While Kael healed, the world burned.
Reports arrived from every direction cities erased, fields silenced, entire regions emptied of soul-light. The Devourer did not slow. If anything, it grew bolder, its presence warping the land itself.
Kael sensed it even from his bed: a massive gravitational pull in the soul-space of the world, dragging the dead, and the dying toward itself.
The hunger stirred uneasily, afraid and furious.
"It's feeding without limit," Kael murmured.
"Yes," the Witch replied. "And that makes it fragile."
Kael frowned. "Fragile?"
She nodded. "Consumption without restraint fractures the self. It gains power quickly, but loses cohesion."
Kael understood then: the Devourer was strong, but unstable. A storm that burned too hot to last.
The realization did not bring comfort.
Because the damage it could do before breaking might end the world.