Reborn as the celestial God

The world shattered.

Kael barely had time to react as the ruins, the sky, even the very ground beneath his feet collapsed into nothingness. He was falling not through space, but through time itself.

Memories, echoes of a past not yet remembered, flashed around him. War. Betrayal. Power beyond comprehension.

Then silence.

Kael's feet hit solid ground. He stood in a vast expanse of white, endless and formless. The masked figure stood before him, unmoving.

"This is a realm outside time," the figure said, its voice deep and hollow. "A place where the past and future do not exist."

Kael's silver eyes burned. "Who are you?"

The figure lifted its mask slightly, just enough for Kael to see the faint glow of celestial markings beneath it.

"I was like you."

A flicker of recognition stirred within Kael.

"Another Sovereign?"

The masked warrior nodded. "You were not the first to control time and you will not be the last."

The space around them shifted. Suddenly, Kael was no longer standing in the void but atop a floating battlefield.

Two celestial beings clashed in the skies above, their strikes splitting the heavens apart. Reality itself broke under their power.

Kael could feel it one of them was him. The other…

"Aetherion," the masked warrior said, as if reading his thoughts. "The one who betrayed you."

Kael's breath hitched. The Timekeeper, the one who had sealed him away, had once been his equal.

Or worse his rival.

"You fought to control fate itself," the masked warrior continued. "You sought to rule time. But so did he. And in the end…"

Kael's past self in the vision fell, chains of divine power wrapping around him. Thousands of celestial beings stood against him, their eyes filled with fear.

"They turned against you," the warrior said. "Because they knew if you succeeded, none would ever stand against you again."

Kael clenched his fists. His whole life his death, his erasure, his rebirth was because they had feared his power.

"And what of you?" Kael turned to the warrior. "Who were you?"

The masked figure remained silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, it lifted a single hand.

The air rippled. The weight of a thousand forgotten battles pressed down on Kael's soul.

"I was the one who came before you."

Kael's heart stopped.

"The first Celestial Sovereign."