The world twisted.
Colors inverted. Time shattered like glass under pressure. I was dragged, not by force, but by recognition. The child had no power—yet its memory of me was strong enough to rewrite the present.
I landed on ash.
The sky above was split open like a wound. Dozens of thrones floated in orbit, each cracked, each weeping blood.
And beneath it all stood him.
Vorenth.
Fully formed. Entire.
His body wasn't grand—it was correct. Like reality bowed to his structure, like the laws of existence had signed themselves under his skin.
He turned.
And he saw me.
"I told them no one should follow," he said.
"And yet they followed anyway."
"You are the origin," I said.
"I am the cautionary tale."
I stepped forward.
He didn't raise a weapon.
He didn't need to.
Because the battlefield bent to him.
Thrones cracked wider. The ash below rearranged into sigils of defeat. The very air rejected rebellion.
But I had not come to kneel.
I had come to understand.
"You were erased," I said.
He nodded. "Because they feared what would happen if my will became the new law."
"And what would happen?"
He smiled.
"This."
Then he vanished.
And in his place stood me.
Not as I am.
But as I could become.
Eyes empty.
Throne forged from loyal corpses.
Crown screaming in tongues.
The mirror of everything I would become if I lost control.
And it attacked.
---
The fight wasn't just external.
It was within.
I felt parts of myself rise in defense. Pride. Rage. Loneliness. My victories and my failures clashed around me in the form of blades, claws, whispers, screams.
The Mirror Azrael fought without anger.
Only with inevitability.
I countered with every ounce of choice I had.
Void clashed with future.
Soul clashed with fate.
Each strike ripped pieces of possibility from the timeline.
At one point, I saw myself lose.
At another, I saw myself kneel.
But in the final moment… I chose neither.
I roared.
And with that roar, I unwrote the Mirror.
Not by power.
By refusal.
"I am not a prophecy."
I shattered him.
And the battlefield dissolved.
---
I stood once more at the edge of the Rift.
But something had changed.
The aberrants knelt not out of fear—
But out of clarity.
The walls of Netherhold hummed to my heartbeat again.
The throne reformed behind me.
The Rift sealed—though not permanently.
And in the silence, I spoke.
"Vorenth is not my end."
"He is my warning."
I turned to the aberrant who had tried to take my throne.
It met my gaze, silent.
"You will not be punished."
Its body tensed.
"You will be forged."
---