Everything was still.
Kael's body lay motionless, half-buried in debris. Blood soaked through the torn remnants of his uniform. The Sovereign stood a short distance away, triumphant, his eyes gleaming with cruel satisfaction as he raised a hand toward Leiya.
And then—
Time broke.
The air turned silent, as though the very concept of sound had been erased. The Sovereign's movement froze mid-step. Dust hung suspended. A droplet of blood inched downward from Kael's brow but never touched the ground.
Kael blinked.
His chest still burned, every muscle torn, but something was… wrong. Or right. The pain hadn't dulled—it had simply paused. He could feel the weight of the world holding its breath.
Then it came.
A voice. It didn't echo. It didn't speak. It simply was.
"So many times you've stood… even after falling."
"So many defeats. So much pain. But not once did you surrender."
Kael's eyes slowly turned. The world was bathed in silver light, the sky cracked open to a strange, vast emptiness above. A divine stillness swept across reality. His body was broken, but something deep within him stood straighter—his soul, his spirit, his essence.
"Even now, when you had no hope… you struck back."
"You reached beyond what should be possible for a mortal, even one touched by Flame."
Kael breathed, eyes heavy. "Who… are you?"
"I am what your people once called a god. I have watched this cycle begin… and end… more times than you will ever know."
Kael's brow furrowed. "The cycle… The resets…"
"Correct. The Sovereign has been using the cycle to shape the world to his design—seeking a moment when the Gate will open fully, when your world is ripe for collapse."
"But this time… something changed. You."
Kael's hand clenched into the rubble. "But I lost. Again."
"You did. But what you became—what your fury unlocked—was beyond what even the Sovereign foresaw."
"You died, but not defeated. You were moments away from unraveling him."
Kael shut his eyes.
Images flashed behind his eyelids—Riven's broken form, Arlan's arm torn away, Leiya's scream. His fists trembled. "None of it mattered… not if they still died."
"And that… is why I am here."
The light shifted, and Kael was lifted gently into the air. Time remained shattered around him, but he could feel the warmth of something infinite holding him aloft.
"I offer you this once: a reset. Not the Sovereign's. Yours. You will go back—not to the beginning, but to where the tide first turned."
"You will retain all that you know. Your body will be whole. The war will still come. The Sovereign will still rise."
"But this time, you will be ready."
The God paused.
"So… do you accept? The chance to change everything?"
Kael thought of everything that had gone wrong. The ambush outside Elandor. The slow build-up of the Varnok surge. Riven's final stand. Leiya's helplessness. His own weakness.
And then he remembered something else.
The fire in his chest. The thing that never went out.
"I do," Kael whispered. "And I won't waste this opportunity."
"Then go. Rewrite the path. Not for power. Not for glory. For them."
The light grew impossibly bright.
The world began to rebuild itself in reverse—slowly at first. The shattered building around him pulled together. Blood retreated back into wounds. Screams inverted into silence. Flames unburned.
The tempo quickened.
Mountains that had split snapped back together. Skies that had darkened with Varnok blight began to clear. The fractured realm pulsed, then surged backward in time.
Elandor regressed—scars gone, streets bustling, towers intact. Guilds unbroken. Friends alive.
And then—
Kael stood beneath a grey sky, the clouds thick with the scent of oncoming rain. His Storm affinity had just awakened. He was at the training grounds, his muscles sore from pushing himself to exhaustion the night before.
He blinked.
His heart was steady. His body healed. His mind—sharp, alive, and burning with purpose.
He could feel it. Everything was different now.