Location: Canyon of Erasure, ArchenLand | Year: 7002 A.A
The air still quivered with Adam's last defiant words, like a bell struck too hard, its resonance lingering long after the hand that struck it was gone. The canyon lay in silence—an uncanny silence, not of peace but of things withheld. It was the silence of a battlefield between heartbeats, where the dead are already counted and the living are unsure if they are spared or merely waiting for their turn.
And then—Jarik's laughter.
The sound slithered across the broken canyon floor, light and playful, but steeped with an unwholesome delight. He tipped his long ridiculous hat forward, that eternal grin of mockery plastered on his pink-furred face. His voice came soft, almost sing-song, yet laced with venom.
"I see. Seems there's no convincing you lot. Very well then."
The Narn Lords stiffened, each in their own manner. Thrax folded his arms across his chest, knuckles white beneath the sleeves of his robe. Talonir's feathers bristled, a silent readiness flashing through his golden plumage. Trevor gripped Gözkıran just a little tighter, the faint glow of the runes along its shaft betraying his unease. And Adam, though pale from exhaustion, straightened himself with a wolf's stubborn pride, his glacial eyes fixed on Jarik like a hunter staring down a poisonous snake.
Yet it was not Jarik who made the air heavy.
It was what came next.
For before even a word could be returned to his taunt, the air warped. Not with sound, nor light, but with an absence—an arrival that felt like subtraction, as though reality itself begrudged to acknowledge the newcomer.
A presence materialized beside Jarik.
A hooded figure.
The same Tracient who had haunted the edges of their war, ever in the Shadow's company, ever silent, ever veiled. Now here he stood—or rather drifted—for his form wavered like smoke rising from a pyre, and his cloak billowed though no wind stirred in the Canyon of Erasure. Beneath the folds of that cloak a suggestion of scales glimmered, pale and ancient.
And like Jarik—perhaps worse than Jarik—there was no mana signature. No rhythm, no beat, no flame to his being. It was as if he simply did not exist. A figure of void in a world otherwise built upon light and presence.
The Narn Lords felt their breath catch in their throats, their hearts rebelling against the impossibility of what their eyes saw. Even the stalwart generals— Kop, Karadir, Johan—shifted uncomfortably, as though their bodies recognized an enemy their minds could not yet name.
But Darius…
The king's eyes went wide, his pupils shrinking, his breath shallow and uneven.
'Why does he look familiar?'
It was not recognition in the way one recalls a face glimpsed in passing. No, it was deeper, more invasive, like a blade of memory pressed to the jugular. The sight of that hooded wraith clawed at the edges of his mind, dredging old terrors and whispers from the years when Narn itself had fallen.
For one perilous heartbeat, Darius saw not the Canyon of Erasure but the flames of his homeland. The cries of his kin. The echo of wings he could not save, horns he could not defend. Somewhere in that broken darkness, this figure—or something of him—had stood. Watching? Guiding? Striking? He could not tell.
The hooded figure finally spoke.
And when he did—
It was not his own voice.
It was The Shadow's.
The canyon itself seemed to recoil at the sound, the broken stones groaning faintly as if the earth remembered the touch of this terror. The voice poured forth like tar—slow, deliberate, smothering. It was not merely heard; it was felt, slipping through the ear and into the marrow.
"I chose to compromise with you."
The words hung in the air, dread woven through their measured cadence.
"I offered to spare your land if you gave me what I wanted. But instead—"
The pause was deliberate. The silence between words pressed down heavier than the speech itself.
"You refuse… and threaten me instead."
The air grew heavier still, thick with an ominous stillness. Even the ashes that swirled through the canyon seemed to halt in their descent, as though creation itself did not dare to move under that voice.
Then the figure raised a hand.
From his palm, a sphere of bluish-purple mana flickered into existence. It pulsed faintly at first, like the heartbeat of something ancient and cruel, then began to climb upward into the fractured sky. Slowly, steadily, it grew, its radius expanding with a dreadful patience, casting grotesque shadows over the jagged ruins. The very light seemed wrong—sickly, bruised, stretching the figures of the Narn Lords into monstrous shapes that wavered on the ground like premonitions of their doom.
