The being stared at Rey.
It didn't blink. Didn't move. Didn't breathe.
Its silhouette shifted and pulsed like it wasn't made for observation. His eyes tried to form shapes—horns, whiskers, tails, claws, rings of shifting runes that spiraled around where its neck might be—but none of it stayed constant. It was all wrapped in shadow deeper than anything he'd seen before. Like a shape carved from absence.
Its grin didn't change.
"I should be the one asking," it said, voice like rippling silk drawn over glass. "Who are you? Where is my fallen fragment?"
Rey's thoughts slowed. Fallen fragment?
"I don't know what you mean by that," he answered cautiously. "But… I got here through detachment. After defeating someone named Adrien, I absorbed the remnants of his domain. Then I severed myself from existence. Everything collapsed. I thought I died."
The grin remained.
"But you didn't."
