The echo-Kael shattered into mist, dissolving into the void, leaving Kael alone against the tempest.
He raised Abyssal Fang, its faint pulse responding to his will, a flicker of defiance in the darkness.
The first tendril came fast, a lash of red mist that sought to bind him. Kael ducked, slashing with the dagger, the tendril shrieking as it turned to mist.
Three more surged from behind, their eyes gleaming with hunger. He spun, parried, and leaped back, the ground cracking beneath his feet, ash rising in clouds around him.
The Whisper grew, its form swelling into a storm, a sea, a god of ruin, its eyes a constellation of malice.
Kael's body blurred into motion—slashes, feints, rolls, each movement a desperate bid for survival. But the longer he fought, the slower he became, not from fatigue but from doubt, the Whisper's illusions burrowing into his mind.
