In the Silver Hall of Aetheria—where starlight poured like silk and divine breath hummed through celestial veins—the gods convened.
This was no mere gathering of rank or ritual. It was fear.
For the second time in three thousand mortal years, the Hall of Judgment was lit.
Erelas, God of Flame and Conquest, strode furiously across the crystal floor, his voice thunderclapping between pillars of stardust.
"The armies are gone. Erased. Not slain, not taken. Gone. No blood, no bodies, no ash. Tell me—what can do that but us?"
None answered.
Across from him, Lurae, Goddess of Threads, stood quiet. Her robe shimmered with colors never seen by mortal eyes—each thread a future, unraveling.
"They were not taken by a god," she said. "No divine trace. No echo in the loom. Their fates were... corrected."
"Impossible," Dorvahn muttered, Lord of Gravity and Order. "We wrote the laws of balance. We hold dominion over the cycle."
"Then perhaps something else rewrote the law," said a new voice.
The gods turned.
Ori, the Child-God, stood barefoot at the edge of the Hall. A godling in shape, but older than the sun.
"I saw it," Ori said, voice almost a whisper. "Not with eyes. With knowing. A presence folding time into silence. It touched the world and decided… the war should not be."
"You mean fate changed itself?" Elaren asked, voice sharp.
"No. It was made to change," Ori replied. "It was judged."
Far below, on the mortal plane, Kaen wandered the Shaladrin Valley. No war. No corpses. Just silence. He gripped the violet flower tighter—its petals cool against his palm. The sun above seemed gentler now, the sky bluer than he remembered.
He should've felt peace.
But he only felt... watched.
In the depths of the divine archive, an ancient guardian lit a forbidden lantern.
Golden scrolls shook on their shelves. The Ink of Truth bled from the walls.
Records that had never changed in eons were crumbling.
Events were disappearing.
God-names were flickering.
And a sealed prophecy—one thought to be a joke, an accident of translation—was suddenly glowing.
"When the world forgets war,
And the divine are not obeyed,
The silent one shall unseal the gates,
And mortals shall ascend where gods have feared."
Erelas threw a spear across the hall. It struck nothing—and shattered into a thousand falling flames.
"We are not prisoners!" he bellowed. "No unseen force controls me!"
Lurae tilted her head. "Then why do your flames flicker?"
The gods didn't know it yet, but something ancient was breathing again.
Not magic. Not divinity.
Something deeper.
A current buried beneath the layers of the world. One even they had long forgotten.
Spiritual force.
And with every correction, every silent act, that force was gathering.
Soon, it would rise.
And mortals would touch power that gods could neither command nor control.