The silence after the battle felt heavier than the fight itself. Aetheron stood in the vast chamber, his breath slow, his body adjusting to the power that now pulsed within him. The remnants of the fallen warriors had become part of him—not just their strength, but their knowledge, their regrets, their last moments.
It wasn't just power.
It was a burden.
The masked figure stood in the same spot, arms folded, watching. Unmoved. Unimpressed.
"Do you feel it now?" the figure finally spoke.
Aetheron flexed his fingers. The Dominion inside him had changed. It moved differently. More precise. More controlled.
"...Yeah."
The masked figure took a step forward. "Then you're ready for the next step."
Before Aetheron could respond—
The floor beneath him cracked.
Not physically, but... something deeper.
Like the very foundation of reality was splitting apart.
And then—
The world shifted.
The Descent into Memory
Aetheron blinked.
The chamber was gone.
He was standing in a different place.
A battlefield.
Not just any battlefield—one drowned in blood, smoke, and broken bodies.
The air smelled of fire and death. The sky was split open, storm clouds twisting unnaturally. Black lightning crackled across the heavens, illuminating the silhouettes of warriors—thousands of them, clashing, screaming, dying.
Aetheron's heart pounded.
This wasn't an illusion.
It was real.
A memory.
A war that had already happened.
Then—
He saw him.
A figure standing at the center of it all.
Tall. Cloaked in deep crimson. His Dominion surged like a storm, a suffocating pressure that warped the very air around him.
The Sovereign.
Not a shadow. Not a whisper.
The real Sovereign.
Alive.
In battle.
And he wasn't fighting alone.
Beside him stood six others, their auras vast, their power enough to shake the heavens. They weren't ordinary warriors. They weren't even like Aetheron.
They were monsters.
And in front of them—
The true enemy.
Aetheron felt his breath catch.
A being that shouldn't exist.
A thing that had no name, no true form—just a shifting mass of darkness, chaos, and unrelenting hunger.
Aetheron knew what it was.
Even without being told.
The Entity.
The thing the Sovereign had failed to defeat.
The reason Aetheron even existed.
He was here to see it.
To see the truth.
The Sovereign stepped forward, raising his hand.
His Dominion unleashed.
The battlefield shook. The warriors behind him roared, launching forward in unison, their powers colliding with the Entity's endless form.
And then—
The war truly began.
The Battle of Gods
Aetheron could barely process what he was seeing.
Power beyond power.
The Sovereign's Dominion twisted reality itself, carving through the Entity's form, creating gaps in the darkness that instantly healed.
The other warriors moved like forces of nature.
One of them—a woman wreathed in silver flames—tore through the shadows with a sword made of pure light.
Another—a man wrapped in thunder—moved so fast that he seemed to be everywhere at once.
They fought with everything they had.
Every attack was world-shattering.
Every movement bent the laws of existence.
But—
It wasn't enough.
The Entity didn't falter.
It didn't weaken.
It didn't even acknowledge their strength.
It just kept coming.
Aetheron could feel it.
The war was already lost.
And then—
He saw it.
The moment everything changed.
The Sovereign raised his hand once more—
And something broke.
Aetheron felt it.
A shift in Dominion itself.
The Sovereign had done something irreversible.
Aetheron didn't understand it, but the result was clear.
The other warriors screamed. The Entity lurched, as if suddenly restrained.
And then—
The Sovereign fell to his knees.
His power—his very essence—shattered.
The battle ended in an instant.
The Entity didn't die.
It wasn't defeated.
It was sealed.
But at a price.
The Sovereign had lost everything.
His Dominion. His power. His very being.
Aetheron felt the consequences echo through time.
The world had changed that day.
The Dominion had fractured.
The ones who had fought alongside the Sovereign had disappeared.
And the Entity—
It was still waiting.
Waiting for the seal to weaken.
Waiting to return.
Return to Reality
Aetheron gasped.
The battlefield was gone.
He was back in the throne chamber.
His body trembled. His heart pounded.
The masked figure was still there.
Still watching.
Still waiting.
Aetheron swallowed hard. He could barely speak.
But he forced the words out anyway.
"...What was that?"
The masked figure didn't answer right away.
Then—
"The past."
Aetheron clenched his fists. His mind was still racing, piecing everything together.
The Sovereign had failed.
The war had been lost.
The Entity hadn't been destroyed—just sealed away.
And now—
That seal was weakening.
Aetheron exhaled slowly.
He understood now.
Why the Sovereign had given him this power.
Why Dominion even existed in the first place.
This wasn't about ruling.
This wasn't about strength.
This was about finishing what the Sovereign could not.
And he wasn't ready yet.
Not even close.