Everyone froze. The nurses, Akane, Siara, even Aevin, stood utterly still, caught in the grip of a horrifying paralysis. Only the raw, desperate cries of the healthy infant filled the suffocating silence.
Siara, her grey eyes brimming with tears, moved first. She gently took the crying girl child from the nurse's arms, her movements slow, deliberate.
She approached the bed, her gaze meeting Seraphina's, a silent plea for understanding in her tear-filled grey eyes.
"Here, little sister," Siara's voice was barely a whisper. "Your daughter."
With trembling hands, Seraphina reached out, her fingers brushing against the soft, warm skin of her child. A wave of profound, maternal love washed over her. She pulled the tiny body close, embracing her daughter with a fierce, possessive tenderness.
The baby's black hair, a fine down, brushed against Seraphina's cheek. Her soft grey eyes, though still wet with tears, were a perfect miniature of Seraphina's own.
The baby's cries, though muffled against her chest, did not cease. They continued, a persistent, mournful keen.
Seraphina's soft grey eyes, still half-lidded, scanned the room. Her brow furrowed. "But… what are you all doing? Why are you so… quiet?"
Silence, thick and suffocating, was her only answer. A cold dread began to coil in her stomach, a premonition of something terrible.
Her heart, usually so light and full of joy, grew heavy, a leaden weight pressing against her ribs. A single tear, hot and unexpected, traced a path down her temple, disappearing into her damp black hair.
"Why am I crying?" she wondered, her mind still hazy. " Why does my heart feel so heavy?"
Her gaze drifted, unfocused, across the room. It landed on Aevin, his hand still outstretched, hovering over something small and indistinct. A sudden, sharp jolt of awareness pierced through the fog.
"Father," Seraphina's voice was stronger now, a tremor of apprehension lacing her tone. "Is that… my other child? May I see him?"
Again, only silence. The air in the room grew colder, denser, pressing down on her. A wave of nausea washed over her.
Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
She tried to speak again, to demand an answer, but Siara moved swiftly. She gently, almost imperceptibly, took the crying girl child from Seraphina's arms, handing her to
Akane, who clutched the baby to her chest as if she were a fragile, precious secret. Siara then embraced Seraphina, a desperate, protective hug.
Just as Siara's arms wrapped around her, a blinding flash of lightning ripped through the sky outside, illuminating the chamber in a stark, fleeting white. In that searing instant, Seraphina saw it. The child in Aevin's hand.
It was still melting. Its skin, a sickening, translucent film, clung precariously to bone. Even its eyes, though closed, seemed to sink into the dissolving flesh. Its mouth, a tiny, puckered line, was shut, yet the horror was palpable.
It was alive, somewhere within that disintegrating form, a flicker of life clinging to a body that refused to hold together. Bone, stark and white, was visible through the liquefying tissue.
The sight stole her breath, stole her voice. Her vision blurred with an onslaught of tears, hot and torrential.
The child, her child, was dissolving. She couldn't even discern its gender. She tried to tear herself from Siara's embrace, to reach for the disintegrating form, to touch it, to hold it, to somehow stop the horror. But Siara, stronger in her desperate grip, held her fast, her arms like bands of steel.
Seraphina thrashed, a raw, guttural cry tearing from her throat, but she was trapped.
Her voice was a choked sob, her movements useless. She could only cry, harder and harder, tangled in her sister's desperate hold, as the image of her melting child seared itself into her mind.
----
At that very moment, across the vast expanse of the Ascendant Nexus, in the heart of the largest forbidden continent, a place of ancient, primal power where no known life dared tread, something stirred.
A humanoid being, ancient beyond reckoning, its form a silhouette against the perpetual gloom, opened its eyes.
A ripple of terror, cold and absolute, radiated outwards. Every beast, every monstrous predator, every creature that stalked the forbidden lands, whether a lumbering behemoth or a phantom whisper of shadow, ceased its hunt.
