The Price of Power
A Reality Fractured
The battlefield was silent. Too silent.
Kalen stood at the center, his chest rising and falling with slow, measured breaths. His hands trembled—not with fear, not with exhaustion, but with something else.
Something new.
The sky above him was clear. The weight of the abyss had lifted.
But something was wrong.
Something felt… off.
He turned to his allies—Varik, Renna, Darian. They were watching him.
But not with relief.
Not with joy.
They looked at him like he was a stranger.
Why are they staring at me like that?
Then he saw it.
The shadows still clung to him.
They were no longer his enemy. They were part of him.
He lifted his hand, and the darkness responded. It curled around his fingers, whispering, shifting, waiting.
It obeyed him.
But it did not belong to him.
Did I… take too much?
The Fracture Begins
Varik took a hesitant step forward. His voice was careful, measured.
"Kalen… what happened to you?"
Kalen opened his mouth to answer. But the words felt wrong before they even left his tongue.
What did happen to me?
He tried to remember.
He tried to retrace his thoughts, his steps, his choices.
But there was a gap.
A moment where things stopped making sense.
Where reality had blurred.
He had defeated the Harbinger. He was sure of that. He had watched him fall.
And yet…
Something was missing.
Something had changed.
He turned to Darian, searching for answers. But Darian's expression only made the unease in his chest grow deeper.
"You don't remember, do you?" Darian whispered.
"…Remember what?"
No one answered.
And that terrified him more than anything.
The World That No Longer Recognized Him
The ruins of the battlefield stretched out before him, unchanged.
And yet, the air felt different.
The world looked the same, but it wasn't.
It was as if something had shifted beneath the surface—something subtle, something imperceptible.
Kalen clenched his fists.
Think. Remember.
But when he tried to focus on the moment he won, when he tried to recall the exact second the Harbinger fell…
There was nothing.
Only a void.
This isn't right.
Something is wrong.
Something is missing.
His heart pounded in his chest.
And then, the shadows around him whispered.
"Are you sure you won?"
The Doubt That Devoured
The words weren't his own.
They came from… somewhere else.
The shadows? The abyss? Or something deeper?
Kalen staggered back, shaking his head. No. He had won. He had seen the Harbinger fall.
Hadn't he?
What if…
What if that wasn't the end?
What if the battle hadn't stopped?
What if he had just moved into the next stage—without realizing it?
A cold chill crawled down his spine.
He turned to Varik, to Renna, to Darian.
And for a fraction of a second, their faces…
Blurred.
Not like an illusion.
Not like a trick.
But like something was rewriting itself.
Like reality itself was shifting.
Kalen's breathing quickened.
"What's happening?" he demanded.
"What did I do?"
Darian hesitated.
Then, slowly, he reached out—but not toward Kalen.
Toward something behind him.
Kalen didn't want to look.
But he had to.
The Truth Behind Him
Slowly, painfully, he turned.
And he saw it.
A figure.
Standing in the distance, in the ruins of the battlefield.
Unmoving.
Watching.
A figure that should not exist.
A figure that should have been erased.
A figure that had already fallen.
The Harbinger.
Alive.
Untouched.
Unbroken.
And he was smiling.
End of Chapter 19