Dominion was not born.
It was forged.
Once, men raised glass towers toward the heavens, chasing gods they no longer believed in. Once, they dreamed of utopias. Now, the towers lean like knives, cutting the skies with greed, and the dream is a marketplace where power itself is currency.
From the shadows of this empire walked the Oracle. Cloaked in a fabric that seemed to drink the light, his face hidden in folds of time, he was seen only once in a lifetime — and never twice by the same soul.
Tonight, he stood at the highest precipice of Dominion, his gaze falling upon its concentric rings:
The Inner Circle, where nobles dined beneath chandeliers of plasma-light, and senators sold laws in whispering parlors.
The Outer Rings, where the streets buzzed with sweat and circuitry, where neon bled into smog and men traded their lives for the hum of generators.
The Abyss Below, unseen by daylight, where Syndicates bred their knives and silence, and where the forgotten labored nameless.
The Oracle raised his hand, and for a moment, Dominion seemed to breathe with him.
"Power," he whispered, his voice rippling across steel and stone, "is not love, nor honor, nor mercy. Power is the only law left in this city. And laws are not read in books. They are written into flesh."
As he spoke, visions moved like ghosts across the skyline:
A young man beneath the streetlights, his hands blackened with ash, mending broken circuits so children's lanterns might glow again. His name, unknown to the city, burned silently in the Oracle's eye: Kaelen Veyra.
A noblewoman in glass halls, her smile sharper than any blade, raising her glass to men who thought they held her leash. Ashira Valen, a queen without a crown.
In a smoke-lit café, a veiled woman leaned close to a trembling poet, turning his grief into a weapon of words. Serenya Veyra, whose silence spoke louder than any speech.
And in the void beyond the towers, unseen in their laughter, the Oracle glimpsed the Veil Syndicate, weaving threads so dark the city itself would choke.
The Oracle closed his eyes.
He had seen this before. Kingdoms falling. Names erased. Shadows rising.
But Dominion was different. Dominion was a crucible.
He spread his arms as though to embrace the city, his voice echoing through avenues no man could trace:
"Forty-eight laws bind this world.
Forty-eight knives in the dark, forty-eight crowns to be seized.
Some will wield them. Some will be broken upon them.
And when the final law is etched into bone, Dominion will know its true master."
His form wavered, dissolving into the night as though he had never been.
But his last words lingered, carved into the marrow of the city:
"Remember this: In Dominion, power is never given. It is taken. And those who forget… are forgotten."