The air trembled with unseen force as Orion barely had time to react. The former Sovereign moved with inhuman speed, his figure a blur of darkness laced with flickering golden light. Orion raised his arm just in time to block, but the impact sent him skidding backward, his boots carving deep trenches into the cracked ground.
Lyra's blade flashed, intercepting their foe before he could press his advantage. Sparks ignited as her sword clashed against nothingness—because the man had no weapon. He fought with pure will, bending space around his strikes, turning the air itself into a force of destruction.
Orion steadied himself, his symbiont writhing beneath his skin. This was no ordinary opponent. This was someone who had stood where he now stood. Someone who had once wielded the same power.
The former Sovereign's obsidian eyes locked onto Orion. "You hesitate." His voice carried no malice, only cold certainty. "That's why you'll fail."
Orion clenched his fists. "I'm not you."
"No." A flicker of something unreadable crossed the man's face. "You're weaker."
He vanished.
Orion's instincts screamed. He spun, raising a barrier just as a crushing force slammed into it. The world fractured around them, reality twisting like warped glass. Lyra was forced back, the Forsaken Witnesses watching silently, offering no aid.
This wasn't just a fight. It was a test.
And Orion was losing.
His pulse thundered in his ears as his symbiont surged within him, struggling against unseen restraints. He had grown stronger—far stronger than when he first stepped beyond the Veil—but this man, this thing, was on an entirely different level.
"You don't understand," the former Sovereign said, appearing behind Orion in a whisper of motion. "You think power is enough. But power means nothing without understanding."
A hand touched Orion's chest.
And then, his mind fractured.
---
Orion was falling.
Not through air. Not through space. Through time.
Images crashed through him—memories not his own.
A world burning under the weight of something vast and unknowable. The Weavers, standing against an endless abyss, their golden forms breaking apart as they fought against the Nameless Presence.
A single figure at the heart of it all.
The former Sovereign.
Standing alone.
Holding back the end of everything.
Failing.
The moment shattered. Orion gasped, collapsing to his knees as he was hurled back into reality. His hands trembled, his breath ragged. He felt it—felt what the former Sovereign had felt.
The sheer, incomprehensible despair.
The man stood over him, his expression unreadable. "Now you understand," he murmured. "There is no victory here. There never was."
Orion forced himself to his feet. His vision swam, his mind reeling from what he had just seen.
"No," he whispered. "You're wrong."
The former Sovereign tilted his head. "Am I?"
Orion's heart pounded. He could still feel the weight of that vision, but something inside him refused to accept it. The world may have fallen before. But that didn't mean it had to fall again.
He would not become this.
He straightened, his symbiont stirring in response to his resolve. "I'm not you," Orion said, his voice steady. "And I won't fail."
A slow, almost imperceptible smile touched the former Sovereign's lips.
"Good."
The pressure vanished. The fight was over as quickly as it had begun. The former Sovereign took a step back, studying Orion as if seeing him for the first time.
"You might actually be worth watching," he mused. "We'll see."
With that, he turned and began walking away, his form already fading into the mist.
Orion exhaled, his body still tense, still processing everything.
Lyra stepped beside him. "What the hell was that?"
Orion didn't have an answer.
But he knew one thing.
This fight wasn't over.
Not by a long shot.
---
Deep within the ruins, unseen by either of them, the Forsaken Witnesses stirred.
They were ancient—older than the Weavers, older than the Hollow. They had existed long before the first Sovereign had ever taken the throne.
And now, they had found something of interest.
A being who had defied the path laid before him.
A being who might yet carve a new one.
They whispered among themselves, their voices slithering through the Veil like dying echoes.
"Perhaps this one will not break."
"Perhaps he will be the last."
Or perhaps, like all who came before him…
He would fail.
The ruins pulsed again. The Hollow stirred.
And deep in the abyss, something stirred with it.