(Present Day, The Eternal Garden, Veyr’s POV)
"Yet he was the one who made me this way...."
As Kaelith’s words trailed into silence, his usual composure began to fracture, the calm mask of divinity slipping as faint lines creased his forehead and his jaw tightened. His teeth ground together audibly, the faint glimmer of rage flickering beneath his serene expression.
"I do not despise the Cult," he said at last, his voice low but trembling with contained emotion. "I never did. If anything, I once loved it more than anyone ever could. After all, I was raised to lead it—to guide it into an age of peace and prosperity beyond the reach of chaos or greed."
He paused, his gaze turning distant as the silver mist around them stirred faintly, bending to his mood. "So no, young Dragon, when you assume that I feel nothing for it, you are mistaken. For in truth, it pains me to watch the very worlds I conquered fall into ruin, to see the legacy I built for my father’s dream now twisted by Mauriss and his vile men."
Veyr’s eyes widened, his breath catching slightly as he took a half step forward.
He had never heard this side of the story before, no one in the Cult had.
The history they knew painted Kaelith as the betrayer, the god who turned his blade upon his own blood. Yet standing here now, hearing the bitterness laced beneath the calm of his voice, Veyr felt the first tremor of doubt.
"And as for Soron," Kaelith said softly, his tone shifting into something that almost resembled warmth, "he remains my beloved brother, the only kin I have ever truly cherished besides our father, for the universe bears witness to the fact that I practically raised him myself.
When my father was too busy governing the Cult, it was I who spent countless hours correcting his stance, refining his technique, shaping his instincts until he could stand proud on any battlefield."
His gaze turned distant, the faintest trace of nostalgia slipping through his voice. "It was I who guided him past the same pitfalls that once hindered me, who shared every secret I had learned through pain and conquest. And because of that, his foundation surpassed mine, his potential unchained, his strength rising until he became second only to our father himself."
Kaelith drew a slow breath, the faintest shimmer of melancholy crossing his eyes. "So when I ask how he fares, I am not lying, Dragon. I do care deeply, not just for what he has become, but for how much longer he has left to live."
Kaelith expressed, as Veyr faltered, his initial anger suppressed as he began to treat this conversation more rationally.
"To be honest, I don’t know how he is faring.
The only time I’ve seen Lord Soron in person is when he attended the fight between myself and Leo to be appointed as Dragon, and back then, he looked fine to me.
So if he’s not.... It’s not something I know of."
Veyr said, as he cautiously spoke the truth without revealing too much information about the Cult, as Kaelith nodded in agreement.
"I suppose you won’t know how he’s truly faring, afterall, he wasn’t the kind to show his weakness to others.
Perhaps the only one who knew about his health was Charles, and he’s dead now."
Kaelith spoke without emotion, as Veyr’s pupils constricted at the mention of Charles, the Monarch’s death reminding him of the fact that it was Kaelith’s son Raymond who killed the Cult’s Vice Sect Master.
"You almost had me convinced there," Veyr said at last, his voice quiet but trembling with restrained fury. "Almost."
He took a slow step forward, his shadow falling across the divine marble beneath them, his expression hardening as his tone deepened. "However, I forgot about the fact that it was your son who killed Charles, and nobody else. You stand here now, acting as if you have no part in the Cult’s fall, as if your hands are clean. But the truth is far uglier, isn’t it?"
His eyes sharpened, burning with unrestrained anger. "You are the reason the Cult suffers as it does. You are the one who dragged it into these dark times."
Kaelith turned toward him, the faint light of the Eternal Garden reflecting across his face as his eyes gleamed with divine arrogance. When he spoke, his tone was neither apologetic nor defensive, but rather proud.
"You’re damn right I am."
The words struck like thunder, freezing the air between them. Veyr’s heart skipped a beat, his breath caught in disbelief at the sheer brazenness of the confession.
Kaelith’s gaze bore into him, calm yet blazing with the weight of conviction. "I did not lie when I said I care for the Cult and for Soron. But that does not mean I deny my part in its fall. I am its destroyer as much as I was once its protector."
He took a step forward, the garden’s golden light rippling around his feet as his tone sharpened, rich with power and old resentment. "When my father denied me my birthright, when he stripped from me everything I was raised to become, I made a promise to myself. That if the Cult could not be mine to rule, then it would belong to no one. And from that very day, I began to plan its end."
Kaelith’s expression darkened, his divine composure unraveling as the sea behind them began to churn. "For two hundred years, I plotted. I forged pacts with the slimy snake Mauriss. I shook hands with the brute Helmuth. I gathered the Six Great Clans beneath one single cause: to bring down my father and end the age of the Timeless Assassin."
Lightning shimmered faintly through the silver mist, as if the Eternal Garden itself recoiled from the truth being spoken aloud.
"I orchestrated the Great Betrayal," Kaelith declared, his voice deep and commanding. "I united the remaining gods under one banner, and together, we struck down the greatest warrior the universe had ever known.
It was I who ended his reign, I who claimed his daggers, and I who carved a new order from the ruins he left behind."
His eyes burned brighter, his aura flaring until even the petals of the divine flowers bent away from him. "After the Great Betrayal, I conquered once more, not for the Cult, not for Father, but for myself.
I became the architect of the Righteous Alliance. I forged the universe anew. And now, after all these years, I have even erased the final embers of the Cult’s defiance from existence."
Kaelith’s voice rose, resonant and absolute, the words cutting through the air like divine judgment. "I may not be the strongest god, nor the most cunning, nor the most loved—but I am the one closest to my father, the one who he raised to be just like him.
His blood flows through me. His will still echoes in my veins. And even though I’m not as good a warrior as him, I still have his mindset unlike any other.
The ancient prophecy says that the Timeless Assassin will walk between the seconds once more.
But I believe he already does.
For after my father, I am the new Timeless Assassin."
The last word reverberated through the garden, as the sky dimmed and the ocean trembled in response to his outrageous claim.
Veyr stood frozen in place, his breath shallow, his body cold.
For in that moment, Kaelith looked neither guilty nor remorseful.
He looked divine.
Righteous.
And terrifyingly certain that he was right.
As it was at this moment that Veyr finally realized that it wasn’t his father’s memory that Kaelith truly worshiped, but rather the reflection that stared back at him every time he looked in the mirror.