The earth had no rulers. No gods walked its soil. Only the tribes remained, each clinging to their own light, their own creed, their own madness.
They were four.
The Solari, who raised their faces to the burning sky, believing the sun's fire would make them eternal.
The Lunaris, who moved by silver tides, whispering prayers to the pale glow above, chasing wisdom in shadows.
The Aetherion, who bowed to nothing but the unseen, worshipping the unknown to unknown to unknowable.
And the Dravak, who knew no law but battle, kneeling before the God of Never-Ending War.
For centuries they clashed. Seasons turned to decades, decades to centuries, and the soil grew thick with bones. No field remained unstained. No river flowed clear. They were people born only to die, and to kill.
And so came the Last War.
The sky that day had no sun, no moon—only smoke and fire. Solari flames clashed with Lunaris steel; Aetherion sorcery tore apart Dravak spears; the ground shuddered beneath their hatred. Screams stitched the horizon together. Arrows fell like rain. Blood boiled in the dirt until rivers ran scarlet.
The war ended not with victory but with silence.
Silence, because no one remained to scream.
Corpses sprawled across the battlefield, thousands upon thousands. The banners of each tribe lay trampled in mud. And among that ocean of death, only four figures stirred—one from each tribe, broken, bleeding, gasping for life they would not keep.
The Solari warrior's chest was caved in, his golden blade snapped.
The Lunaris maiden's arms were shattered, her face painted in ash.
The Aetherion seer clutched his torn gut, whispering to gods who never came.
The Dravak champion lay pierced by a dozen spears, yet his hand still gripped one.
Four lives flickering. Four breaths fading.
And in that moment of collapse—when no prayer could rise high enough, when no hope remained—the sky itself tore open.
Darkness spilled first, then light, then blood-red glow, then a crescent white slice. Four shadows descended, though they cast no shape the eye could name. They were not gods, not demons, not stars. They were older, beyond, nameless and yet known in the marrow of existence.
The Four Shadows.
Vanthelos, the Black Hole, who devours all light.
Caelis, the White Hole, who gives and gives until nothing remains.
Rhexaros, the Crimson Moon, drunk on endless bloodshed.
Veylun, the Crescent Moon, silent judge of cycles.
They drifted closer, vast as heavens, yet slid into the broken husks of the four survivors as easily as breath enters lungs.
The battlefield groaned. Corpses shuddered. The air thickened, as if creation itself bent under their arrival.
And then—they spoke.
Vanthelos (in the Solari warrior's ruined throat):
"Emptiness. At last, emptiness. They fought for centuries, and what have they left? A hollow field. How fitting. I claim this hollow as mine."
Caelis (through the Lunaris maiden's cracked lips, voice like wind in caverns):
"Not hollow. Seeds remain, even in ash. Even in ruin. If we fill this silence, something may yet grow. A cycle must not end here."
Rhexaros (laughing in the Aetherion seer's broken body, blood bubbling with every word):
"Grow? Hah! Let it fester, let it rot! I taste their despair, their rage, and it is sweet. Why end war when war itself is life?"
Veylun (calm, inside the Dravak champion's trembling frame):
"Life. Death. Cycle. Shattered, then woven again. Whether by void, by gift, by blood, or by judgment—the wheel turns. And we turn it."
The four shadows stood, their vessels trembling under impossible weight. The battlefield—once only dead—now pulsed faintly, as if listening.
Caelis turned first, gazing across the corpses.
"What is deliverance, then? To heal, to nurture, to remake the world?"
Vanthelos sneered, darkness bleeding from his vessel's wounds.
"Deliverance is to erase. To consume every false dawn until only truth remains—silence."
Rhexaros bared his teeth in the seer's ruined mouth.
"Deliverance is slaughter. If mortals wish for peace, we grant them more war until none remain to crave it."
Veylun's eyes glowed pale, crescent white.
"Deliverance is judgment. Not salvation. Not doom. Merely… balance."
Their voices overlapped, discordant, yet bound by inevitability.
The earth trembled beneath their words. In distant forests, animals fled. In hidden seas, tides recoiled. The very air seemed to wish it could forget.
Yet no witness lived. No one survived to carve these truths into stone or song.
The Shadows raised their eyes to the smoke-choked sky.
Caelis whispered:
"Then let it begin. Not the first. Not the last. Merely… one cycle among many."
Vanthelos answered:
"Let them be born only to die, die only to be born. Let hollows birth hollows."
Rhexaros laughed, a sound like tearing flesh:
"And let their wars paint the ages red! I will be there in every wound, every scream, every betrayal."
Veylun spoke last, soft yet heavier than silence:
"The deliverance is neither gift nor curse. It is the law beneath laws. They will forget this war. They will forget us. But we will not forget them."
The shadows bent low, pressing their stolen palms into the blood-soaked earth. Four pulses struck the soil—void, light, crimson, crescent. The land cracked. The sky shivered. A mark unseen etched itself into the heart of the world.
It was not salvation. It was not ending.
It was the beginning of cycles.
When their work was done, the battlefield lay still again.
The corpses would rot. The banners would vanish. The names of tribes would be swallowed by time. History itself would turn its face away.
But in secret, four vessels walked away from the carnage, bearing shadows no mortal should carry.
And though no song remembered it, though no scripture dared to write it—
the world had been delivered.
Not into peace.
Not into freedom.
But into an endless wheel, unseen, unbroken.
The first cycle.
And far beyond, in futures unwritten, a child would be born to break it.
End of Prologue