The Sovereign of Calamity? The Lord of Finality?

Am I the one they speak of?

I shatter all that stands? I end destinies? I trample the Celestials beneath my claws?

Have I wrought such deeds? How am I blind to them?

Draven Zorathar, the dread dragon, gazed upon the fervent young man in the mental projection, his thoughts swirling in silent contemplation.

This frail mortal seemed to bear a wealth of secrets.

His visage and bearing were unremarkable, the sort that would vanish in a crowd’s tide.

Yet, having found his way to this shadowed altar, armed with hidden knowledge, he might prove a tool of fate.

With this, Elias sifted through the vast archives of his ancient mind, summoning long-dormant mindweave magic with a faint trace of rust.

…

Meanwhile,

Caelum Veyne stood before the dragon statue, its eyes ablaze with an eerie crimson glow, a flicker of unease stirring in his chest.

The overdramatic prayer he’d intoned was drawn from the whispered legends of his past life in the Starlit Realm.

The path to this hidden vocation was shrouded in shadow, its secrets sinister.

The Twelve Pillars of Ruin had offered scant details, revealing only the way to the Altar of the Worldbreaker, where the rest would naturally unfold.

Now, with no sign or stirring from the statue,

He could only probe the darkness alone.

Yet, having ventured this far, the path could not be so arduous.

As he lingered, lost in reverie,

The dragon statue stirred at last.

Its fearsome maw, eyes gleaming with an otherworldly red light in the shadowed realm, seemed to rend the gloom asunder.

A chill crept down Caelum’s spine, as if an unseen presence peered into his very soul.

In that moment,

A majestic voice, vast and resonant, thundered through the air.

“Devotee, proclaim your name!”

The voice roared like a storm’s wrath, laden with the authority of eons.

It bore the weathered cadence of ancient ages, yet pulsed with an unyielding dominion that dwarfed all else.

The voice of the Genesis Sanctum paled before its might, a mere whisper in its shadow.

It had worked!

Was this the moment to etch his alias and forge his destiny?

Caelum faltered for a heartbeat, then a surge of exultation lit his heart.

“Loneveil! Your Majesty, I am Loneveil!”

He invoked the alias of his past life, a name carved in the annals of the game.

After a fleeting silence,

The boundless voice resounded once more.

“Devotee, surrender your will!”

Surrender his will?

Was this the soul’s offering spoken of by the Twelve Pillars of Ruin?

How gloriously overdramatic!

Caelum’s lips curled in a wry smirk, his mind a whirl of uncertainty yet unbowed. He let his thoughts fall still, emptying his consciousness as bidden.

But before he could seek what followed, an indescribable force crashed against his mind.

In an instant, he slipped into a strange, dreamlike trance, his senses adrift in the void.

…

Loneveil?

What manner of name was that? Was there even such a surname?

Draven Zorathar’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of amusement crossing his ancient gaze as he wielded his mindweave magic to project his voice.

“Devotee, surrender your will!”

Such speech was too tedious for a dragon of his stature. If he sought answers, he would claim them himself!

As a primal dragon from the world’s dawn, a titan of boundless might,

Elias was all-knowing, all-powerful, his mastery spanning countless magics. Spells known to the races were his to command; secrets he held, others could scarcely dream of.

Beyond this, he wielded the Primal Essence—the purest fire at the heart of creation.

Over eons uncounted, Elias had woven and refined this vast tapestry of power and lore, yet even now, its depths eluded full mastery.

Such was the immensity of his knowledge and strength.

Naturally, he was versed in the obscure arts of mindweave magic,

Like the voice transmission he had just employed.

And now,

He invoked a forbidden art, lost to the mists of ancient legend: Soulscour.

In a heartbeat, potent magic surged like a tide.

An ivory runearray, etched with intricate arcane sigils, shimmered into being.

A torrent of foreign memories breached the void, flooding Elias’s mind.

Another’s life—decades from cradle to now, every triumph and triviality—poured into his consciousness, vivid and unrelenting.

Soulscour, a taboo of mindweave magic,

Enabled the caster to tear into another’s soul, laying bare their memories.

Its use was fleeting, banned across the continent for its venomous cruelty, until it faded into the forgotten currents of history.

Elias had bid the mortal to surrender his will not to ensure the spell’s success,

But to shield the hapless soul from ruin.

Soulscour was a clash of spirits; should the target resist fiercely, the weaker mind would shatter, reduced to a husk of madness.

Against Elias’s towering will, a mortal’s stood as a candle before a storm.

This human, able to commune with him, bore a spark of uniqueness, a potential yet to be tapped. Elias had no wish to snuff it out.

Thus, he had issued the warning before unleashing the spell.

As the flood of foreign memories surged into his mind,

Elias seized all he sought.

The menacingly ferocious dragon’s visage took on an enigmatic, knowing glint, a shadow of intrigue in his ancient eyes.

“So, this is the truth behind it all?”

“Intriguing… most intriguing…”

Unbeknownst to the entranced Caelum,

His greatest secret—his rebirth through the tides of time—

Lay bare, utterly unveiled to the very being he had invoked in reverence.