Thrax's breath hitched, the sound barely more than a strangled whisper. His old eyes, lined by centuries of study and memory, went wide with horror.
"That's…" His voice broke. "That's the same attack that cost us Narn!!"
The words shattered the composure of the gathered Lords. For if Thrax—the Aegis of Memory, who carried the burden of knowledge none of them wished to bear—spoke such with certainty, then what rose above them was not simply an attack. It was history repeating itself.
Talonir's sharp eyes darted toward Trevor, feathers bristling, his voice a cry of command.
"Trevor—!!!"
But Trevor had already moved.
Gözkıran blazed to life in his grasp, the amber runes burning so bright they painted his face with a desperate light. He thrust the staff forward, preparing to unravel even this cursed orb before it fully birthed itself. His body trembled, not with fear but with exertion, for he knew what this cost would be—and accepted it.
Then, in the space of a blink—
The hooded Tracient stood before him.
No transition, no motion—one moment absent, the next impossibly near. His cloak still billowed, as though untouched by time itself.
Before Trevor could even lift the staff to defend, the figure's palm struck his abdomen.
The sound was soft. A muted thud. But its effect was cataclysmic.
A shockwave tore through Trevor's body, invisible yet merciless. His chest heaved, and all the air in him was expelled in a single, sharp gasp of agony.
The golden light of his Grand Maymum form shattered like glass underfoot.
His aura extinguished.
The proud Lord, second among them, staggered like a man cut free from heaven. His knees buckled, his staff slipped, and he collapsed to the ruined earth, clutching his chest as though his very core had been unmade.
"No—Trevor!!!" Adam's cry cracked, but he could not move. His body, drained from using the Arya of creation, would not answer him. His hands trembled at his sides, impotent with fury.
Darius reacted.
He swung Baltaçek in a wide arc, his lemon-green aura flaring in desperate defiance. The hammer-axe sang as it cleaved through the air, a strike that once had felled mountains—
But it cut nothing.
The figure was gone.
In the next breath, he reappeared where he had begun, beside Jarik, his hood unmoved, his stance unchanged. A specter mocking the very laws of distance and time.
"Now…"
The hood tilted, ever so slightly, as though the figure studied his own creation with detached amusement. His voice was colder, not even The Shadow's malice, but something more terrible: indifference.
"Behold the fall of your sanctuary."
The sphere above continued to swell. Its light deepened into that unnatural bruise-blue, casting the canyon into twilight. The Lords, once proud pillars of Narn's endurance, stood beneath it as children once more—children reliving the burning of their home.
And Darius, heart burning with fury and grief, felt his knees weaken as the memories screamed through him: Narn's sky ablaze, the helplessness of his people, the silence that had followed.
It was happening again.
The fall of a kingdom.
The second wound in their history.
And he, still powerless to prevent it.
Jarik laughed, and the sound grated against the silence. It was not the laughter of joy, nor even of simple malice, but something thinner—hollow, delighted only in the despair of others. He tipped his long hat forward, the gesture carried with a theatrical flourish, as though the battlefield were nothing more than his stage.
"Well now!" he said, his voice high and sing-song. "It was nice meeting y'all. Don't know if we'll ever meet again, but…"
The words hung cruelly, unfinished, like a blade deliberately left suspended above the heart.
A breeze stirred through the canyon, whispering between the jagged stones. It swept against the hood of the silent figure beside him. For a single heartbeat, the fabric pulled back.
And in that single heartbeat—
The gathered Lords saw what should not have been seen.
A pair of glowing eyes—bluish-purple, sharp and ancient, gleaming like the twin fires of a star devoured by night. Eyes not merely looking outward, but seeming to look through time, through memory, through the very souls of those who gazed upon them.
And there, below the hood, just for an instant, whiskers like a dragon's, faint and ghostly, brushing against the air.
Darius froze.
His hands slackened on Baltaçek. His chest seized as though the very breath in him had been stolen.
"No…"
His thoughts spiraled, tumbling against one another in disbelief. That aura, that trace of a form he had once known in song and story, in nightmare and in dream—
'It cannot be.'
