Chapter 2690: Story 2691: The First Enemy

The door opened.

Beyond it was not darkness.

It was silence.

Kael stepped through.

Every sound disappeared.

No heartbeat.

No wind.

No distant voices.

Nothing.

Behind him, the stranger remained outside the threshold.

“Brother,” he called.

Kael turned.

The stranger shook his head.

“I cannot follow.”

“Why?”

“Because this place remembers what I forgot.”

The door began closing.

Kael raised his sword.

“Then remember with me.”

The stranger smiled sadly.

“I already did.”

The door vanished.

Kael stood alone.

Ahead stretched an endless white plain beneath a black sky.

At its center stood a figure.

A man.

Tall.

Motionless.

His face was hidden beneath a crown of white bone.

Kael approached.

“Are you the first enemy?”

The figure lifted its head.

“No.”

Kael stopped.

“Then who are you?”

The figure removed the crown.

Kael froze.

The face beneath it was his own.

But older.

Far older.

Its eyes were completely black.

“I am the first memory.”

Kael tightened his grip.

“What do you remember?”

“Everything.”

The figure extended one hand.

The white plain disappeared.

Kael saw the beginning.

Before the First Soul.

Before the King Before Kings.

Before the white tree.

Before light and darkness.

There was only one being.

Kael.

Not Elarion.

Not Azrael.

Not any name.

He stood alone before an endless black ocean.

Behind him appeared eight lights.

Then a ninth.

Kael watched himself turn toward them.

“I created them.”

The figure spoke.

“Not as children.”

Kael stared.

“As pieces.”

The vision changed.

The nine lights became souls.

Each carried a fragment of the original consciousness.

Lena.

Elias.

Azael.

The fifth.

The sixth.

The Forgotten Child.

The seventh.

And the eighth.

Kael looked at the ninth light.

“What was the ninth?”

The figure pointed toward him.

“You.”

Kael shook his head.

“No.”

“Yes.”

The vision shifted again.

The nine souls formed a circle around the black ocean.

Something moved beneath it.

The first enemy.

Kael watched the version of himself raise his hands.

“I cannot destroy it.”

The figure nodded.

“So you created the First Soul.”

“To contain it.”

“No.”

Kael looked sharply at him.

“To hide it.”

The black ocean erupted.

A gigantic crimson eye opened beneath the surface.

Kael felt terror for the first time.

“What did you hide?”

The figure looked into his eyes.

“Your enemy.”

The eye opened wider.

“No.”

Kael stepped backward.

“It was not inside the First Soul.”

The figure smiled.

“It was inside you.”

Kael’s sword began trembling.

The black ocean rose behind him.

The figure whispered,

“You were never created to imprison the enemy.”

Kael turned slowly.

“Then why?”

The ocean became a towering shape.

The voice of the thing beneath it shook creation.

“Because you are the enemy.”

Kael’s eyes widened.

The figure disappeared.

The black ocean swallowed the white plain.

And from its depths, something wearing Kael’s face rose.

It smiled.

“Welcome home, Elarion.”

Kael raised his sword.

The creature whispered,

“Now remember what you did.”