The wind whipped across the desolate plains, carrying with it the ghosts of a million forgotten souls.
Aren stood amidst the wreckage of the Celestial Ladder, a monument to broken promises and shattered dreams. The air, once thick with the promise of divine energy, now carried only the stench of ozone and death.
He knelt, his knees cracking against the pulverized stone. In his hand, he clutched a shard of Elara's soul, all that remained of the woman he had loved, the woman who had tried to save him in her own twisted way. Her final breath, a whispered curse of his name, had been the last echo in the void he had created.
"It's done," he murmured, his voice hoarse, barely audible above the mournful sigh of the wind. The Heaven-Eater, bound to his very being, pulsed faintly, a cold, hungr
