The void was quieter now.
Not the suffocating silence of emptiness, but the kind that follows after something has broken—like the breathless moment after glass shatters, when the echoes still linger.
Kael'thir hovered above the remains of the shattered citadel, his wings beating with slow, deliberate precision.
Beneath him, fragments of stone and crystalline structures drifted aimlessly through the void, remnants of the battle against the masked figure—the reflection of what he could become.
But even as the dust settled, Kael'thir's mind wasn't.
They understood me.
The thought burned sharper than any wound he'd taken.
During the fight, when rage surged through him like wildfire, his mind had been filled with unspoken challenges—taunts, commands, promises of destruction.
And somehow, without a single word escaping his throat, the reflection had responded.
Not through instinct.
Not through random chance.
It had known.
It had understood.
Kael'thir's claws flexed, the faint hum of void energy still lingering beneath his scales.
This wasn't like fighting beasts.
It wasn't like tearing through gods or devouring corrupted creatures.
Those things didn't think beyond survival.
They didn't adapt the way he did.
But these reflections…
They weren't opponents.
They were possibilities.
Versions of himself that had walked different paths, made different choices.
Paths he hadn't chosen—yet.
And that was why they understood him.
Because in some fractured thread of time, in some distant ripple of reality—
They were him.
Kael'thir floated downward, landing softly on a jagged piece of broken stone.
The ground here didn't feel like ground.
It was too hollow, too thin, as if the void had only reluctantly allowed it to exist.
His reflection's final moments replayed in his mind—not with regret, but with curiosity.
The way it fought wasn't to win.
It was to test him.
To see if he could surpass what it had become.
And Kael'thir had.
But victory brought questions.
And Kael'thir hated questions without answers.
His gaze drifted to the distant spire, still pulsing faintly in the void like a heartbeat.
There was more to this place.
The citadel wasn't the end.
Just another threshold.
Another wall to break.
And beyond that wall…
What would he find?
More reflections?
More twisted versions of himself?
Or something worse—something that wasn't him, but knew him better than he knew himself?
Kael'thir's wings flared, and with a single powerful beat, he launched into the void again, cutting through the darkness like a blade.
As he flew, his mind drifted—
Not to the battles he'd fought, but to the shift within himself.
Something had changed.
Not just his strength.
Not just his mastery over space and time.
But his mind.
His thoughts weren't as fragmented, not as raw.
They were sharper, clearer, layered with understanding that went beyond instinct.
And then there was the other thing.
The voice.
Not the ones he heard from the echoes of devoured souls.
Not whispers from ancient memories.
His own voice.
Forming words.
Not in his mind.
But… ready.
Waiting.
Kael'thir growled softly, the sound rolling like distant thunder through the empty expanse.
Why now?
Why could he feel the urge to speak when he'd never needed to before?
His mind flashed back to the battles—
The beings he'd devoured.
The masked figure.
The countless echoes of potential futures.
Each one had carried not just mana, but fragments of thought, of language, of knowledge.
Had he stolen their voices?
No.
That wasn't it.
It wasn't stolen.
It was awakened.
A part of him that had been dormant, locked behind the primal drive to survive and conquer.
And now that part was waking up.
Not because he needed it.
But because he'd grown beyond needing it.
His wings slowed as he approached another rift in the distance—smaller than the first, but pulsing with the same distorted energy.
Kael'thir hovered there for a moment, staring into the tear in space, feeling the pull of something familiar.
Another possibility?
Another future waiting to be devoured?
He wasn't sure.
But standing still wasn't his nature.
Without hesitation, he dove through the rift.
The world beyond was different.
Not the endless void of before, but a landscape twisted by time and decay.
Ruins of civilizations long lost, floating in fragments, suspended between shards of fractured reality.
Crimson skies bled into black horizons, and the ground below wasn't ground at all—just memories of it, flickering like broken reflections.
And at the center of it all—
Another throne.
But this one wasn't empty.
A figure sat upon it, draped in tattered remnants of what might've once been regal armor, now cracked and eroded by time.
No mask.
No concealment.
Just a face.
His face.
Older.
Colder.
Eyes like dying stars, burning with the weight of centuries.
Kael'thir landed hard, the ground cracking beneath his claws.
He didn't speak.
Didn't need to.
The figure on the throne looked at him with a faint, knowing smirk.
"You've come far."
The voice was his own—deeper, layered with echoes of countless worlds conquered.
Kael'thir's jaw tightened.
He hated it.
Not the sound.
The familiarity.
"I'm not you."
The words spilled out before he even realized it.
His first words.
Spoken aloud.
The sound felt strange.
Foreign.
Yet natural.
Like breathing after holding it for too long.
The figure laughed softly, the sound hollow and ancient.
"Not yet."
Kael'thir's wings flared, rage burning in his chest—not at the figure's arrogance, but at the truth buried within the words.
He wasn't this future.
But he could be.
If he followed the wrong path.
If he let power consume everything else.
Kael'thir didn't care about destiny.
Didn't care about potential futures.
He would devour them all.
Even this one.
Without another word, he lunged.
Claws against claws.
Future against present.
The battle wasn't just for dominance.
It was a rejection.
A refusal.
A promise carved into blood and bone.
Kael'thir wasn't fighting to win.
He was fighting to prove something simple and absolute—
"I am Kael'thir. Nothing else."