Ten thousand years.
That's how long it had been since the sky burned red and the world declared war on a single boy.
Ten thousand years since twenty-seven heroes fell by his hand.
Ten thousand years since she died.
And in all that time, the world forgot him.
The New World
The empires had fallen.
Not to war — but to time.
Their banners faded into legend. Their monuments crumbled into ruin. Their names twisted through retellings into cautionary tales and bedtime stories.
Magic had changed.Science had evolved.New gods had been born — and old ones had vanished.
Seven new nations had risen on the bones of the seven continents.And none of them remembered the man once known as Caelum Verrian.
The scholars of today believed him to be a symbol.A myth.A lesson.
But he walked among them still.
He Who Does Not Die
He never aged.
He never withered.
He still bore the twenty-seven scars from the day the world tried to kill him.He kept the weapons they left in him — forging them into new tools, new technologies, new blades of a science no longer understood.
He changed faces, names, and voices.
Sometimes he walked as a healer.Sometimes as a beggar.Once as a teacher.
But always watching.
Always remembering.
In ten thousand years, Caelum had mastered everything the world had to offer.
Every martial art — from ancient sword forms to forgotten soul dances.Every language — mortal and divine.Every school of magic — curses, blessings, time spells, world-shaping rituals.Every craft — music, painting, architecture, divination, warfare, starforging.
He became what the gods once feared he might:
The perfect synthesis of knowledge and power.
But he had never smiled again.
Not truly.
Because nothing in this world had been able to replicate the sound of her laughter.
The World's Quiet Tremble
And then…
Something shifted.
A dream rippled through the realm of sleep.A name forgotten by time was whispered on the wind.
"Cael…"
He snapped awake — not in fear, but stillness.
The air shimmered strangely that morning.The sun bled slightly more red.And somewhere deep in the ground, the Broken Crown sigil flickered faintly in ancient stone.
Something… was calling him.
A Temple of the New Age
In the heart of the capital of Eldareth, a temple had been built to honor "The Seven Martyrs" — twisted retellings of the twenty-seven heroes who once tried to kill him.
There, people prayed.For strength.For victory.For gods Caelum had once slain.
He stood at the edge of the plaza, hood drawn.
No one recognized him.
Not even the high priest who boasted of divine blessings Caelum had once personally disproved.
Not even the children who chanted hymns rewritten to glorify tyranny.
He stood there, still.
Until he heard it:
A child's voice. Small. Curious.
"Sir… why are you crying?"
Caelum blinked.
He hadn't realized.
His hand touched his cheek — and found moisture.
For a moment, he knelt before the child.
And softly whispered:
"…Because your world used to be beautiful."
He Who Waits
Beneath the new capital, Caelum had built something none suspected — a city made of silence, hidden in a fold of forgotten time.
There, he kept memories.
Lysia's voice, stored in crystal.
Their first inventions, carefully maintained.
The old blade.His father's sword.Still stained with blood that no storm could wash away.
He sat in that silent chamber.
Not meditating.Not forging.
Just listening.
Waiting.
Because in the quiet corners of the earth, something had begun to wake.
A ritual older than belief.A machine based on the blueprints Lysia once drew.A girl whose voice matched hers—
And in the sky, for the first time in ten thousand years…
The stars began to move.