---
Centuries passed. The world forgot the sound of war.
Afterlight became legend, then myth, then faith. The Citadel of Glass stood untouched, towering in the center of the continent—a frozen monument shimmering in sunlight. Pilgrims came from every corner of the earth to gaze upon it. Some prayed. Some studied. Some tried their best to understand. Others feared it.
From its shadow rose the new world: the Age of Order.
The remnants of the Codex evolved into a doctrine called the Ten Principles. Scholars taught it in stone halls, judges carved it into their courts, rulers recited it before battle. It was not a religion. It was a system of truth. No gods, no kings, only balance.
Across the years, civilizations flourished under this balance. Cities of crystal and iron stretched across valleys once drowned in ash. Energy flowed freely from the restored Lightspire network. Disease became rare. Hunger disappeared.
But balance had a cost.
To maintain order, the High Council of the Codex—descendants of the first Seers—built a structure of strict control. Every city had a Keeper. Every Keeper had the authority to enforce the Principles. Surveillance networks spanned the skies. Every word, every thought, was measured against the Codex.
Peace, yes. Freedom, no.
The people began to whisper of cracks in the system.
In the southern city of Dareth, a child was born during a solar eclipse. Her name was Lyra. Her eyes were two different colors—one gold, one gray. The priests marked her as an anomaly, a deviation from balance. But her mother refused to let her be taken for testing. They lived quietly on the edges of the city, near the ruins of the old world.
As Lyra grew, strange things happened around her. Machines flickered when she passed. The ground trembled when she cried. She began seeing symbols that no one else could see, glowing faintly on walls, on water, on people's faces. They looked like fragments of the Codex—but different. Corrupted. Alive.
When she turned sixteen, the Keepers found her.
They came in black robes and gold masks, carrying rods that pulsed with light. Her mother tried to hide her, but Lyra's power had already drawn attention.
"Child of imbalance," one said. "You are summoned to the Council."
That night, the house burned.
Lyra fled into the wastes, clutching a single shard of crystal that had survived the flames. It pulsed in her hand, and in its reflection, she saw a vision: a man standing in the crystal ruins of Atheron, reaching out to her. His eyes burned with light.
"Eryndor," she whispered.
The voice spoke inside her head. "The binding weakens. The balance decays. The Age of Order must end."
Lyra's journey began that night.
She traveled through the Dead Plains, through forgotten tunnels, through cities where technology had replaced faith. In every place, she saw cracks forming in the perfect order of the world. Machines malfunctioned, drones went rogue, crops failed without reason. People vanished, leaving behind trails of static light.
Something old was returning.
In the northern capital, the High Council debated the anomalies.
"The laws of the Codex remain unbroken," said Archkeeper Dalen. "This is a test. The balance demands obedience."
But another voice, soft yet sharp, interrupted. "Or perhaps," said Keeper Seris, "the balance has shifted. And we refuse to see it."
The Council silenced her. Dissent was heresy.
Meanwhile, Lyra reached the borderlands of the Glass Sea, where Atheron's crystal tomb gleamed beneath the clouds. Legends said no living thing could enter. But the shard in her hand glowed brighter the closer she came.
When she touched the surface, the crystal rippled like water.
A voice echoed from within. "Child of the twin eyes, bearer of imbalance, you are the key and the fracture. Enter."
The crystal opened.
Inside, time did not move. Frozen soldiers stood mid-battle, caught in eternal silence. Flames hung motionless in air. And at the center stood Eryndor, eyes closed, his hand on the Codex. His body shimmered between flesh and light.
Lyra approached, trembling. "You're not dead."
His eyes opened. "Neither is the war."
The Codex pulsed. Symbols flared around them, merging, splitting, shifting between order and chaos. The light grew so bright it seared her vision.
Then Eryndor spoke: "The Age of Order is ending, Lyra. The world you know is not balance—it is stagnation. You must unbind what I bound."
The crystal cracked.
Outside, across the world, the sky changed color. Blue faded to silver. Every tower flickered. Every drone fell. The Lightspire network went dark.
The Age of Order shattered in one night.
Lyra collapsed as the ground trembled. In her hand, the Codex shard burned with new symbols—unreadable, untamed. A new force had awakened. Not light, not shadow, but something between.
The world's silence broke.
The War of Unbinding had begun.