There was no sky.
No horizon.
Only a fractured void stretching endlessly, like a universe that had forgotten how to be real.

Suspended within it, reality twisted—silent, weightless, wrong.

And in the middle of that impossible stillness stood a dragon.

His chest heaved. His throat burned. His claws trembled against ground that barely felt like it existed at all. Even the air tasted broken, like a melody missing half its notes.

Before him, the being responsible hovered calmly, as if this place bowed to its existence alone. Its very presence didn't shout power.

It simply was power.

He could barely breathe.

"This…"

"…this should have never happened…"

The words never truly escaped him.
They drowned somewhere between horror and denial.

And then reality tore.

A wound opened before his eyes, a ring of distorted light forcing itself into existence—forcing him to look. Forcing him to see it.

And there it was.

A motionless body, lying on cold ground in the world he once called home. Still. A gaping wound through the chest. Wrong.
Wrong in a way existence itself should reject.
Wrong in a way his heart refused to accept.

His breath shattered into fragments.

No words came.

Only a silent scream trapped behind clenched fangs and trembling resolve, as tears blurred the edges of what he saw—but not enough to erase it. Never enough.

Because this wasn't a strike from destiny.
It was simply what happened when monsters were unleashed… and someone wasn't strong enough to survive...

A consequence.

A result.

And now, forced through that impossible window, that consequence had a face. A name. A weight that fell squarely on his chest and refused to let him breathe.

There was no need for the being before him to say it.

He already knew: This was happening because of him.

His heart pleaded for denial, but reality didn't care. Reality didn't flinch. Reality lay there, motionless, with a hole where life should have been.

Behind him, his power lingered like a silent witness to a sentence he had failed to prevent.

This was never just a battle.

It was a punishment.

And he was the one meant to break...