With the final removal of his legplates and boots, the GodKing, Raiking, stepped through the main hall's door, his bare feet meeting the cold stone. Instantly, a vivid image materialized before him—a memory not distant for an immortal like him:
Ezmelral's lookalike knelt on the floor, the Keeper of Time and Fate standing beside her, while the GodKing sat upon his throne, his armor gleaming in the torchlight. It was the pivotal moment when he had taken her as his disciple, a decision that had shaped her destiny.
High above, just below the temple ceiling, in the veil of time, Ezmelral and Raiking hovered exactly where they had been when they first witnessed this scene—positioned in a perfect triangle with the past GodKing Raiking below. The past, the present, and the future converged in this singular moment, a collision that promised to define the very fabric of the Cosmos.
The God-King Raiking who had just entered the throne room—stripped of his armor, his grief raw and exposed—tilted his head upward. His unhelmeted face met the gaze of his own future self, suspended within the veil of time. For the first time since his disciple's death, he spoke, his voice a low rumble threaded with memory.
"On Deatheny," he said, the words cutting through the silence, "you warned me this path led to regret."
Within the veil, the future Raiking met his own tormented gaze from the past. Their crimson eyes locked—three reflections of a single soul, divided by centuries of duty and loss.
The armorless, present Raiking gave a faint, weary chuckle.
"You've walked this road.You know where it ends." He paused, the question hanging between them like a blade. "So tell me—was I wrong to ignore your warning?"
The question hung between them, sharp as a blade.
It was perfectly timed. On Deatheny, Raiking's hesitation—his almost-intervention—had betrayed a ghost of regret. That moment had festered.
But now,after witnessing his past self's bond with his fallen disciple, and after centuries within the veil beside Ezmelral, the shape of his heart had changed. Their bond, though brief in the real world, had stretched into eons of shared silence and understanding within the temporal flow.
So, while the God-King's question seemed simple, it was a mocking challenge. It probed the hypocrisy of one whose scars had faded, judging the potential scars of another. It is easy to condemn from a place of forgotten pain.
But now the wound was reopened in its entirety. The look in his eyes spoke the paradoxical truth:
A scar may be ugly—but the journey that earned it was not.
"My answer would be meaningless," he said at last. "You have already chosen your pain."
The GodKing's laugh was a hollow echo.
"Perceptive." His gaze turned upward, past his own reflection, locking onto Ezmelral herself. "Then the threads of this fate no longer belong to us. They are yours."
"Mine?" Ezmelral whispered, her breath faltering.
"You are her, are you not?"
The words were not a question but a decree—delivered with the weight of cosmic truth.
Air left her lungs. She turned to Raiking, pleading for denial, but his silence was the verdict.
Something within her Essence Core shuddered—then tore.
The temple vanished.
She blinked and stood upon a mist-shrouded lake. The surface rippled with each breath she took, the air heavy with memory.
From the haze, a voice emerged—familiar and haunting.
"Now that the truth is free," it said, "we can discuss what must be done."
The mists parted. Her lookalike appeared—pristine and unchanged since the moment of death, white robes drifting around her like mist made flesh. The faint glow of the Bloodmark burned upon her brow.
"Are you…" Ezmelral's voice trembled. "Am I truly your reincarnation?"
"Is that the most important question you have?" her lookalike countered, her tone gentle yet piercing, inviting a deeper truth.
Ezmelral paused, her mind racing back through time, to the very reason for her journey. She steadied her breath. "The solution. How do we stop the suffering?"
Her lookalike nodded, a faint, sorrowful smile touching her lips. "Soon, our master will ask you to make a choice."
"A choice?"
"Mhm," she confirmed, her expression solemn. "The God-King, Raiking, will unleash the Seed of Corruption upon the cosmos."
The words hit Ezmelral with the force of a physical blow. The implications unfurled in her mind, a dark and bitter harvest. "Are you saying…" she breathed, dread coiling tight around her heart, "that Raiking is the one responsible for the suffering that will destroy my planet?"
Her lookalike's face hollowed, a mask of quiet, profound pain. "Responsible?" she repeated, the word soft but sharp as a blade. "After all you have seen of his heart… is that truly the word you choose?"
"No—I didn't mean… I mean, he…" Ezmelral stammered, her words tangling as she fought to reconcile the master she knew with the architect of such devastation.
"Has our suffering taught you nothing?"
The lookalike's voice cracked through the realm like a whip—equal parts fury and sorrow.
"Mortals betrayed us! They carved our grave with their own hands, yet you still rush to their salvation. Tell me—who will save our master from his endless grief while your eyes remain fixed on the undeserving?"
"I—" Ezmelral faltered, her conviction wavering beneath the weight of that truth. Doubt rose like a tide, threatening to pull her under.
Then a single memory pierced through—the first time she had seen this very woman, and Raiking's quiet, anchoring words:
She is she. You are you.
Clarity struck like lightning. Her trembling stilled. When she spoke again, her voice was calm, but iron-strong.
"That was your life. Not mine. My parents, my friends, my village… they never betrayed me. They loved me—and I was powerless to save them. So I will not choose. I will find a way to save both my master and my people."
The lookalike's expression fractured—serenity shattering into raw hostility.
In an instant, she vanished, reappearing inches from Ezmelral, her presence a suffocating pressure.
A cold fingertip pressed against Ezmelral's forehead.
"The choice is easy," she whispered, voice low and terrible, "when you're the one looking in. But tell me—how does it feel from the other side?"
Pain ignited like a brand.
Ezmelral screamed as crimson light flared between them—the Bloodmark searing itself into her flesh. The sigil that once burned on the lookalike's brow now bled into Ezmelral's, engraving itself into her very soul.
She collapsed to her knees, gasping as the deluge came—
—not visions, but memories, lived as though her own.
The slaughter on Deatheny.
The slow, crawling weight of corruption.
The agony of betrayal.
The unbearable, consuming love for her master.
Every emotion crashed through her mind in violent succession, drowning her in another's past—until she could no longer tell where her pain ended and the lookalike's began.
The lookalike stood over her, gaze steady, voice cold with finality.
"I will not allow myself to make the same mistake twice."
As her form began to dissolve into mist, the realm itself trembled. The once-peaceful lake rippled violently, its mirror-surface fracturing. The horizon warped and caved inward as the edges of reality began to crumble, the mist collapsing into a devouring void that swallowed light, sound, and air alike.
Ezmelral's scream echoed into the darkness—
—and then the world was gone.