But the truth stared back at him in that impossible gaze.
Dragon. Kin. Betrayal.
The other Lords did not yet understand. Thrax narrowed his eyes, familiarity with the being crossing his mind though he couldn't pinpoint who. Talonir clenched his fists, ready to pursue, but not knowing the weight of what was glimpsed. Only Darius stood transfixed, his entire being hollowed by the sight.
A crack ran through his composure. Not the crack of fear, but of grief—grief laced with a revelation so bitter it turned the battlefield colder than the Shadow's presence itself.
'It cannot be him…'
But before Darius could breathe the truth aloud, before he could cry the name that clawed at his throat—
They vanished.
Jarik and the hooded Tracient disappeared as though swallowed by the wind, leaving behind nothing but the echo of laughter and the smoldering wound in the earth.
The canyon fell silent once more.
Only the growing orb above remained, pulsing with doom, a reminder that the encounter had not been mere spectacle, but a herald of destruction.
Darius' grip on Baltaçek tightened until his knuckles split. His body trembled—not from weakness, but from the storm of recognition he could not share, not yet. The eyes haunted him, burrowing deep into the marrow of his memory.
If it truly was who he feared—
Then the fall of ArchenLand was not simply the work of The Shadow.
It was the betrayal of kin.
__________________________
The pulsing sphere above them continued to swell, a malignant sun dawning over the broken canyon. Its light was strange, both too dim and too harsh, casting shadows that bent at crooked angles. The air warped, trembling like heated glass.
A deep hum rolled across the battlefield—low, resonant, unceasing. It vibrated through the stones, through the ruins, through bone and blood and spirit. It was not merely a sound but a proclamation: the world itself recognized its own unraveling.
Thrax staggered back a step, his voice cracking with alarm.
"How do we stop that?! If it is the same attack used on Narn, then no living thing will be spared! Tracients, animals, plants—" His hand swept out toward the canyon walls, toward the weary remnants of ArchenLand that clung stubbornly to existence. "—even the very land will be annihilated!"
Karadir's sharp mountain-born ears flicked. His fur bristled, and his head whipped toward the west.
"I sense mana signatures approaching!" He cried. voice strained under urgency. "They're familiar—our own! The remnants of our army, the ones who stood with Lord Kon! They're returning… straight into this death trap!"
Kopa, the stag, lowered his proud antlers, his normally steady composure breaking into anguish. His great eyes were wide with a despair he had not known since the fires of Narn.
"Is there nothing we can do?!"
His plea fell against silence, carried only by the rumbling hum that continued to grow louder.
The Narn Lords stood frozen, shadows etched upon their faces by the sphere's crooked light. Even their mana seemed hesitant, as though afraid to draw breath before such a devouring force. Their voices had faltered, their hearts weighed by the knowledge of what once befell their first home.
But not all were given to outward panic.
Adam stood still. His hands slack at his sides, his breathing slow, his shoulders unmoving. His expression was unreadable, carved like stone.
Beside him, Talonir also remained silent, his golden feathers dulled, his sharp eyes fixed upon the gathering doom above. He, too, seemed locked in inward reckoning, his wings twitching as though the instinct to flee warred with the vow to stand.
Yet Adam's stillness was of another kind.
The others trembled, shouted, begged the air for solutions. Adam only blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Kon was staring at him, still weak from what had just transpired.
Beside him, Trevor lay barely conscious, breathing heavily.
Adam looked at them both for a long moment.
Then—
His expression hardened.
"We leave."
His voice cut through the tension.
"We retreat now."
Everyone turned to him in shock.
"I have just enough mana left to teleport everyone here away—but that's all I can do."
Darius's eyes darkened.
"And my men?!" His voice trembled with raw emotion.
"You'll sacrifice my people just like that?!"
Adam didn't flinch.
Unexpectedly—
It was Kopa who spoke.
"People die in war, my King."
Darius whipped around to face him.
But Kopa's expression was firm.
"This is no different from any war. We have to make sacrifices. And I strongly believe that if your men were standing here now, they'd give their lives without hesitation, just as I would."
Darius's body sagged.
Kopa grasped his shoulder, steadying him.
