Within Eidolon's grasp, reality folded into silence.
The titan's hand, vast as the horizon, became a cradle of creation—a pocket dimension suspended in stillness, where time itself dared not move.
Eidolon's palm was a landscape of impossible scale—mountains of cloud and light, their jagged peaks piercing banks of slowly swirling nebulae. The fingers curling overhead were a fusion of rocky crags and ethereal smoke, a celestial vault that bathed the chamber in an otherworldly glow.
All around, colossal shards drifted in a slow orbit. Each was a prism of frozen light, their cores aglow with quiet sorrow. They were said to be the crystallized tears of the Cosmos—grief given form, the residue of every star that had ever mourned its own extinction. They pointed toward Planet Eden like solemn witnesses, as though the heavens themselves watched the judgment unfold.
At its heart hung Planet Eden. Its vibrant red and green continents were now veiled in a pale, mournful luminescence, the light of cosmic tears painting its surface in shades of mourning gold and fading blue. It was a silent elegy for a lost paradise.
The God-King Raiking drifted toward it, his cloak billowing like solidified shadow. His face was a mask of stone, but the galaxies within Eidolon's chest pulsed in time with his heartbeat—a low, resonant thrum of turmoil that vibrated through the dimension.
His hand lifted, brushing the crystalline coffin where his disciple slept in serene perpetuity. His voice was a low rumble, not of anger, but of a grief so deep it had become a cold, hard truth.
"See," he whispered to her still form, "the hopelessness of this world. It is the same you saw in your final moments."
For a heartbeat, their reflection shimmered in Eden's atmosphere—master and disciple, framed against an ocean of starlight and sorrow.
Then, without a sound or a flash, he was gone. He descended once more into the world that had betrayed her, the world that now held the only, faintest chance of mending a heart shattered by loss.
---
Down on Planet Eden, a tense vigil unfolded at the entrance to the floating capital. A handful of Entities stood guard, hands resting on weapon hilts, their eyes scanning the crimson expanse of the Red Sea in wary, repetitive motions.
Then, the sea began to tremble, its surface rippling with an unnatural energy. One guard cautiously approached the edge.
Whoosh.
A still breeze swept across his face. A shadow in the blood-red waters made him glance up.
And there…floated the God-King.
The Entity staggered back, his voice a tremor of awe and fear. "He came."
The other guards stepped forward, forming a defiant line against the towering figure.
"So the Elder was right," one muttered, his grip tightening on his hilt.
"See now?"another added, his tone grim. "He's really here."
"I didn't want to believe it..."a third whispered, disbelief warring with dread. "But why?"
"The Elder's word is law!"a loyalist barked, stepping to the front of the group. He yelled up at the floating deity, "We will not let you harm the Elders!"
Another joined him,voice sharp. "You already stripped them of their Void Essence! How much further will you go?"
A cry rose from the crowd,"The Elders only enforced our laws! Is death your answer to order?"
One by one, the more the GodKing remained silent, the more the truth warped under the weight of their words. What had begun as doubt was now being weaponized, twisted by perspective truths into a rallying cry, the air thickening with the tension of a confrontation teetering on the edge of violence.
Then, the Red Sea erupted.
A root, vast and sinuous, burst from the churning crimson depths with impossible speed.
It struck before thought itself could form, spearing clean through the skull of the foremost loyalist. The wet crack of bone shattered the silence, followed by a violent spray of blood that splattered across the ranks of Entities behind him.
For a heartbeat, the corpse hung suspended—puppet-like, twitching at the mercy of the root impaled through its head.
Then came the recoil: the root snapped backward, dragging the body with it before flinging it aside like refuse.
The corpse struck the sea with a heavy splash, the sound echoing like a gavel marking the end of judgment.
Silence collapsed into chaos.
"He's betrayed us!" an Entity shrieked, voice breaking into hysteria.
"We should have killed him at birth—all those millennia ago!" another roared.
Essence flared.
The sky ignited with color—ribbons of energy weaving into a storm of divine fury.
Blades bathed in Air Essence carved arcs through the air, releasing a storm of slicing crescents.
An Earth wielder slammed his palm to the ground; stone obeyed, surging upward in jagged pillars aimed for the heavens.
Blood Essence users shaped the stains on their own garments, drawing them into crimson spikes that screamed toward the target.
And from above, a Lightning master sealed his grand formation—a vast sigil that cracked open the heavens, calling down a blinding bolt of judgment.
The combined onslaught tore across the field—a chorus of annihilation converging upon one still point.
But as the storm neared, the world… slowed.
Time stretched thin, every motion crawling as if reluctant to complete its path.
Before the God-King, reality distorted.
A faint shimmer rippled outward, and from the void between heartbeats, a tome emerged—its presence commanding, ancient, alive.
The Book of Revesis drifted into view, its pages fluttering as if stirred by an unseen wind.
It hovered before him, the paper whispering in soft defiance of the silence.
Then, with the solemnity of destiny turning a page, the tome fell open—
each sheet stopping mid-flutter until one settled perfectly in place.
Page Three:
Cain's Wrath.
---
Meanwhile, within the capital, those who still doubted the God-King's intent huddled behind the shimmering veil of the city's protective barrier. Yet even that sanctum could not muffle the distant thunder—the echoes of battle carried on the wind, mingled with the low hum of Essence rippling through the streets.
Curiosity warred with fear. One by one, they drifted toward the main gate, drawn as if by some grim compulsion.
A woman led them, her steps steady despite the tremor in her breath.
Then—
a deafening boom split the air.
The gate disintegrated in an instant, vaporized by sheer force. The blastwave hit like a hammer, flinging bodies backward through clouds of shattered stone and molten debris. The woman hit the ground hard, the breath torn from her lungs.
Dazed, she pushed herself upright on one elbow, blinking through the haze—
and froze.
Through the billowing smoke, a silhouette advanced—tall, unarmored, and drenched in the glow of a crimson sky.
The God-King.
Before comprehension could dawn, something struck her chest with a sound like cracking glass. She looked down in disbelief—a root, pulsing with dull, red light, had punched clean through her heart.
Her breath hitched. Blood filled her throat.
As she collapsed onto her side, vision fading, she saw him stride past without a glance. Around him, hundreds of roots burst from the ground like living spears, each one impaling another life—friends, comrades, kin. The city's defenders fell in eerie silence, their deaths swallowed by the rhythmic thrum of his will made manifest.
Her final sight was a root sliding back into the earth, leaving no trace but a spreading crimson stain.
Then darkness took her.
---
The God-King Raiking halted at last.
Half the capital lay in ruin behind him—streets drowned in blood, towers cleaved open, the air thick with iron and silence. The storm of vengeance had spent itself, leaving only stillness and the faint crackle of residual Essence.
Before him, untouched amid the devastation, stood the Keeper of Time and Fate.
Her golden sands whirled gently around her form, each grain glowing like a captured sunbeam—
a fragile, luminous defiance against the carnage that encircled her.
Two forces met—grief and eternity, student and master—
and the universe itself seemed to hold its breath.