The Roar That Broke the Sky
Chapter 19
Eidolon stopped walking.
His smile stayed-wide, glowing, wrong.
But his head tilted slightly, as if listening to something inside his skull... something whispering.
Then, softly... almost gently... he spoke.
"How dare you."
The old man stiffened.
Eidolon's smile stretched.
His voice dropped into a slow, quiet, venomous whisper.
"You scared... pussy... trapped me... in a mere illusion."
The words dripped with something colder than hate.
The old man did not answer.
He couldn't.
His fear-once hidden behind age and pride-now leaked through every trembling breath. Something clicked inside him, a realization that made his face drain of all color.
He finally understood what stood before him.
But before he could speak-
Eidolon interrupted.
This time louder.
"ANSWER ME."
The old man's jaw quivered.
No sound came out.
He shook-violently-like a mortal facing the executioner.
His knees nearly buckled under the weight of terror alone.
Eidolon's smile began to twitch, then twist, then break apart into something feral.
And then-
he snapped.
The roar tore out of him with no warning.
A sound so deep the world itself convulsed.
The coliseum floor cracked open in an instant.
Stone shattered.
Sand exploded upward.
The corpses left on the ground disintegrated into ash.
The sky-
the actual sky-
split open like fragile glass.
Lightning arced through the fractures.
Clouds tore apart.
Reality wavered like a broken reflection.
But Eidolon did not stop.
He roared again-louder, hotter, more violent.
Flames erupted around him, engulfing everything within reach.
His body became a pillar of fire, the ancient letters on his skin blazing so bright they carved themselves into the air.
The world buckled.
The walls around them bent.
The ground melted.
The heavens shook like a canvas ripping apart.
Eidolon kept roaring-
until the entire coliseum collapsed like a shattered mirror, falling piece by piece into nothingness.
Then silence.
A silence so absolute it felt alive.
Only the old man remained standing-barely-eyes wide, breathing shallow, staring at the inferno that had once been Eidolon.
And in that silence, he whispered in horror:
"...What... are you?"
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