Darius closed his eyes.
Then—
He gave a single, pained nod.
Adam took a deep breath.
"Kirin."
A surge of bluish-green mana erupted, enveloping the group.
However—
Two figures remained untouched.
Thrax. Talonir.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Daruis demanded.
Talonir offered him a sad smile.
"Forgive me, my King."
Thrax crossed his arms, standing firm.
"We choose not to abandon our home."
Talonir continued, his voice steady.
"As our King, you must live. So that one day, you can take back what is rightfully yours."
"We, the loyal servants of ArchenLand, will sacrifice our lives for you." His old voice broke slightly "And for our home."
The words struck Kon like an arrow. His weakened body jolted, struggling against Karadir's steady grip.
"No!!! Master!!! Don't!!!" His voice cracked, desperate, a child's cry piercing the doom around them.
But Talonir only turned toward him. For the first time, the golden eagle's eyes softened completely.
"Forgive me, Kon."
A single tear slipped down his cheek, catching the crooked light.
And then—
The spell's light swallowed the others whole.
In the canyon of erasure, two figures remained.
Thrax, robe billowing faintly in the warped air.
Talonir, his feathers lifting in the hum of destruction.
Side by side.
Alone.
The orb pulsed violently above them.
Each pulse rattled the stones beneath their feet, each throb pulling more of reality into its hungry void. The hum had grown unbearable, a droning roar that seemed to eat the very silence, promising that the next beat would be the last.
It was no longer simply a weapon.
It was an ending.
Thrax inhaled deeply, the breath heavy in his chest. The acrid taste of ash clung to his tongue, but he drew it in anyway, letting it burn him from within. His hands no longer trembled. His long years of life—the councils, the debates, the laughter in palace halls—all narrowed to this single instant.
At his side, Talonir stood tall, feathers trembling in the warped air. He raised his hand, and with practiced grace, his bow sky Sunder, manifested. The string hummed softly, not unlike a lullaby, even as he drew back a single, radiant feather infused with his very essence. His golden eyes glowed faintly, their usual sharpness softened by something deeper: peace.
Their gazes met.
A brief silence fell between them—two warriors, two brothers in service, standing at the edge of eternity.
"Shall we, Sixth Lord?" Talonir's voice was steady, unshaken, almost amused in its composure.
Thrax smirked faintly, the corners of his mouth curling despite the doom above. His old eyes gleamed with the fire of one who had chosen, freely and without regret.
"I thought you'd never ask, Lord Seventh."
The banter was brief, a final tether to the world they were about to lose.
Thrax lifted his hands. His mana surged—bright, unrestrained, terrible in its purity. It spilled outward like molten silver, enveloping both himself and Talonir in a shimmering cocoon of protection also empowering Talonir's mana. Each pulse of the orb above pressed down harder, yet Thrax's aura held, unyielding, forming the barrier that would grant Talonir his single, final shot.
Talonir drew the arrow back fully, his bow creaking, the air trembling with the weight of his last command. His feathers glistened, radiant despite the corruption gnawing at the sky. The mana coursing through his arms flared bright as dawn.
"Varyas Command…" His voice deepened, resolute, echoing across the canyon.
"Talon'un Emri."
The words carried the authority of generations, the voice of a people who had soared high above the winds of time.
His eyes burned brighter, molten gold against the suffocating darkness.
"Winds of Fate."
The arrow screamed as it flew, a streak of light defying the abyss itself.
And in that instant, Thrax felt it—the great release. He closed his eyes and allowed himself a final thought: Let this be enough. Let our King live. Let ArchenLand remember us.
The arrow met the orb.
For a heartbeat, time seemed to hold. Light collided with light, fate with destruction. The orb shuddered, its monstrous hum breaking into a thousand shrieks as cracks spread across its surface.
And then—
It exploded.
A blinding flood of white engulfed everything.
The earth quaked, the skies split, the canyon itself unraveled.
Thrax and Talonir stood firm against the torrent, side by side, their figures outlined in brilliance. One wrapped in the steadfast glow of protection, the other in the fierce clarity of a final strike.
As the wave consumed them, there was no fear. Only resolve.
