The darkness engulfed Kaiza entirely.In one instant, he stood before his previous self, the Hollow City intact, reality itself refusing to believe that history had been altered.The next.He was plummeting.Not bodily.Not through air, or chronology, or even the Abyss.But through something deeper.Something older.Something that should not exist.Something that had waited.And at its center something watched.Kaiza's body struck solid earth, but it felt nothing like the real world.The sky, or what passed for a sky, was a chasm of writhing shapes and wisps.The air tasted too thick, weighing upon him like a thousand invisible fingers.He pushed himself up, his golden eyes furrowing as he turned.And then.He saw it.The figure.It stood where his former self had once stood, regarding him with a look that belonged to no living thing.Kaiza had battled gods.He had fought the Abyss.He had witnessed things without a name.But this.This thing was wrong.Not as the Abyss was.Not as the

Kaiza's breathing came sharp and jagged.His fingers were constricted around the wrist of his other self, the King of the Hollow City.The battle's weight still resonated in his bones, his muscles crying out from the fight, which had transcended time itself.And yet he did not attack.The king sneered, golden eyes flashing with dark pleasure."What's wrong?""This is what you wanted, isn't it?"Kaiza's hold grew tighter.He could finish it now.A single strike. A single cut.Erase this alternate version of himself.Reclaim the Hollow City as his own.But the longer he stared into his own twisted reflection, the clearer it became.This wasn’t just about a throne.This was about who he would become."Damn it."His golden eyes flashed."I’m not you."And that was the moment he made his choice.A King Must FallKaiza let go.The king swayed a little, his sneer failing for the first time."What?"Kaiza took a step back, sheathing his sword."I don't need to kill you to win."The throne room

For the first time in five centuries, the Hollow City was silent.No screaming.No war.No whispering darkness hiding in the cracks of reality.Kaiza stood in the middle of it all free.The Abyss was gone.Not locked away.Not hiding in the shadows.Gone.He had done the impossible.He had rejected it.Not by fighting it.Not by dominating it.But by letting go.And yet something did not feel right.Kaiza let out a sharp breath, rolling his shoulders.His body felt lighter.As if he had lost something he had carried around for so long that he didn't even know what it felt like to not have it.The Abyss had been integrated into his very being.And now, without it…Who was he?Kaiza tightened his fists."Is this what freedom is meant to feel like?"Because it didn't feel good.It felt empty.Like he had been opened up and something had been torn out.Something that, terrible as it was, had at least been a part of him.Kaiza's golden eyes blazed, but there was no abyssal fire burning in

The sky tore apart.Not like lightning.Not like a storm.Like glass breaking.The Hollow City shattered, shattering into a thousand reflective shards, each one revealing a different possibility.Some revealed Kaiza triumphant, golden flames in his grasp, the entity dissolving to dust.Others revealed Kaiza was gone, nothing but a memory of what had been.But the worst onesThe ones that made his chest constrictRevealed the world lost.Not destroyed.Never having been at all.The thing moved first.One moment, it stood before him.Next, it was all around him.A dozen forms of itself blurred in and out of existence, attacking from various directions simultaneously.Each sword is pointing for Kaiza's heart.But Kaiza didn't even blink.He didn't need to react.Because nowHe knew the game."You don't get to decide anymore."Kaiza reached out with his will, his mind, his very soul.And reality listened.In an instantEvery version of the entity vanished.Not because Kaiza dodged.Not bec

The stars had come back.But peace, Kaiza understood, was not always quiet. It was a tension—the quiet after a storm, the stillness after a scream, full of everything left unspoken.He stood at the boundary of memory.Though his body had been erased from the world, his mind was still anchored, resonating like an old melody in the Archive Between Worlds, the place where stories were never spoken, where truths too hazardous to be remembered were kept.And in its changing halls of golden filaments and ash-hued stone, Kaiza roamed. Not lost. Not captive. But seeking.For the past had not yet released him.Mount Umbra. Years before the end.The Shadowborne children were taught to never flinch.Kaiza recalled the sting of snow searing across his naked toes at initiation. A knife in his fist. A mask upon his eyes. His father's voice, ice as black stone:"Loyalty is not love. It is law."They grew up in silence, taught to dominate a dozen kills before their thirteenth name-day. Feelings were v