All of it folded into a singular point of catastrophic stress. The way a star collapses when its own mass becomes too great. The way a membrane tears when stretched beyond its limits. Then the universe ruptured. I saw it with unbearable clarity. The sky above Earth split like shattered glass. Not metaphorically. Actually split. A jagged tear opened across the heavens, exposing a depthless void where no void should have existed. An opening into nonspace. A wound in creation itself. A boundary that was never meant to be breached. Through Nadine’s stunned comprehension, I understood the true horror. The universe was not empty. It was structured. Balanced. Held together by laws so fundamental they had seemed immutable.
And the Umbrians had broken those laws. The tear expanded with terrifying speed. Gravitational fields destabilized. Continents cracked. Oceans rose into the air, drawn upward toward the widening fracture. Cities of crystal and light were ripped from the surface and pulled screaming into the darkness.
The atmosphere itself peeled away. Earth began to fall. Not through space. Into the wound. Into the impossible absence beyond it. Nadine’s thought reverberated through the shared vision with breathless, scientific awe.
A self-sustaining gravitational and dimensional cascade. Once initiated, it could not be reversed. The rupture fed on matter, energy, and curvature itself, widening as it consumed. A cosmic chain reaction. Earth vanished first. Then surrounding worlds. Stars. Entire systems.
All of them dragged into the opening, their mass fueled the expansion of the abyss. The wound deepened. Darkened. Became aware. Nox Eternum was created. An eternal night.
Not simply destruction. A hole where reality had been torn apart so completely that the universe could no longer heal itself. And through Nadine’s fierce, horrified wonder, I understood why her voice trembled whenever she spoke of the Abyss. Why she was so enraptured with it. It was not a natural phenomenon. Not a black hole. Not a storm. It was the scar left when civilization itself had broken the fundamental laws of creation. A mistake so catastrophic that millions of years later, the cosmos still bled.
The vision shifted. The Arkhevari stood before the cosmic wound, enduring unimaginable grief and loss. The vision shifted. The screams of Earth faded into a terrible silence. Before us stretched the newborn wound to reality.
Nox Eternum.
It hung across the stars like a tear in the fabric of creation, its edges jagged and unstable, bleeding darkness into the surrounding cosmos. Entire worlds still tumbled into its depths. Moons, suns, entire galaxies, and the burning remains of civilizations spiraled toward oblivion.
The Arkhevari gathered before it. Millions and millions of them. Grieving. Warriors and healers. Builders and guardians. Their auras blazed like a constellation come to life; gold and silver and sapphire light pierced the encroaching darkness. But there were also black auras. Black because of fury over what had happened. One of their creations had dared to destroy another. This insult could not go unanswered.
At their head stood Zapharos.
Even within the vision, his presence struck me like a physical force. He was younger than the male I knew, though no less formidable. His armor gleamed like forged sunlight. His wingsof energy unfurled behind him in radiant arcs. Power rolled from him in waves so intense that space itself seemed to bend in deference.
The Praetor of War.
Not merely a title.
A truth.
He raised his sword. The blade ignited like a newborn star as the first shadows emerged. At first, they were little more than wisps of black smoke leaking from the wound. Then they thickened. Twisted. Coalesced into monstrous forms with too many limbs and eyes that burned with endless hunger.
The first Mmuhr’Rhong.
Born from the darkness. Born from the parts of the Arkhevari that could not withstand grief, rage, and despair. A ripple of fear moved through the assembled host.
Zapharos did not retreat. He stepped forward alone. His voice thundered across the stars. “Stand your ground!”
The first creature lunged. Zapharos met it head-on. His sword carved through shadow and corruption in a single incandescent arc. The Mmuhr’Rhong disintegrated into sparks of black and gold. Another surged from the wound. Then ten. Then hundreds.
Zapharos became a storm.
He moved with terrifying grace, every strike precise and devastating. Golden light exploded around him as he cut through the creatures as though he were the wrath of creation itself. Each blow drove the darkness back.
Behind him, more Arkhevari rallied. Millions of warriors and their Aelyth followed their Praetor into battle. The stars themselves seemed to ignite as they charged.
And still the shadows came.
Endless.
Relentless.
For every Mmuhr’Rhong destroyed, more poured from the wound. Yet Zapharos never faltered. I felt his determination through the shared vision like a mountain of iron. If the darkness could not be closed, it would be contained. If the worlds already lost could not be restored, new ones would be created. If the Arkhevari had to fight until the end of time, then so be it.
He would hold the line. No matter the cost.
The vision shifted again.
The battlefield inside Nox Eternum remained, but for one Arkhevari, the focus turned from war to creation. A new figure stepped forward from the ranks of the surviving Arkhevari. I had never seen him before. Yet the instant he appeared, I recognized him, as natural and undeniable as breathing.
