Kael descended the Valley of Veiled Mirrors alone.
The air behind him was hushed, the kind of silence only fear could teach. The Mournspire Sect had not bowed. They had not knelt.
They had simply watched—too shaken to speak.
He hadn't demanded loyalty.
He hadn't asked for belief.
And yet… their fate now revolved around his choice.
Kael walked with no aura. No suppression. But the earth beneath his boots cracked with every step.
The sky above, once dimmed by ash, began to part.
Something beyond the stars had felt him re-emerge.
---
Far away, in the deepest darkness of the upper void, an ancient throne stirred.
It did not stand in a palace, but on a field of collapsed timelines—where memories turned to stone and dreams turned to war.
A voice echoed through the black.
> "He has remembered."
A being made of stardust and bone lifted its head. Long-closed eyes blinked for the first time in eras.
> "The Sovereign has accepted himself."
---
They called it:
The Wyrm Synod.
Once gods.
Now phantoms.
Each member a ruler of cosmic decay, sovereigns of broken realms lost to Kael's rise and silence.
Now, they woke together.
Seven shadows.
One purpose.
> "He walks again," said one, robed in comet-fire.
"He must not be allowed to ascend," hissed another, carved from time-ice.
"Then let us unseal the Harrowed Gates," growled the third. "Let the False Stars burn again."
The final figure—taller than the void, cloaked in remnants of forgotten prayers—simply nodded.
> "Let him come."
> "And we shall remind him… of what he buried to become."
---
⟢ Back on the Mortal Plane
Kael paused beneath a broken archway as the wind shifted.
He felt it. A whisper through the threads of reality.
The Wyrm Synod.
The ones he had scattered.
The ones who survived.
The ones too bitter to forget.
> "So," he muttered, "you still remember."
He didn't smile.
Didn't tremble.
Just raised his hand to the sky.
The Primordial Brand pulsed once.
In response, the clouds spiraled backward. A single streak of light fell across the land like a sword drawn across a battlefield.
Kael turned east.
> "Then I'll come to you."
> "And this time, I won't leave anything behind."
---
From the ashes of a forgotten sect…
…to the halls of the ancient enemy…
…the Sovereign walked again.
And with him came silence, fire, and the end of excuses.