The next confrontation was different.
The Devourer was stronger: vast, radiant with stolen soul-light, but fractured. Its movements stuttered. Its voices overlapped chaotically.
Kael felt it then: instability.
The Devourer mocked him, but there was strain beneath the bravado.
"You starve," it sneered. "And I feast."
Kael stood calmly. "And you're breaking."
For the first time, doubt flickered in the monster's many eyes.