The city below had long since gone to sleep, but Mythara didn't.

He sat cross-legged on the rooftop of the skyscraper near his parents' home—the same one where Roratha had been attacked years ago. The memory of that night still clung to the building like ash, a scar etched into steel and stone. Tonight, though, the streets were quiet. The air carried a cool bite, pressing against his skin, tugging faintly at his hair as the wind shifted between towers. Streetlights hummed like tired ghosts, their pale glow spreading out in fractured halos across empty intersections.

From this height, the city was a grid of uneven light and shadow. Glass panes reflected each other in jagged fragments. To someone else, it might be beautiful; to Mythara, it felt brittle, ready to shatter if he stared too long.

But it wasn't the city he was watching.

Dozens of screens floated in the air before him, pulled from every corner of the world. They hung in a loose arc, their glow bending across his face, casting him in fractured light that shifted with each feed. Sometimes he looked like a boy, sometimes like a beast. The colors danced across his skin in blues, reds, and pale white, each one catching on the sharp edge of his jaw, the tired lines under his eyes. He leaned forward, elbow on one knee, chin resting against his fist, and stared into the storm of images.

Total Global Peace. That's what they called it.

On one feed, smiling diplomats signed agreements, their hands clasped as if that gesture alone could bind the future. Humans and monsters stood shoulder to shoulder for the cameras, smiling too widely, teeth gleaming under the glare of lights. Students and scientists packed their belongings into shuttles bound for Firmatha Sangaur, their laughter tight with excitement, or maybe fear. Commentators hailed it all as a miracle, a dawn humanity had never thought possible.

For a moment, Mythara almost let himself believe it. His chest eased with the slightest sigh, a relief so profound it felt dangerous. Peace had come before the three years Cefketa had given them, and with little resistance. The deadline that had hung over him like a guillotine no longer pressed so close. For the first time in months, he allowed himself a single breath of gratitude.

And yet—

His stomach twisted, as though the relief itself poisoned him. This was peace, yes, but peace laced with dread. The feeds unraveled too smoothly, too cleanly. The world's reaction—those who accepted, those who resisted—was exactly what anyone might predict. It felt staged, a performance of reality.

Did he see this? Or did he make it happen?

Another screen shifted to riots outside a cathedral. Protesters clashed with priests, scripture banners torn and burned in the chaos. Faith itself cracked under the weight of revelation.

On yet another channel, lawmakers bellowed across parliaments, demanding biometric enforcement bills.

Another feed cut in, different from the others. Not diplomats, not monsters — just a masked girl sprinting rooftops with a drone at her back. The scrolling chat along the edge of the screen blurred with emojis, taunts, and cheers. She leapt, spun midair, and caught the next ledge with flawless precision.

The scene changed to her walking on the edge of a thick fog. Then the feed stuttered. Static. Black.

The anchors replayed it, voices grave: "Phantom Veil — the streamer known for running with monsters on camera — vanished mid-broadcast 3 days ago, after stepping into what eyewitnesses describe as a wall of living fog. Thousands watched it happen live."

Clips looped: her last words, "I'm going in," spliced with tribute edits, conspiracy boards, Alongside with calls for Firmatha Sangaur to explain the anomaly.

Mythara watched in silence. Just a human girl, swallowed by something she couldn't understand. He felt a tightening in his chest — how quickly the world consumed the unprepared, how even extraordinary humans vanished without a trace.

He dragged his gaze from the screen. Relief and dread coiled tighter in his gut.

Mythara's hand dragged down his face, rough against his skin. Too perfect. Too rehearsed."

He cursed under his breath. Ever since Cefketa had given him that three-year limit, the world had seemed to move on rails, slipping further and further beyond his control.

And then, unbidden, Nina's voice rose from memory—sharp, unyielding, impossible to silence.

"You are of my blood, but were born of this world. That means this world should naturally be yours when the time comes. No, with that power comes a choice. Will you share this world with the humans and let them continue as they have… or will you take what is yours and rule it as you see fit?"

The question burned in him even now. He could see two paths unspooling across the screens like a prophecy.

In one, he was a protector only—forever patching holes in a dam that would never stop leaking. Riots, wars, betrayals, famine; he would arrive too late more often than not, the crowds cheering his name one day and cursing it the next. Gratitude was fickle, and protection was never enough.

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In the other, he was the ruler. The streets were quiet, banners stretched clean across skylines, no one daring to raise a fist. Order absolute, chaos suffocated. But the silence was heavy, a silence of fear. The faces in that world did not smile—they obeyed. But he was a tyrant.

He was a Dragon. Wasn't tyranny what nature expected of him? To dominate. To command. To burn away resistance and bend the world to his will? Should he bow to that nature—or trust in humanity, fragile as it was?

The screens flickered again. For a fleeting instant, he saw himself reflected across them. Mythara, the ruler. Auranos Threnos, the shield. Trigger the weapon. Kenji, the son. Each face stared back at him, fractured and incomplete, none more true than the others.

A voice cut the silence.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Mythara stiffened. He hadn't heard anyone approach, yet there Cefketa was, hovering behind him as though he had always been there, a shadow stitched into the night.

