Chapter 9: Echoes of the Past

Kael stood alone on the ruined bridge, his breath steadying, his mind racing. The Shadeborn had retreated, but not in defeat. They had tested him and now they knew.

Knew that the Celestial Sovereign had returned.

Knew that his powers were awakening.

And soon, others would know too.

The distant ruins stretched before him, a maze of forgotten history. The Forsaken Lands were not empty they were a graveyard of a war so ancient that even the gods had abandoned it.

Kael clenched his fists. He had survived, but the truth gnawed at him. Why had they tried to erase him from history? Why had the Shadeborn spoken of a sealing?

"If I was powerful enough to be erased what did I do?"

Kael turned from the bridge, stepping cautiously into the ruins beyond. Shadows loomed, but his senses were sharper than before. The deeper he went, the stronger the feeling became.

A presence.

It wasn't Shadeborn. It wasn't human.

It was something older.

A whisper brushed against his mind, not with sound, but with memory.

"Come forth, lost one…"

Kael's body tensed. This wasn't an enemy.

But it wasn't an ally either.

The ruins trembled as an ancient monument loomed before him a massive, weathered obelisk, covered in inscriptions that pulsed with a faint, silvery glow. The symbols felt familiar, as if something deep inside him recognized them.

His fingers traced the carvings.

A surge of energy rushed through him.

And suddenly, the world fell away.

Kael gasped as his vision shifted. The ruins disappeared, replaced by a city of golden towers, stretching endlessly under a sky filled with celestial light.

He was no longer in the present.

This was a memory.

And in the center of it all stood a throne, carved from pure starstone.

Upon it sat a figure a man wreathed in power, his eyes burning silver, his aura bending time and space itself.

Kael staggered back. He knew that presence.

It was him.

Not as he was now. But as he had been before he was erased.

The past Kael, the true Celestial Sovereign, raised a hand, and the air itself shattered like glass. Thousands of figures kneeled before him gods, emperors, and creatures that defied mortal understanding.

"By my will, fate bends." The past Kael's voice echoed through eternity. "By my command, time is mine alone."

Kael's breath hitched.

Had he truly ruled over time itself? Had he defied even the gods?

The vision shifted violently.

A war.

A battle that shook the heavens. His past self stood alone against an army of celestial beings, their eyes filled with fear and desperation.

And then the sealing.

A thousand hands reached out. Chains of divine power wrapped around him, pulling him into the abyss, shattering his existence.

"You will be forgotten."

"You will never return."

"Time itself will reject you."

The vision snapped. Kael's knees hit the ground, his breath ragged. The ruins returned, the golden city gone.

But the weight of what he had seen remained.

He had not just been erased.

He had been betrayed.

And now, the ones who had done it would know.

The Celestial Sovereign had returned.