The ticking of a clock echoed in the silence that smothered the great hall. The air itself felt heavy, as though saturated with something unseen—something older than time itself. Candlelight flickered, casting long, restless shadows across the stone walls, shaping illusions of formless creatures lurking at the edges of reality.
At the center of the room, within a circle marked by ancient sigils, seven figures sat in judgment, their eyes fixed on the lone presence that had returned from exile. Their gazes—sharp, unyielding, and dark—were filled with questions, demands, and suspicion.
Valeria Nacht stood before them, unchanged despite the passing of centuries. Her long black cloak seemed to drink the light, rendering her more silhouette than flesh. Yet it was not her presence that unsettled them most—it was her absence. Eight centuries of silence. Eight centuries of emptiness that had scarred the world.
And now, they demanded answers.
"Eight hundred years," Cornelius Faust's voice cut the stillness like shattered glass. Low, cold, unforgiving. "You vanished for eight full centuries… and now you return, as if nothing has happened?"
Seraphine Vale, poised at the far end of the circle, said nothing. Her eyes alone—calm, unblinking—were sharper than any words.
"You may not care," Ophelia Rainsworth spoke next, her voice precise, each syllable like the edge of a scalpel. "But the world did not stop turning simply because you chose to disappear. Your absence has disrupted the balance."
"No." Victor D'Ambray leaned forward, exhaustion and fury carved into his features, dark rings beneath his eyes. "Not disrupted. Shattered. You've opened a breach—a breach that has drawn in things that should never have been allowed here."
His tone trembled with suppressed rage. "Perhaps you haven't seen them, Valeria. But out there, in the corners of a reality that is beginning to fracture, nameless entities have crept in. They whisper truths that were never meant for human ears. And all of it—all of it—began when you vanished."
The vaulted ceiling loomed higher than before, as if the hall itself were subtly shifting, stretching into impossible dimensions. Or perhaps it was only illusion. Valeria could no longer tell.
She exhaled, her gaze drifting across the circle. "You believe I caused this?"
It was Raphael Noir who broke his long silence. "Not only us. The world itself accuses you. Since your disappearance, the laws of reality have begun to warp. Cities that never existed appear on maps. Shadows move of their own accord. People recall events that never happened. And then… there are the Ecstasies."
The word itself stilled the air. Even the flames seemed to recoil.
Ecstasies.
Phenomena without explanation. Creatures not born of flesh, but of fractured absurdity—fragments of worlds that should never have existed, thought-forms forced into being. They obeyed no law of time or space. They spoke no language. They simply existed—and their existence devoured everything they touched.
"They defy reason," Raphael continued. "And they are multiplying. Do you know how much has been lost in just the last century? Cities gone in a single night. People… vanished. Not dead. Not slain. Simply erased—as though they never were."
Alistair Graves finally spoke, his low voice carrying the weight of a verdict. "And all of it, Valeria… began the moment you left."
Silence pressed down, thick and suffocating.
Valeria stood motionless, her eyes fixed on the floor as though the answer might be buried in her own shadow.
But she did not know.
She truly did not know.
Eight centuries gone, lost beyond their reach, beyond their world. She had not witnessed its decay. She had not watched reality splinter. And yet—did her absence make her guilty?
She raised her head, meeting each accusing gaze. "If you would name me the cause of this… then know this: I have no answers."
It was Lucien Vaillant, her most loyal disciple, who finally spoke. "Then you must find them. For you are the only one who can."
His faith cut deeper than any accusation. It felt like a wound more than a gift.
Valeria did not want this burden. She did not want to be savior or destroyer. But she knew, with bitter certainty, she had no choice.
"Then where do we begin?" Magnus Crowley's voice, calm and final, broke the silence. It was not a question but a decree.
A decision.
A beginning.
And somewhere—deep within the cracks of reality—something laughed.
A voice that should not exist.
A voice that had finally awakened.