The sky darkened unnaturally the next evening.
Not with clouds, but with soul-light.
Kael felt the convergence before he saw it: thousands upon thousands of souls collapsing inward, bound by a single will. The ground trembled. The air screamed.
At the edge of the plains, the Devourer revealed itself.
Once human...perhaps still was...but now wrapped in layers of stolen soul-light, its form shifting and unstable. Eyes burned with a hunger deeper than Kael's, older and utterly unashamed.
The Sight screamed.
The Devourer smiled.
"So," it said, voice echoing with a thousand stolen throats. "The restrained one finally comes."
Kael nearly collapsed under the pressure of its presence. Every instinct screamed at him to feed, to match the monster blow for blow. The hunger roared, no longer whispering.
Take it. Take them all.
The Devourer stepped forward, the dead moving as one behind it. "You starve yourself for morality," it continued. "I feast for certainty."
Kael stood his ground, shaking, the pale lines beneath his skin blazing.
"I choose," Kael said, forcing the words out. "Every time."
The Devourer laughed.
"Then you will lose."