisting around each other like hostile celestial forces competing for dominance, warping the local geometry of space. Morgan felt a sudden, icy surge of killing intent. He was done with caution and tactical delays. Sigil had to die immediately.
The air detonated as Morgan vanished into a blind sprint, summoning thousands of golden links from the earth and sky simultaneously. The terrain fractured and the firmament trembled under the weight of the divine execution array converging on a single point. Sigil merely raised his ancient blade. The intertwined flames exploded outward, shattering the oncoming metal into harmless shrapnel.
Before the debris could fall, Morgan materialized directly behind his opponent's blind spot, a fist saturated with absolute sovereign authority driving forward. Sigil pivoted mid-air, but the punch grazed his ribs, tearing through flesh and leaving a trail of blood in the air. Sigil countered instantly, swinging a burning edge toward Morgan's throat, forcing the usurper to leap backward as the blade hissed through empty space.
The two men separated, hovering above the chaos. Neither spoke. The conflict had progressed past the point where dialogue carried meaning; there were no terms left to negotiate, only the raw logistics of survival.
Far below the aerial duel, a collective shudder ran through the surviving Starborn ranks. A voice resonated within the very marrow of their bones, bypassing their ears and minds entirely to strike something deeper.
Activate your bloodlines if you wish to survive.
The telepathic echo vanished, leaving immediate confusion in its wake as soldiers exchanged uncertain glances. But Orion did not hesitate. The moment the mandate hit his consciousness, violet lightning detonated across his shoulders, his aura spiking to a lethal degree. Ancient, luminescent patterns mapped themselves across his skin before disappearing beneath layered sheets of plasma. His bloodline had activated, not awakened to its full evolutionary state, but activated for war, a functional distinction only a true Starborn understood.
Orion's face tightened as the transformation took hold. He could feel the gathering fury pressing against the exterior of the dome; something catastrophic was about to breach the system. Abandoning his position on the frontline, he dissolved into a jagged streak of violet electricity, tearing across the landscape toward Three.
Above him, the high-altitude slaughter raged on. Morgan attacked with a ruthless, machine-like efficiency, hurling salvos of golden spears, binding chains, and oppressive gravity barriers, each construct loaded with the absolute authority of the dome. Every sequence was designed to terminate life, yet Sigil continued to close the distance. He advanced through flowing blood, through deep lacerations, and through the crushing weight of the system's active suppression. He simply kept moving forward.
Another heavenly strike slammed into the dome's apex, and the crack split open with a visible groan. The entire battlefield fell silent as everyone looked up to witness the breach. The message was unmistakable: the dome was losing its grip on the island.
A desperate hope flared in the eyes of several enemy cultivators under Morgan's command.
"The opening!" someone screamed. "We can escape!"
A dozen Primarchs shot toward the sky like arrows, followed immediately by dozens more. They no longer cared about Morgan's grand design or the outcome of the war. The moment they realized Morgan intended to use the entire island as a sacrificial furnace, their loyalty had vaporized. They saw a path to survival in that glowing crack.
Morgan watched their flight, his expression entirely indifferent. He made no move to intercept them because he understood the true nature of the storm. The heavens were not arriving to rescue them.
The lead Primarch reached the threshold of the opening, his face twisting into a triumphant grin. Then the upper clouds shifted. The entire sky seemed to pause for a fraction of a heartbeat, locking the world in an absolute, suffocating silence before the heavens delivered their verdict.
A pillar of lightning wider than a mountain range cascaded through the breach. The Primarch never had the chance to scream, resist, or even comprehend his death. One moment he was a peak cultivator flying toward freedom; the next, he was deleted from existence. The pure white light swallowed the fleeing army whole, erasing flesh, bone, and ash until nothing remained.
A wave of primal terror swept over the survivors below, followed immediately by the flood. Having found a physical conductor through the crack, the heavenly lightning poured through the opening in an endless torrent, burying the island beneath a blinding shroud of white plasma.
Continuous thunder shattered the atmosphere, triggering landslides, vaporizing forests, and boiling the surrounding sea into a violent froth. Drained of their spiritual energy by the dome, the weakened soldiers stood no chance against the celestial purge, disintegrating by the hundreds as the battlefield transformed into an absolute sea of destruction.
Yet amidst the widespread annihilation, Morgan remained completely untouched. A precise skin of golden light covered his body as his personal aura merged seamlessly with the dome's network, bending the local laws of physics subtly around his silhouette. The heavenly lightning struck the earth millions of times, but not a single bolt targeted him. The heavens no longer recognized him as an individual entity; to the storm, he was merely a component of the barrier itself.
On the eastern ridge, Orion finally skidded to a halt beside Three just as a stray bolt of lightning arced toward the boy. Three's eyes widened in horror.
Orion lunged forward to place his own body in the path of the strike. The plasma hit him dead-center, throwing his frame into violent convulsions as blood erupted from his lips and the stench of scorched flesh filled the air. But instead of dispersing through his boots into the dirt, the lightning entered his system. The celestial energy tore through his meridians like millions of razor blades, attempting to shred him from the inside out.
Orion let out a guttural roar, the veins in his neck bulging to the bursting point as his muscles locked up. He forced the raw lightning deeper into his core, actively absorbing, refining, and consuming the heavenly power. A second bolt hit him, then a third and a fourth, each impact leaving him bleeding from his pores and pushing him closer to systemic failure. Yet Orion refused to budge an inch. Behind him lay Khate's cold corpse, and right beside it stood Three. To him, that was more than enough reason to die standing up.
Three stared at the bleeding warrior in stunned silence before shifting his gaze back toward the main sky where another massive bolt struck his father directly. The blinding detonation illuminated the entire island, causing Three's fingers to tighten around Khate's wooden staff until the material groaned under the pressure.
When the glare finally receded, Sigil was still standing, though barely. His ceremonial robes had been incinerated, his skin was coated in blood, and the black and white flames flickered erratically across his shoulders. Yet he still breathed. He still fought. He still advanced.
Another bolt cascaded toward the sky, and Three took an instinctive step forward, his chest burning with a suffocating mixture of rage and helplessness. His mother was dead on the ground, Orion was tearing his own body apart to protect him, and his father was being systematically executed by the sky itself while all he could do was watch from the sidelines. The realization made his jaw lock, his teeth grinding as he took another step toward the fray.
Orion's bloody hand clamped down onto his shoulder, halting his momentum. Three looked up, but Orion merely gave a slow, exhausted shake of his head.
Three dropped his gaze, his fingernails cutting deep into his own palms until he drew blood. For the first time in his life, he truly hated his own weakness.
High above the blood-soaked terrain, Sigil and Morgan collided once more in a shockwave that rattled the island's bedrock. Morgan's golden chains snaked around Sigil's limbs, only for Sigil to snap them through raw physical force. Morgan unleashed a volley of golden spears at point-blank range, but Sigil cut them into dust. The heavens struck him from above, and Sigil simply endured the lightning, continuing his relentless march again and again.
Morgan's expression turned utterly grim. A cold, terrifying realization settled into his chest: Sigil should have suffered structural collapse long ago. No mortal cultivator could withstand this tier of celestial punishment. None. Yet the Patriarch continued to press the attack.
Then, a final bolt descended, a massive pillar of absolute white plasma larger than all the previous strikes combined, as if the heavens had decided to erase the entire battlefield from the map.
The blinding white light consumed everything.