The entirety of ArchenLand was swallowed in light.
_____________________
Kon's army arrived at the borders just as the world ended.
The ground beneath their hooves and talons quaked violently. A wall of searing brilliance had risen in the distance, swallowing mountains, rivers, and sky alike. It was not fire, nor lightning, nor anything their minds could name. It was obliteration given form, a purity of destruction that stripped all color from the earth.
Every beast, every Tracient in the army froze, struck still as if the sight itself had paralyzed them. They could not run, nor could they fight. Their eyes, wide with terror, reflected only the all-devouring white.
The Özel #30, the reptilian general with scales like burnished bronze, gritted his teeth as the light surged toward them. His clawed hand hovered near the hilt of his blade, though what good it would do against such a force, he did not know. So this is the end… He thought of his Lord Kon, of oaths unfulfilled, of battles left unwaged. The heat seared his scales, and he braced for erasure.
But then—
The impossible happened.
The radiance halted.
Not suddenly, but as though it had been caught by unseen hands, pulled back, receding like a great tide. The flood of light, which should have scoured them to dust, curved away. It bent. It parted.
And the army stood in the shadow of a miracle.
The brightness dimmed at last, retreating to the heart of ArchenLand. The deafening roar fell silent, leaving only the ringing in their ears and the hollow pounding of their hearts. The air was scorched, acrid with the scent of ozone and ash. Yet the soldiers themselves remained whole—untouched.
The Özel #30 blinked, his vertical pupils narrowing as the haze cleared. Around him, thousands of warriors did the same, their breaths caught between sobs and gasps. They looked down at their own hands, their armor, their weapons, scarcely believing they still existed.
"What…" the general's voice cracked, his throat dry as stone. He swallowed hard and tried again, louder, though still laced with disbelief.
"What… just happened?"
He turned toward the light's epicenter—the Canyon of Erasure, where their homeland once lay. The horizon was gone, replaced with a terrible emptiness. No banners flew. No towers stood. Only the faint shimmer of lingering radiance rising like heat from a scorched plain.
The general's claws clenched tightly around his blade, his chest heavy. He did not know how they had survived, but he felt the truth in his bones. This was not mercy. This was sacrifice.
The soldiers around him murmured in confusion, awe, and fear. Yet none dared to cheer. None dared to claim victory.
For all knew—they had been spared, but ArchenLand had not.
________________________________
Far away, where the cliffs overlooked the serpentine curves of the Winding Arrow River, the mountains stood solemn, their peaks lit faintly by the fading glow of catastrophe. The sky itself was still scarred—great streaks of light twisting like dying embers across the firmament.
Upon one such ridge, Jeth stood alone. The small rodent figure seemed almost swallowed by the immensity of the world around him. His tattered country hat sat low upon his brow, and his whiskers trembled in the restless wind. Yet his eyes—sharp, honest eyes—remained fixed on the horizon where ArchenLand had once been.
The glow of the explosion reflected in them still, as though it were burned into his very soul. He did not blink. He did not move.
And then—
The others appeared beside him.
The survivors. The remnants of a kingdom now consigned to memory. Kon, weakened but breathing. Trevor, pale, his staff absorbed back into motes or light. Darius, silent as stone, and the rest of the Lords who had escaped by Adam's hand. They arrived in a quiet shimmer of displaced mana, and yet none spoke. Their hearts were too heavy, their throats too tight.
Jeth's ears flicked at their arrival, but he did not turn. He only let the silence linger. When at last he spoke, his voice was low, threaded with the plain and unpolished accent of his homeland.
"I can't feel the 6th and 7th Lords' mana…"
The words hung in the air like the toll of a bell.
No one answered him. For what answer was there?
Jeth's grip on his hat tightened. He tipped it forward, shading his eyes—not to hide from the truth, but to honor it. His shoulders shook once, and a single tear slid down his weathered cheek, glinting in the pale afterlight.
"I see…" he whispered.
The mouse lifted his gaze then, tilting his head slightly upward toward the heavens. His whiskers trembled, his voice small but steady, as though speaking to someone who stood just beyond sight.
"Take care of my friends, Asalan."