Third Point of view'
The torches along the corridor flickered as Kael descended deeper into the ancient catacombs beneath Drayven Castle. His boots echoed against the damp stone floor, and the musty air clawed at his lungs with every breath. He wasn't alone—he could feel it.
The voices had started whispering again.
"Leon… why did you abandon us?"
He gritted his teeth. "I'm not him," he muttered under his breath. "I'm not that monster."
But the dungeon remembered.
Behind him, his personal guard hesitated at the stairwell. "My lord, are you sure you want to go alone? This section hasn't been opened since the Mad Duke's reign."
"That's exactly why I'm going," Kael replied coldly. "Seal the door behind me. No one follows."
The man hesitated but obeyed, locking the heavy iron gate with a resonant clang. Kael descended further, guided only by the ghostly glow of the runes etched along the walls—old magic, pulsing faintly like dying stars.
He reached the bottom.
A circular chamber stretched before him, walls lined with chains and rusted tools that still reeked of blood and screams. At its center stood a pedestal—on it, a dark crystal wrapped in layers of black mist, pulsing with a heartbeat that wasn't his.
This is it, he thought. The source of the real Leon Drayven's corruption.
He approached, the darkness whispering in his ears like a thousand voices overlapping.
"You want power. I can give it to you. But at a cost."
Kael's fingers hovered over the crystal. He wasn't foolish—he knew what this thing was. A soul shard. A remnant of a contract made with a dark god.
The old Kael—meek, powerless, manipulated—would've been tempted.
But now?
"I don't need you," Kael growled. "I've rewritten fate once. I can do it again."
Still, the crystal pulsed harder, as if sensing defiance. A tendril of shadow lashed out, slicing across his palm. Blood splattered across the pedestal, and the crystal drank it in like wine.
Kael staggered back—but it was too late.
A blast of black energy erupted, engulfing the chamber. The stone walls howled. Chains rattled. Screams echoed—not just from the past, but from something awakening now.
In the heart of the chaos, a figure materialized.
Pale. Tall. His features were Kael's… but older, crueler. A mirror twisted with hate.
It was him. The real Leon Drayven.
"Finally…" the phantom sneered, his eyes glowing red. "You woke me."
Kael summoned a blade from his inventory ring—one of the heirlooms from the vault—and lunged. The blade met resistance midair, clashing against Leon's ethereal claw. Sparks flew.
"You're not real," Kael spat.
Leon tilted his head, grinning. "I am you. Every dark thought. Every desire you bury. Every impulse you suppress."
"I'm nothing like you."
"But you could be."
Kael pushed harder, then kicked the phantom backward. Leon dissipated into mist, then reformed behind him, whispering in his ear.
"You'll need me. When the princess betrays you. When the empire turns on you. When your knights die screaming."
Kael whirled, slashing through the apparition. "Shut up."
The ghost laughed. "Then let's test your resolve."
Suddenly, Kael was no longer alone.
All around him, the shadows came alive—figures emerging from the walls, twisted reflections of his past enemies. The assassin from Chapter 2. The traitorous tutor. The blood mage from the ambush.
All of them stepped forward, eyes glowing with the same malevolent red.
A trial of phantoms.
Kael backed up to the pedestal, chest heaving. The shadows circled him like wolves.
One lunged.
He ducked and rolled, slashing upward. It vanished in smoke. Another came from the side—he parried, then elbowed it in the jaw, spinning into a strike that tore through its core.
But for each one he felled, two more took its place.
His stamina dwindled. His strikes slowed.
"You're not strong enough," Leon's voice hissed from the dark. "You never were."
No, Kael thought. Not again.
He reached inside—past fear, past doubt—to the memory of pain. Of his first death. Of betrayal. And from that wound, he pulled power.
Not from the crystal.
Not from Leon.
From himself.
His body ignited in golden light. His sword, once dull silver, now blazed with holy fire. The shadows screamed and recoiled.
"Let me make something clear," Kael growled, slashing through the enemies with renewed fury. "I'm not Leon. I'm not your puppet. I'm Kael—and I choose who I become."
With a final strike, he drove his blade through the heart of the apparition. Leon screamed as the chamber exploded in light.
When Kael opened his eyes again, the dungeon was silent. The pedestal shattered. The soul crystal, gone.
He staggered to his feet, bloodied and bruised.
But he was alive.
He climbed the stairs, emerging into the cold morning light through the sealed gate, which had mysteriously unlocked on its own.
Standing at the end of the hallway was Princess Seraphina.
Her expression? Cold.
In her hand? A scroll marked with the royal seal.
"What are you doing down there, Leon Drayven?" she asked, eyes narrowing.
Kael blinked, still catching his breath. "Trying to bury the past."
She stepped forward and dropped the scroll at his feet.
"Well, you better resurrect it fast. The Council just declared you a traitor to the Empire."
Kael's heart stopped.
"What?"
Seraphina's expression didn't waver. "You have forty-eight hours to flee—or surrender your head."
Kael battles a haunting manifestation of the original Leon Drayven in the dungeon, defeats the phantoms of his past, only to emerge and discover he's now branded a traitor by the Empire—with Seraphina delivering the news herself.