Kaelen's footsteps died in the smothering void of the main chamber within the Etheric Spire. The translucent walls bled sickly blue light, pulsing like the heartbeat of some ancient, dying beast. Six figures lurked in the darkness, their hooded forms more absence than presence, as if reality itself spurned their existence. They were the Overseers-beings that had long since forsaken their humanity in exchange for the power to bend minds and twist the fabric of existence.
"Kaelen." The voice slithered through the air, a sound that felt wrong in his bones. "You stand before us, a moth drawn to extinction's flame. Tell us, what delicious madness convinced you that you could dance with gods?"
A bitter smile cut into Kaelen's face. Thoughts contorted like serpents within his mind: They think they are staring at me, that they slice me open, and they fathom not-they stare into their own void. "Gods?" he hissed, the word rolling from his lips in measured disdain. "Is it what you whisper to yourselves at dark hours when the Rift chides with your true names?
A ripple of unease passed through the shadows. One of the figures stepped forward, fluidly, unnaturally so. "You dare speak of the Rift? Your mind is but a candle flame in an eternal night. We are the darkness that snuffs out such presumptuous lights."
Kaelen laughed, the sound sharp enough to draw blood. "Oh, how perfectly you play your roles. But I see the tremors in your shadows, the way your power flickers like a failing shield. The Rift isn't just a wound in reality—it's the mirror you're terrified to face. Because in its depths, you see what you truly are: parasites feeding on the corpse of truth."
Now they would try to break into his mind, he thought; the feel of their presence scratched at the edges of his consciousness. Let them in. Let them see the labyrinth I've built just for them.
"Your thoughts betray you," another figure hissed, its voice thick with malice. "We see the chaos in your mind, the—" The voice stopped abruptly.
"What's wrong?" Kaelen's eyes glinted with dangerous amusement. "Found something in there you wish you hadn't? Something that reminds you of what's coming?"
The walls of the chamber pulsed faster now, the blue light taking on a fevered quality. The air grew thick with unspoken horrors, the weight of buried truths clawing their way to the surface.
"You think you've built an empire of control," Kaelen went on, his every word a carefully placed blade, "but you've only constructed an elaborate prison. And now the walls are cracking. The Rift grows, fed by every lie you've ever told, every reality you've tried to bend. It's hungry for the truth you've hidden, and it won't stop until it devours everything-including your precious illusions of godhood."
Let them be afraid, he thought. Let the fear creep in their minds like poison. They should know their control is but a desperate fantasy.
The figure in the center rose to its feet, and drew back its hood. The face that looked out was wrong, in ways that hurt the eyes to watch-features shifting like smoke, ages blending and separating in a nauseating flow. "And what would you have us do, little prophet of doom? Surrender to chaos? Accept annihilation?"
Kaelen took another step nearer, near enough to catch the stench of decaying power. "I offer you something far worse than death," he whispered, and his voice was thick with dark promise. "I offer you truth. The Rift is not going to destroy your world; it's going to make you remember what you really are. Every soul you have broken, every mind you have twisted, every reality you have corrupted-it's all coming back. And when it does, you'll understand that you were never gods. You were just the first victims of your own delusions."
The silence afterward was complete, a void full of horror. In that instant, Kaelen saw it in their postures, in the way their shadows trembled: they knew he was right. And that knowledge was more devastating than any weapon they possessed.
Check and mate, he thought, watching their perfect world begin to crumble. Sometimes the worst weapon isn't the truth itself-it's forcing someone to finally acknowledge it.
The light of the chamber fluctuated wildly, as if reality itself was in dissonance and fought to hold on to its coherence. And in that unstable light, Kaelen saw what he had come for: genuine fear in the faces of gods who had just now realized they were mortal after all.