The rain had just stopped when Kael made his way through the central guild square. The familiar flagstones beneath his boots. The rhythm of the city—merchants shouting, blades clashing in distant training rings, mages practicing basic sparks and streams—was all exactly as he remembered.
Too exactly.
Kael's pace slowed.
He passed the training arena where he once first sparred against a guild scout. The same broken edge of the practice spear, still wedged into the sand. Even the air smelled the same—like iron, Essence dust, and overcooked bread from the stall two corners down.
He swallowed. Hard.
This was no dream.
The world had turned back. But he had not.
He waited by the overlook, where he remembered first meeting Leiya on guild assignment—the soft trail beneath the trees, her laughter carried by the wind, the glint of her hair under the early sun.
And then she came. Just like before.
Leiya.
Not broken. Not crying. Not screaming for him to get up. Just… smiling. Radiant. Curious.
"Are you Kael Fael?" she asked, just like she had that day. "You're the new one they're considering for temporary field status?"
Kael's heart felt like it twisted.
"I am," he said, his voice just a bit too quiet.
She tilted her head. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
He almost laughed. If only you knew.
"It's… nothing. Just didn't expect the clouds to clear so fast."
"Storm affinity, right?" she said with a small grin. "Maybe you scared them off."
Kael smiled faintly. But inside, he was fighting it. Every instinct screamed to reach out—to grab her, pull her close, protect her from a thousand unseen things.
But she didn't remember the nights they fought back-to-back. The time she nearly died trying to save him. The way her voice had cracked when she screamed his name in that final, frozen moment.
Not yet.
So Kael forced himself to remain calm. To speak like a stranger. To act like the cycle hadn't torn them both to shreds.
He trained alone that night. Same hilltop. Same practice log.
But his strikes were different now—sharper, heavier, layered with a ghost of his future self. He didn't just throw punches. He visualized them coated in the raw Essence from that final battle.
That state… when his emotions had ripped through the limits of elemental form. It hadn't been Flame, or Lightning, or even Storm.
It was something else.
Raw will. Crystallized fury. Unrefined power.
He remembered how the Sovereign couldn't keep up. How each blow felt like it bent the world around it. He wanted that again.
But he didn't want it born from despair.
He wanted to master it before the Gate awakened. Before the city burned. Before Arlan lost an arm and Leiya—
Kael's fist crashed through the reinforced stone log, blasting a shockwave down the slope.
He stood there, panting, sweat mixing with the drizzle on his brow.
"I won't let it happen again."
He wasn't just here to train harder.
He was here to win earlier.
No waiting for the Gate to open. No trusting the guilds to figure it out. He'd fight smarter. Strike faster. Build strength far beyond what he'd earned last time.
Kael turned toward the horizon, eyes locked on the edge of the world.
The Sovereign didn't know the cycle had broken.
But Kael remembered every second.