The skies across the Realms flared with a crimson hue. Planets halted their rotation. Galaxies dimmed. A pulse of power—raw, terrifying, and ancient—rippled through every existence.
In the heart of the Star Sovereign's Palace, Zayn hovered in mid-air, his chest bare, glowing with chaotic crimson runes. His hair floated as if underwater, no longer silver, but ink-black with threads of cosmic flame streaking through. His wings—twice the size they were before—shimmered with both holy light and abyssal fire. He had become something beyond mortal comprehension.
He was no longer simply the Star Sovereign. He was the harbinger of an era that gods feared to whisper—the Forbidden Flame Incarnate.
Below him, the celestial maidens stood in reverence. Their eyes glowed with devotion and disbelief. Lyria knelt with her hand pressed to her heart. Mira's lips quivered. Aelina, his first love, stood rooted, tears in her violet eyes.
The Forbidden Blood had awakened.
Zayn's voice shattered the silence like a blade through silk. "Gather everyone. We move tonight."
"Move?" Aelina stepped forward, her voice trembling. "Where?"
Zayn's eyes burned. "To the First Realm—the origin of all creation. I've seen it. I've felt it. And I must go."
The air in the palace turned heavy. The First Realm wasn't a place anyone dared to tread. Even ancient gods had perished trying to cross its borders. The very memory of it had been erased from the records of time.
Yet Zayn… he didn't fear it. He welcomed it.
Within hours, the Star Ark—a massive ship forged from Celestial Bone and Eternal Crystal—pierced through the clouds of the Sovereign Realm. It carried Zayn and his thirteen celestial consorts. Each woman was a law, a myth, a goddess. Together, they would be the foundation of the universe Zayn sought to remake.
The Ark sliced through realms like a knife through water. No barriers dared to resist. The moment they neared the edge of the known Realms, the fabric of space rippled violently.
A being appeared. Cloaked in paradoxes, with a face hidden behind a veil of endless reflections.
The Guardian of the Edge.
"You should not be here," it intoned. "Turn back. Beyond lies the birthplace of Oblivion."
Zayn floated out of the Ark, facing the being. "Move aside. Or be moved."
"You carry the Blood that breaks laws," the Guardian said. "You are a threat to all."
Zayn extended a hand. A single flick.
The Guardian shattered like glass.
Silence followed.
Zayn turned to his companions. "This is only the first warning. Beyond this point, there is no mercy. No memory. No meaning. Just me... and what I choose to become."
The First Realm greeted them with silence.
It was… black.
Not darkness, but emptiness—an eternal absence of everything. Even time dared not enter.
Zayn stepped into it like one would enter his own home. The void tried to erase him. Reality twisted. Memories bled from the mind. Even the goddesses behind him staggered.
But Zayn walked.
Every step burned a symbol into the empty realm. Every breath redefined existence. He was writing himself into the void.
Suddenly, the silence broke.
A creature slithered out. A thing older than the gods. Its body was formless, made of screams, of shadows, of everything that should never have been born.
It opened a mouth that stretched wider than a galaxy.
And then… Zayn smiled.
He didn't raise his hand. He didn't summon a blade. He whispered.
"I remember you."
The creature froze.
"You devoured my mother in my first life. The life I lived before the stars were born."
His Forbidden Blood pulsed.
A red sun exploded from within his chest. Flames spun like serpents, wrapping around the creature. It shrieked—not in pain, but in memory.
Zayn's flame was not destruction. It was remembrance.
He burned it not into death… but into meaning.
"Live again," he said.
And the creature wept as it transformed into light.
Behind him, the celestial maidens gasped. Lyria stepped forward, eyes wide. "You didn't kill it. You… healed it."
Zayn turned, his aura serene and terrifying. "This realm doesn't need more death. It needs rebirth. And I am the fire that remembers."
Far above, something stirred.
A throne of stars cracked.
The Whisper Beyond Realms screamed in rage.
Zayn had done the unthinkable.
He had rewritten the First Realm.
But it wasn't over.
The true enemy now awakened. A shadow that had been sleeping since before Zayn's soul was ever formed. A being made of lies and false realities. The Echo.
It whispered into the minds of Zayn's maidens. Visions. Illusions. Twisting truth.
Aelina clutched her head. Mira collapsed. Lyria cried out.
Zayn turned, fire roaring from his body. "ENOUGH!"
He knelt beside Aelina, touching her forehead.
"Remember me."
And in that instant, she saw it all. Every life. Every version of them. The time they were mortal. The time they were enemies. The time they died together.
"Zayn... I see you," she sobbed.
The fire around him flared, chasing away The Echo.
But it was only the beginning.
The Whisper had allies.
Realms would collapse.
But Zayn? He no longer feared war.
He was war.
He was flame, star, chaos, love, and memory.
He was the Sovereign who burned the sky… to light the path forward.