Long before names were carved into legend, the world was meant to follow a sacred cycle—one not ruled by war, but by balance. The Dragon and the Fox Spirit were born not to destroy, but to mend what the gods could no longer hold. Every few centuries, they were to rise—twin forces of chaos and clarity—to correct the imbalance before vanishing once more into the folds of myth.
But something broke the rhythm.
In an era long forgotten, the cycle was severed. The Moon Eater raged beyond its purpose. The Fox could not stop it. And so, they failed. The world lingered in disharmony, the gods unable to interfere directly, and the guardians they once trusted lost in silence.
But the Dragon had not truly turned.
He was not the storm, only the vessel.
For something older, something darker had found its way into him—a presence beyond stars and flame, one even the gods could not name. The Moon Eater was merely the veil. Behind it waited a will far more ancient, one that devoured not just light, but memory.
So the gods chose a different path.
They scattered the remnants of the beasts—not their bodies, but their essence. Not into weapons, but into hearts. The Fox and the Moon Eater would no longer awaken as monsters, but as memories buried in human souls. No longer vessels—just bearers of something ancient, waiting to stir.
One was chosen: a boy who stared too long at the stars, always searching for stories hidden behind clouds. He carried the echo of the Fox—quiet, protective, aching to make peace.
The other... was not chosen by the gods.
He found it on his own.
The core of the Moon Eater, buried where light never touched—something he should not have seen, something that whispered not of destiny, but of longing. He was the forbidden one. The other half of a forgotten promise.
And when the eclipse came, it was not war that tore the skies open. It was the beasts themselves—Fox and Moon—resonating one final time to tear a rift, to seal themselves away. To restore the cycle by ending their own.
Yet to open the eclipse, they had to pay the price.
A price not of death, but of soul.
The sacrifice was not death.
It was silence.
They vanished. Not defeated, but fulfilled. Not banished, but freed.
Yet the story does not end there.
Because though the guardians are gone, their echoes remain.
The boy with stardust in his eyes still walks this world—not as a god, not as a reincarnation—but as himself. Changed, yes. Wounded, yes. But awake.
And somewhere—watching, waiting—the one who was never meant to carry that core still holds it, pulsing with quiet ruin.
The cycle has turned once more… but what it will become now, no god can predict.
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