A primal instinct, a fear that transcended even their own predatory nature, seized them. They scattered, fleeing in a chaotic, desperate stampede, leaving behind a silence more terrifying than any roar.
This being, whose awakening struck fear into creatures capable of felling the strongest warriors, did not register their flight. Its gaze, ancient and unfathomable, fixed on a distant point in the sky – Eldrathis.
A flicker, a shimmer of light, and then nothing. It was gone, traveling at a speed that defied comprehension. In the blink of an eye, it spanned continents, crossing the vast, tempestuous oceans that separated the forbidden lands from the civilized realms.
It appeared above the Crown Palace, a silent, hovering figure, a shadow against the storm-wracked sky. Then, in the next heartbeat, it was inside.
----
Just as Seraphina, consumed by a mother's desperate agony, struggled against Siara's hold, a presence materialized in the room.
It was not a sudden burst, or a dramatic entrance, but a gentle unfolding, a quiet revelation of being. The air, already thick with despair, suddenly shimmered, then stilled.
Aevin Crown, the unyielding patriarch, felt a prickle of unease. He, who could sense the faintest tremor of energy, the most subtle shift in atmospheric pressure, felt nothing.
No energy signature, no displacement of air, no trace of arrival. The being simply *was*. This absence of detection, this void of sensation, was more terrifying than any overt display of power.
Another flash of lightning, brighter than before, illuminated the chamber. In its stark, momentary brilliance, the figure became clear.
It was a woman. Her beauty was ethereal, beyond any mortal comprehension, a perfect symmetry that mirrored, yet surpassed, the exquisite grace of Seraphina and Siara.
Her black hair cascaded around her, shimmering with an inner light, and her eyes, luminous and ancient, held depths that seemed to encompass galaxies.
She moved. Her hand, slender and elegant, extended. Her fingers, long and graceful, curled. The melting child, still clutched in Aevin's trembling hand, began to float, slowly, inexorably, towards her.
Aevin, Akane, Siara, the nurses – they all moved, a unified surge of protective instinct.
They lunged, hands outstretched, their faces contorted in a desperate attempt to stop her, to reclaim the dying infant.
Then, a voice. It was not a sound that resonated in the ears, but a vibration that settled deep within the bones, a whisper of pure, ethereal consciousness. It transcended language, bypassing thought, speaking directly to the soul.
"Stop."
And they stopped. Every muscle, every fiber of their beings, locked into place. They were utterly, completely frozen, their bodies rigid, their minds screaming in silent protest, yet unable to move a single finger. Only their eyes, wide with terror and disbelief, could follow the impossible scene unfolding before them.
----
Orion Veylorin, Headmaster and Chancellor of Nexora Academy, sat amidst scrolls of ancient lore in his office on the tip floor of Nexora academy, the continent's fate a silent weight on his shoulders.
As the second strongest being, his vigilance was absolute.
Suddenly, the Relica Name Sigil Codex, an artifact of immeasurable power, pulsed with a shimmering, spectral presence within its depths.
A fleeting whisper of something vast and ancient, it vanished as quickly as it came.
Orion's senses, honed over centuries, reached out. Nothing. Not a ripple in the arcane currents, not a tremor in the very fabric of existence. He frowned.
His gaze drifted, almost instinctively, towards the distant Eldrathis continent, specifically the Crown's state.
King Aevin Crown, a sovereign of profound wisdom and fierce love for his wife and the daughters, had woven layers of protective magic around his domain—a barrier so potent even Orion could not pierce it.
"A mere echo, then," Orion murmured, dismissing the anomaly.
"A reverberation against the Crown's impenetrable defiance."
He returned to his work, unaware that the fleeting ripple in the Codex was no echo, but a warning. A shadow, far more insidious than even Aevin's noble defenses, had just shown it's presence, and Orion, by misinterpreting its nature, had unwittingly averted a catastrophe that would have shaken the very foundations of this planet.