The nothingness pressed in on him. Blackness without end, suffocating, still. No horizon. No sky. Only silence.
Mike's claws flexed against nothing. He could feel his body trembling, his chest heaving, but there was no air to breathe. No ground beneath him. His wings twitched restlessly, but even they could not carry him here.
Then a voice from behind him. Soft. Familiar.
"Mike?"
His head snapped toward the sound, and the void rippled. Out of the endless black stepped Kelsey. Her hair was streaked with silver now, her face lined with age, her eyes still warm but weary. Just simple clothes, the kind she'd worn before the gods stole everything from them.
Mike staggered back, his chest seizing.
"Kelsey?" His voice broke. "No this isn't—"
She smiled gently, but it was not the smile of the girl he remembered. It was the smile of someone who had lived a lifetime. Someone tired.
"You've changed," she said, reaching toward him. "And so have I. This… is the truth you've ignored."
Before Mike could move, the darkness shifted again. Behind her, a gravestone rose from the nothing. Simple, unmarked stone. His throat tightened when he read the name carved into it:
Kelsey Reed.
"No!" His roar shattered the silence, claws digging into the nothing beneath him. "You just came back! I won't lose you again!"
But Kelsey only looked at him with soft, pitying eyes. "You chose this path, Mike. Divinity. The devourer. You'll live longer than me… longer than any of us. Every fight, every god you consume, every Titan you tear apart, it stretches your life further. And mine…"
Her face flickered. More lines etched themselves across her skin. Her hands withered, trembling as she reached for him again. "Mine will end."
Mike staggered forward, grabbing for her hand, but it slipped through his claws like sand.
"No! Stop! Don't, don't do this to me!"
Her hair turned white. Her back bent. Her voice cracked, frail as the dust gathering at her lips. "You can't stop it, Mike. You can't stop what we are. Mortality is ours. Yours is gone. Mine remains."
He fell to his knees, fire leaking from between his teeth, his eyes wild. "I just got you back… I won't let this happen! I'll burn Olympus to ash, I'll kill every god, I'll—"
But his words were drowned by the sound of her body crumbling. Her skin cracked into dust, her eyes dulled, and with a single breath, she scattered into the darkness.
Mike's roar ripped the silence apart, raw and broken. His claws raked through the black, tearing at nothing, trying to pull her back. His wings snapped wide, beating uselessly. His entire body convulsed with fury and despair.
"KELSEY!"
The nothingness rumbled in answer. Bahamut's deep voice rose within.
"Still you cling to the illusion, hatchling. She is mortal to time. You are not. This is the cost of the path you chose."
"No!" Mike snarled, eyes blazing crimson and gold. "I can save her! I'll find a way! I'll—"
Bahamut's laughter rolled through the void, but it was not cruel. It was cold.
"You cannot save what is meant to die. You devour. You endure. That is your gift, your curse. The girl will live, but not as long as you. Not even close. Every breath you take in this divine storm carries you further away from her. Until nothing remains but her memory."
Mike's chest heaved, fire spilling from his mouth in ragged bursts. He wanted to deny it. To scream. To tear the voice from his skull. But the image of Kelsey's dust lingered in the void, every speck burned into him.
"She will die," Bahamut said, his tone heavy as stone. "And you will remain. This is the burden of gods. This is the truth of eternity."
Mike lowered his head, fists clenched so tight his claws cracked. His voice shook.
"I just… I just got her back."
The silence that followed was heavier than any battlefield.
Bahamut broke it with a final word:
"And still you chose this. The path of blood. The path of endless war. She cannot follow where you are going. She will fade. You will remain."
The darkness weighed down on him like chains, every breath dragging knives through his chest. He knelt there, trembling, staring at the fading dust where Kelsey had been. His claws reached into the black, closing on nothing, desperate to hold on, desperate to keep her.
But there was nothing.
"Kelsey…" His voice cracked, hollow, torn. "Why did it have to be you? Why do I have to—"
The gravestone still stood behind him, pale against the darkness, a reminder that no fire, no claw, no fury could change what it marked.
Bahamut's voice rumbled again, cutting through his grief.
"Hatchling. You cannot tear down mortality. Not hers. Not any mortal you have known. It is the one wall even gods cannot break. Only what you are can stand beyond it. This is the price of your vow."
Mike squeezed his eyes shut, his claws digging into the invisible ground until sparks of essence bled into the void. His body shook with rage, with grief, with a madness that threatened to split him apart. He wanted to reject it. He wanted to scream until the nothingness itself shattered.
But the truth settled in his bones, heavy as stone.
He could kill gods. He could devour Titans. He could rip pantheons from their thrones and scatter their bones across eternity. But he could not save her from what she was. Mortal. Finite. Fragile.
And yet… wasn't that what made her beautiful? What made humans beautiful?
Mike's breathing slowed, fire ebbing from his jaws. He lifted his head, crimson-gold eyes burning in the dark. His voice, when it came, was steadier, harder.
"She's mortal. I'm not. And that means I have to carry it. All of it. The loss. The time. The emptiness." He bared his fangs in a grim smile. "If that's the sacrifice, then so be it. I'll live with it. I'll fight with it. I'll make every god choke on it when I tear their throats out."
The void quaked, vibrating like a heartbeat. The gravestone cracked and dissolved into dust.
Bahamut's laughter rumbled deep, proud and terrible.
"Good. You accept. This is the path. This is the cost. Your joy of battle, your vow of blood, it demands everything. Even her. Especially her. You will carry her memory, and with it, your strength will grow beyond me."
Mike rose to his feet. His wings unfurled, vast shadows burning with crimson fire. He clenched his claws and raised his head high.
"Then let it cost me. Let it take everything. As long as I keep the vow. As long as the gods fall."
The void shattered, light pouring through the cracks. For an instant, he thought he heard her voice again, soft, fleeting, like a memory:
"I believe in you."
Then the darkness fell away.