The sky above Veyrith split apart with violent streaks of crimson lightning.
Not natural lightning.
The cracks spread slowly across the heavens themselves, glowing veins of red tearing through the endless black clouds. Each pulse illuminated the ruined kingdom below for only a heartbeat at a time.
And every flash revealed another corpse of a city.
Broken towers.
Collapsed bridges.
Cathedrals split down the middle like rotting bones.
Fire still burned across the distant districts, but the flames made no sound. Even the destruction felt dead. Ash drifted through the air like gray snow, covering the streets, the statues, the ruins of homes that once held thousands of lives.
Silence ruled everything.
At the edge of the shattered citadel stood Kael.
His black cloak snapped violently behind him as the storm raged overhead. Pieces of broken stone floated around the tower where he stood, lifted by unseen energy. Crimson light reflected across his face, revealing eyes that no longer looked entirely human.
The Mark of Devouring burned across his right arm.
The darkness beneath his skin had spread far beyond the original seal now. Black veins crawled upward from his wrist to his shoulder, pulsing slowly like living shadows. Thin silver cracks glowed between them, as if something inside his body was struggling to break free.
Pain pulsed through him with every heartbeat.
But he ignored it.
Below him, the kingdom of Veyrith was dying.
And for the first time…
Kael felt nothing.
No rage.
No grief.
Only exhaustion.
"You finally understand now, don't you?"
The voice echoed softly behind him.
Kael didn't react immediately.
For several seconds, he simply stared at the burning horizon before slowly turning around.
Astra stepped from the darkness behind the broken throne chamber.
Her silver hair moved gently in the wind, untouched by the storm around them. Blood stained the sleeve of her long white coat, dripping slowly onto the cracked stone floor beneath her feet.
Yet her expression remained calm.
Too calm.
Her glowing silver eyes reflected the red lightning above like mirrors.
"The throne was never meant to save this world," she said quietly. "It was built to imprison it."
Kael's gaze sharpened.
The shattered throne behind her suddenly seemed different now.
Not a symbol of power.
A cage.
Ancient black chains wrapped around the base of the throne, half-buried beneath centuries of stone and dust. Strange symbols glowed faintly across them whenever the lightning flashed overhead.
Kael clenched his fist.
The Mark reacted instantly.
Dark energy exploded around him in a violent pulse, cracking the floor beneath his boots.
Every battle.
Every death.
Every sacrifice.
The ruined villages.
The endless monsters.
The people he failed to protect.
It had all dragged him here.
Toward this throne.
Toward this ending.
"Then tell me the truth," Kael said coldly.
His voice no longer sounded entirely like his own.
It carried something deeper now.
Something ancient.
"Who sealed the Abyss King?"
For the first time since arriving…
Astra hesitated.
The wind howled through the ruins between them.
Far below, another section of the kingdom collapsed into darkness.
Then Astra finally spoke.
"You did."
The world went silent.
Even the storm above froze for a single impossible moment.
Kael stared at her without moving.
"...What?"
Astra lowered her eyes slightly.
"Not this version of you," she whispered. "The first one."
The moment those words left her mouth—
Pain exploded through Kael's skull.
He staggered backward violently as fragments of memory tore through his mind like shattered glass.
A battlefield drowned beneath endless darkness.
Black oceans swallowing entire continents.
Mountains collapsing beneath storms of crimson fire.
Millions screaming.
And standing at the center of it all—
A man wearing black armor covered in silver cracks.
A sword forged from pure light clenutched in his hand.
His face hidden beneath shadow.
But Kael recognized him instantly.
Because it was his face.
"No…" Kael muttered, gripping his head.
More memories crashed into him.
A voice crying his name.
A woman reaching toward him through collapsing flames.
A massive gate opening in the sky.
And beyond it—
Something impossible.
A living abyss with countless burning eyes.
The Abyss King.
The creature's presence alone twisted reality apart.
Entire armies disintegrated simply by looking at it.
Yet the armored figure—the other Kael—walked forward anyway.
Alone.
"I seal you beyond eternity," his voice echoed through the memory.
The heavens shattered.
Chains of silver light erupted across the battlefield.
The Abyss King roared.
And then—
Darkness.
Kael fell to one knee back in the present.
Breathing heavily.
Sweat mixed with ash across his face as the memories slowly faded.
"Impossible…" he whispered.
Astra stepped closer.
"Your soul keeps reincarnating," she said softly. "Every era, you fight the same war. Every era, fate forces you to lose."
Kael's eyes widened slightly.
Fragments suddenly began connecting inside his mind.
The nightmares.
The strange voices.
The feeling that he had walked these ruins before.
Even the Mark itself…
It wasn't choosing him.
It already belonged to him.
"The Abyss King was never fully sealed," Astra continued. "Every time you die, the prison weakens. Every reincarnation brings this world closer to destruction."
Another crimson bolt split the sky above them.
But this time…
The lightning did not disappear.
The crack remained.
Stretching wider across the heavens like a wound.
And far beyond the storm clouds—
Something moved.
Kael slowly looked upward.
At first, all he saw was darkness.
Then the clouds parted.
A colossal eye opened beyond the sky itself.
Ancient.
Endless.
Burning crimson.
The moment it opened, reality trembled.
The oceans far below the cliffs began rising unnaturally.
Mountains cracked apart in the distance.
The moon itself flickered red.
And across the entire kingdom of Veyrith—
Every remaining shadow suddenly turned toward the citadel.
Watching him.
Kael felt his chest tighten.
Not from fear.
Recognition.
The creature beyond the heavens knew him.
It remembered him.
Astra's expression darkened for the first time.
"The seal is breaking faster than before," she whispered.
The massive eye above slowly narrowed.
Then a voice descended from the heavens.
Not spoken.
Felt.
A sound so deep it shook Kael's soul apart.
"FOUND YOU."
The citadel exploded.