Mythara didn't turn. His eyes stayed locked on the screens. "Do you mean the view… or what's happening on them?"

Cefketa's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Aren't they the same thing?"

At that, Mythara turned—and froze.

Cefketa floated effortlessly above the rooftop, robe loose around his shoulders. For the first time in years, there was no sign of the rot that had once eaten through his scales. The sickness that had threatened to hollow him out was gone. His body gleamed, whole again.

Mythara stared, the breath catching in his throat. Every trace of rot was gone. The ragged, corroded scales that had once eaten through Cefketa's flesh were replaced with flawless plates of obsidian-black, each one edged in a sheen that caught the rooftop light. The stench of decay, the aura of sickness—vanished. In its place was vitality so sharp it felt like standing too close to a storm. However, the strong tang of iron from the Blood Pools lingered. It only added to the oppressive danger that radiated off him.

Bitterness flickered through him. Cefketa was whole again—restored, unbroken, stronger than ever—while Mythara himself still felt split in two, caught between names and lives that didn't fit. He had been desperately trying to strengthen himself and become what he was meant to be. In Cefketa's absence, every step he took felt uncertain. Yet Cefketa felt so certain about every choice, every belief. The unfairness of it dug deep.

Mythara's throat tightened. "You're fully healed?"

"Yeah." Cefketa's gaze swept back to the feeds. "Look at it. That's all the Earth is, Mythara. A view. A speck of dust clinging to its illusion of importance. We are dragons—destined for things far greater than this shard. And you… You still don't understand who you are. That is why nothing will ever go the way you want it to."

Mythara steadied himself, voice hard. "Are things going the way you want, then? Were you responsible for all of this—this sudden peaceful chaos?"

Cefketa's eyes gleamed with amusement. "The vast majority has nothing to do with me. Humanity digs its own grave faster than I could ever force it. I only gave the smallest of pushes. A whisper here, a nudge there. Enough to speed things along. After all, the three years are almost up."

The words sank into Mythara's bones like lead. If even the smallest pushes from Cefketa could tilt the world like this, how much of this peace was real? How much was a leash disguised as choice?

And the three years—almost up.

Mythara exhaled a bitter sigh. He knew this wasn't the end. But even if peace crumbled tomorrow, he couldn't see how it would decay into war in just four months. Unless… unless that too had already been written into the rails.

His voice rose, sharp. "Then what is it you actually want? If you wanted to destroy humanity, there are easier ways. If you wanted to rule them, this is far too messy. Too many variables. Too much chaos."

Cefketa's voice softened, but every syllable carried weight. "What I want has never changed. Not for an instant. Since the night of my engagement dinner, I've only wanted one thing—a world where my child could grow up happy and healthy."

Mythara frowned, confusion hardening into dread. "Your… child?"

Cefketa's gaze settled on him. "And that child has taken an unexpected form."

The truth struck him like lightning. Mythara's jaw locked. "I don't need your help to live happily and healthily."

"You still need help even knowing your own name," Cefketa countered, circling him like a predator playing with prey. His voice was smooth, almost playful. "Who are you, hmm? Are you Kenji? Trigger? Mythara? Auranos Threnos?"

Each name hit like a blow.

Kenji—his human self, the boy who once belonged to a home, to a mother who wanted him to live an ordinary life. That name felt too small now.

Trigger—the weapon, forged in fire and command, trained to obey and to kill. That name was sharp, efficient, merciless. But it carried chains with it, shackles he swore he had broken.

Mythara—the dragon title that loomed like a crown too heavy for his skull. It was power, destiny, inevitability. And yet when he tried to hold it, it slipped through his grip, crushing him with its weight.

And finally, Auranos Threnos—the name that had been chosen, fought for, but still felt incomplete. A patchwork stitched from too many lives, carrying fractures that never healed.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came. Not one of them fit. Not completely. And Cefketa knew it.

Each name weighed on his shoulders—too heavy, too fractured. All of them true, none of them enough.

Cefketa's chuckle was low, rich with amusement. "See? You're still a child, Isuel. Still in need of his daddy's guiding hand."

"Don't call me—" Mythara snapped, but Cefketa's voice drowned his protest.

"You don't want to leave this speck of dust? Then I'll show you. I'll show you how they will never love you, only fear you. I'll show you how quickly they'll turn the moment they no longer need you, or the moment they have the strength to oppose you. And then I'll show you how to carve eternal fear into them, until they believe they will always need you."

Mythara's fists clenched until his knuckles cracked. His voice was raw. "That isn't the way forward."

Cefketa tilted his head, eyes gleaming like coals. "You don't believe that. You don't believe in anything—not even your own strength. If you did, you wouldn't be standing here, playing politics. You'd be trying to beat me into submission."

For weeks, he had held his tongue. For months, he had swallowed doubt, let questions gnaw at him, let others pull the rails of fate tighter around his neck. No more.

Rage surged hot and wild, burning away silence and fear alike. His vision narrowed, every screen around him bleeding into white.

With a roar that split the night, Mythara launched at Cefketa.

The rooftop shuddered as power cracked the darkness, air warping from the impact. Screens shattered into fragments of light, tumbling like dying stars.

And the world itself seemed to hold its breath.

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