PART 1: GENESIS
Not many people understood what was happening when the world began to fall apart.
The residents of the great city of Aerinaelia were occupied with their ordinary lives. Farmers tended to fields that never yielded enough. Merchants haggled with suspicious traders over spoiled fish and dented steel. Bounty hunters returned through the gates with bloodied trophies and heavier purses. None of them spared a thought for endings. Aerinaelia had stood for generations. It would stand for generations more.
That belief was unshakable.
And that was why no one was ready.
And that's when it began.
The first wall fell without warning.
One moment, Aerinaelia stood intact beneath the morning sun, its gates open and streets alive. The next, stone split apart with a deafening crack, the great gates torn inward as if seized by invisible hands. The enemy surged through the breach like a flood given form.
There were no horns. No alarms. No time.
Screams rose immediately, swallowed by fire and the sound of metal tearing through flesh. The army moved with ruthless efficiency. The outer districts were overrun before the guards could even form ranks. Fires followed behind the invaders—not to terrify, but to erase. Homes burned. Markets collapsed. Streets became killing grounds.
The council chamber was stormed before a single command could be given. The cathedral fell in on itself, its bells crushed beneath stone before they could ring.
This was not a battle.
It was an execution—fast, brutal, and final.
By midday, Aerinaelia was finished.
Then came the army's leader.
He walked through the palace unopposed, boots echoing across marble stained with blood. In the throne room, Aerinaelia's ruler waited, frozen in terror, words failing him. The leader did not listen. He seized the man, dragged him across the floor, and threw him from the palace balcony without ceremony.
The body never reached the ground intact.
But even that was not the end.
Beneath the palace, deep below layers of stone and ancient wards, the sealed chamber waited. The leader descended alone. There, bound by magic older than the city itself, was Vryel—the Seventh Orthodox Divinity.
The seal broke.
Vryel stepped free, wings gleaming like fractured starlight, his expression unreadable. He did not speak.
He did not need to.
In a single breath, Aerinaelia ceased to exist.
Invaders and defenders alike were erased. Stone disintegrated. The sky itself seemed to tear apart. Where a city had stood, there was nothing—no ruin, no remnants—only ash and silence.
Vryel rose into the heavens.
Across the world, seals shattered.
One by one, the remaining six Orthodox Divinities were freed.
And with them, everything that had once been restrained was unleashed.
***
Far from the slaughter, dust rose in slow clouds behind the slave caravan as it creaked across cracked earth. Iron wheels groaned, as hooves struck stone. No one spoke. The slaves were too exhausted. The guards too indifferent.
A young girl named Cassia sat among them, wrists raw beneath cold, rusted chains.
She no longer recalled the memory of when she had been taken. Time had dissolved into heat, pain, and long stretches of silence. She kept her gaze lowered until something on the horizon drew her eyes upward.
The great city of Lunahria.
The city rose pale and distant, its spires cutting into the sky, moon-white walls gleaming beneath the fading light. Banners shimmered faintly, catching the wind. It looked untouched. It was clean—almost unreal.
Cassia had heard stories stating that in Lunahria, slaves could earn their names back. That some masters paid for dancers instead of breaking them. She did not believe such things—not truly—but the thought was enough to keep her breathing.
The sun dipped lower beneath the horizon. The sky bled into violet and gray. Cold wind swept across the road.
One of the guards cursed softly.
A strange glow flickered across the distant sky—too bright, too sudden. Not lightning. Something else.
Then the ground trembled.
Not like an earthquake. Deeper. Heavier. As if something beneath the world had shifted.
Cassia slowed, her breath catching. A pressure filled the air, unseen but undeniable. The guards didn't notice. They were focused on the road, on Lunahria ahead.
But Cassia felt it.
Far on the horizon, a massive flare of light tore through the sky, chaotic and blinding. It vanished almost as soon as it appeared, leaving behind an unnatural stillness.
Her heart raced in a hasty tempo.
She didn't understand what had happened—but she knew something had changed. Something vast. Something irreversible.
The caravan moved on quietly.
But behind them, the world had broken.
And Lunahria was no longer a safe haven.