And listened.
'You’ve done well, bringing them both this far,'a voice growled in his mind. Colder than breath. Older than time.
Familiar.
Kaos. The Destroyer.
'If she survives this, she will break the Seal. Prophecy will be fulfilled.'
The words rang with power. And yet…something lingered beneath them. A note toopersonal. Too eager. Toohungry. A breath where there should be only Void. Perhaps, too, the faint scrape of claws on stone. Or the echo of a wolf’s breath.
But Shu’Khan—in his hubris—heard none of it.
He opened his eyes. Pale blue. Empty as the space between worlds. A faint smile curved his lips.
Kaos would return. And he—Seravael—would be His harbinger.
49
Sin, Embodied
In the pitch black of the Daesa Major far outside the Shields of Krystopolis, the Cycle of Fire churned its cauldron of heat, humidity, and suffering. Beyond the insulation and safety of the Shields, the Endless Dark burned without restraint. Beneath this heat—within it—lay the crumbled ruins of the First Retraction. The place once called the Mar District.
For centuries, this place had been a tomb. Once the heart of trade and bustling craft in the gleaming city of Krystopolis, its remnants now lay dormant—dead—as testament to failing magic and unchecked ego. In a time long forgotten, a young scholar named Draevan Sol had warned the Council that the Shields were stretched too thin. But none had listened, and when the Shields had finally contracted beyond saving, all those living here had faced immediate demise.
One moment, people smiling and toiling their craft. People living their lives in peace despite enslavement to the Flaeme.
In the next, the Shields fell, and all those left outside them were turned to ash in the heat of the Cycle of Fire.
Only one spot remained untouched. A single temple built atop a shining mana spring. Once, Krystopolis had called it the Aethermirror, and had worshipped it as a viewing glass into the truth of all. But Doctrine had abandoned it once the Shields contracted. Much like the rest of the Mar District, its existence was written into the epitaphs of history andabandoned. Such was the way of Doctrine, some may have said. The way of Elendria, where only the strongest things survived to see another dawn. Only the mightiest earned a place as scars in the world's memory while the weak vanished into obscurity.
The city expected the Aethermirror to perish, just like everything outside the Shields.
But it had not.
It endured.
Much like the temple built atop it—crumbling, ruined, yet still standing strong.
Much like the Resh’Agar now walking into it.
Much like the woman in his arms.
The Aethermirror had forged a barrier around this place, protecting everything within. Pushing out any intrusion. No living thing could have entered it, yet the Resh’Agar did. He walked through the naturally occurring shield without missing a step, for natural law did not apply to him. He’d known this place still stood only because he had once failed to protect it. Failed to listen. Failed to heed the warning of the Shields.
As one who was bound to them, heshouldhave known.
Should have sensed what was about to happen.
Yet, at that time, he’d still been running from his fate. Running from the madness that was Resh’Agar, lost in the bloodlust and war that were a natural part of who he was.
He stood now in the temple’s central core and remembered the child standing here centuries ago, begging him for help.
He’d brushed her off, left for war that century, and returned to death.
Only corpses remained where Priests had once kneeled.
Only ashes.
