Keralos was born in the First Epoch—back when the world had no shape, when kingdoms were only dreams and prayers hadn't yet been spoken. The Aeonlords ruled then, and he was one of their mistakes. A son abandoned. Immortal, yes, but left to rot in silence. Cast into the void, nameless, forgotten.
He drifted for ages—through stars that hadn't settled, across an Earth still in its infancy. His robe was little more than a rag clinging to him, his face hidden. Only his eyes showed: burning blue, shifting like the night sky itself. They unsettled even the fearless, for anyone who looked too long saw something they shouldn't—endings before beginnings.
The questions came every step he took, heavy as chains:
Why am I here? What is the point? Who am I supposed to be?
One night, under a fractured sky and in the ruins of a world already dead, those questions cut deeper than ever. Keralos picked up a shard of fallen star-metal, its glow fading like a dying ember. He pressed it against his chest, hard enough to draw starlight instead of blood, praying it would end him.
But the blade cracked. It dissolved before it could pierce his core, as though even the universe refused to let him die.
"Even death will not have me," he whispered into the silence.
From then on, he stopped looking for an end. He began searching for meaning instead, though he never found it. There was no guide, no fate, no hand to lead him. He grew cold. Detached. He never knew love, never felt belonging. No home—just the road, the stars, and the quiet ache inside him.
Still, he endured. When chaos rose, he faced it.
He fought monsters without rage, without triumph—only precision. He moved like the echo of a star collapsing, striking swiftly, ending creatures twisted by primordial corruption. He never screamed in battle. Never celebrated. There was only the hum of void-born power and those piercing, unblinking eyes.
To a leviathan once, he whispered: "You do not belong in this world. But then again… neither do I."
A gesture, a ripple of blue light—neither fire nor lightning—and the beast was nothing but stardust.
Where lands had been scarred, he rewound time itself. Not healed—just rewound. Forests grew back wrong, skies cleared but imperfectly. It was survival, not salvation.
"Fixed enough," he murmured. "That's all I know how to do."
He never waited for gratitude. Mortals caught only glimpses of him—wind and light vanishing into the horizon. Stories spread, but without names. Without faces.
Only the Aeonlords remembered. To them, he was one thing:
The Dread Force.
But immortals fall, too.
While he tried to mend a land split apart, a hidden enemy struck. The Soulpiercer—a blade meant to kill even the deathless—cut into him. His core shattered. Void-energy bled like unraveling stars.
He collapsed, light flickering out of his eyes. His last words barely carried:
"At last… I was only ever a shadow passing through."
And then he was gone.
No songs were sung, no shrines built. Only the Aeonlords mourned, speaking softly into the void:
"He was never meant to be light or darkness. He was the silence between them—the force even death could not claim."
And with that, his name closed into legend:
"Keralos. The Dread Force."