The world shattered.
Down he tumbled, while around him the stones, the air, everything just vanished. Not distance carried him - time pulled him apart instead.
Fragments drifted through his mind - scenes from a history still unclaimed. Battlefields cracked open under sudden light. Trust broken in silence, without warning. Strength too vast to name, let alone hold.
Then silence.
Ground met Kael's boots with a thud. Stretching beyond sight, the white space offered no edge, no shape. Ahead, motionless, waited the one wearing the mask.
"This is a realm outside time," the figure said, its voice deep and hollow. "A place where the past and future do not exist."
A flicker of light caught his pale gaze. What brings you here?
A shadow shifted the mask up a breath, barely - Kael caught starlight tracing patterns underneath. The light pulsed once, quiet, like something waking.
"I was like you."
Something inside Kael twitched, like a half-remembered name.
"Another Sovereign?"
The masked warrior nodded. "You were not the first to control time and you will not be the last."
A twist in the air changed everything. Not a moment too soon, solid ground pressed under Kael's boots - though it hung mid-sky. The endless dark gave way to stone slabs drifting above nothingness. His breath caught as the world reformed without warning. Nowhere had become somewhere, suspended like wreckage after a storm.
A clash unfolded high in the sky, where two divine figures met in violent motion. The force of their blows tore through space like thunder without sound. What people knew as real began to crack and drift apart.
A whisper ran through Kael - something about that figure matched his own shape. The second, though... didn't fit at all
A name slipped out - Aetherion - the masked warrior spoke, almost like he could hear what was inside. Him. The one who turned against you
Something caught in Kael's throat. Long ago, the Timekeeper stood beside him - same power, same standing - not some distant force, but a mirror. That one locked him down.
Maybe even someone out to beat him.
"You fought to control fate itself," the masked warrior continued. "You sought to rule time. But so did he. And in the end…"
Down he went - Kael from the vision - as glowing chains tightened like vines. A sea of sky-born figures surrounded him, breath held, faces pale with dread. Stillness broke only by the rattle of links biting into his arms.
"They turned against you," the warrior said. "Because they knew if you succeeded, none would ever stand against you again."
Fists tight, Kael stared ahead. Every moment - his dying, vanishing, returning - happened because they were afraid of what he could do.
"And what of you?" Kael turned to the warrior. "Who were you?"
A hush hung around the masked shape, lasting longer than expected. After that stretch of quiet, one hand began rising, gradual like smoke.
A shiver ran through the stillness. Heavy as old silence, the echo of countless lost fights settled into Kael's bones.
"I was the one who came before you."
Kael's heart stopped.
"The first Celestial Sovereign."