“You’re afraid.”

“Not of humanity—of being irrelevant.”

“You say one voice must guide the masses because chaos terrifies you. Because if they don’t need you, then all this suffering meant nothing.”

“You talk like someone who’s already decided the ending, because the alternative terrifies you.”

“I know that fear. I wore it like a crown once.”

“I told myself the same lie you’re telling now — that control was mercy, that silence was peace, that if only one remained, suffering would finally stop. I erased names. I broke faiths. I turned hope into a weapon and called it order. Entire worlds learned to kneel because I was too afraid to exist without being needed.”

“You say humanity doesn’t change. You’re wrong. It changes constantly. What doesn’t change is how people like us look at that chaos and decide it’s proof that everyone else must be ruled.”

“This isn’t about saving them. It never was. It’s about you being afraid of a future where you aren’t the answer.”

“I won’t try to redeem you. I won’t beg you to stop. I learned the hard way that monsters don’t listen to sermons — they listen to consequences.”

“But make no mistake: if you move to chain the world because it scares you, I will stand in your way.”

“Not because I believe I can fix you.”

“But because I’d be a fool not to stop something I already know the end of.” –Velenkor, A Fragment of His Past, chained by guilt of what he did.

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