Kael's body groaned in protest as he tried to rise. Again.
But his knees buckled under him, a sharp surge of pressure slamming him flat.
The Devourer leader hadn't moved.
He just willed it, and the world obeyed.
"Still trying?" the man murmured, circling Kael slowly like a scholar studying a rare specimen. "You really are a stubborn one."
Kael didn't answer. Couldn't. His limbs were locked under invisible weight, his muscles trembling from exertion.
The man knelt just a few feet away, elbows on his knees, expression almost relaxed.
"I wonder," he said softly, "what you see when you look at me."
Kael's violet-lit eyes stared back, unreadable.
"You don't remember, do you?" The leader's voice lowered. "No memories, no emotions… just that flicker of drive. That thing they left behind. Purpose."
A pause.
He tilted his head slightly, a faint smile touching his lips.
"I used to know you. Before all this."
Kael didn't flinch—but his gaze narrowed, as if trying to scan his face for fragments of something lost.
"You've been recycled," the man continued, voice musing, almost nostalgic. "Cleaned out. Rewritten."
He rose slowly, glancing around the broken square. Smoke still drifted upward in slow curls. The city's lights flickered in the distance.
"They say this place was once built to withstand anything," he muttered. "They were wrong."
He stepped forward, standing directly over Kael now. Looming. Calm.
"You feel it too, don't you? That something's… off. That this world isn't as it seems."
He crouched again, voice lowering.
"There was a time the world was kept in balance. Not by peace. Not by power. But by… hunger."
Kael's fingers twitched. The markings on his skin pulsed faintly.
The man smiled, eyes glowing faintly violet.
"You think Devourers are monsters. But you've never asked why we exist. Or what we really feed on."
He leaned in slightly.
"Excess," he whispered. "Excess emotion. Excess power. Excess humanity."
Kael's mind processed it in silence—words vague, yet too sharp to ignore.
"And when that excess grows too great," the leader said, standing again, "something needs to take the weight."
He began to walk, slowly, hands folded behind his back.
"They feared us. Then they tried to control us. Then they invited us back." A pause. "All of this—cycles. Lies. Forgotten pacts."
Kael finally sat upright, arms shaking.
"You're part of it, you know," the leader said quietly. "You were made for this. You are this."
Kael looked up.
Not angry. Not afraid.
Just calculating.
The leader smiled faintly. "Still so quiet…"
He glanced skyward, then exhaled a slow breath.
"I don't need to fight you anymore," he said, almost dismissively. "Not yet."
Kael's hand clenched.
The man began to turn away, then paused mid-step.
"Oh… one last thing."
He didn't look back—but his voice grew cold.
"Next time… It wouldn't be just the devourers standing in your way."
A sharp gust of wind tore through the square—ash spiraling around them like whispers.
"And not all of them will be as kind as me."