Vael fell.
No ground. No sky. Just an endless void.
The whispers in his head turned to screams. Voices all around him.
You were never meant to wield it.The crown is not yours.Turn back before it devours you.
He clenched his teeth. "Shut up."
The dark around him moved—alive, shifting like smoke.
Then he saw them.
Shapes. Twisted and broken. No faces. Too many faces. All reaching out with dead hands.
He raised his blade. "What are you?"
Us.
A figure stepped from the dark.
It wore shattered armor. Its form flickered like fire. And it looked just like him.
Same blade. Same crown.
Its voice was hollow.You are walking the path we walked. The path that never ends.
Vael's grip tightened. "I control it. Not the other way around."
It laughed. A sound like breaking bones.That's what we all thought.
The void pressed in.
Then—pain.
Vael dropped, clutching his chest. Something inside him was being pulled.
The crown burned. The void was eating him.
He forced himself up. Shaking. Gasping.
"I'm not done yet."
Then prove it.
The figure raised its blade.
It struck. Fast—too fast.
Vael blocked, barely. The hit threw him through the dark.
He hit nothing. But the pain was real.
It came again. Every move, every strike—it was his own. Like fighting himself.
But he wasn't the same anymore.
He let go.
The shadows burst from him like a storm. The void shook.
Their blades met—light exploded. The darkness cracked.
The figure hesitated.
Vael didn't.
He drove his blade through its chest.
The figure gasped. Its body broke like glass.
You are already lost.
Then it shattered.
The void collapsed.
Vael fell again.
Back to the world.Back to the fight.Back to the blood.