The Empire did not end with a war. It ended with a scream that tore the fabric of reality.
Killian was gone. He had vanished into the northern slums, a man possessed, tearing through every cellar and dungeon in a desperate search for the Duchess.
He had abandoned his post, his rank, and his sanity, chasing a ghost that had been hidden too well.
While the Shadow searched for the Duchess, the "Hero" was sent to hunt the Saintess.
Alaric had been given the orders himself. "Investigate the Saintess Evelina. She is suspected of colluding with the Duchess. Bring her to justice." When Evelina vanished from the Temple, Alaric felt a surge of cold fury. He believed she was escaping. He believed she was guilty. He spent a month tracking her, his "Golden" heart hardening with every mile.
He found her on a grey, rain-slicked morning in the Whispering Woods.
She hadn't escaped.
Evelina was hanging from the gnarled branch of an ancient oak tree. She was so thin she looked like a broken bird, her white robes tattered and stained with the filth of her long imprisonment. She hadn't been running; she had been discarded. The "Saintess" had been broken by the same hands that had snatched Seraphina.
Alaric stood beneath her, his sword falling from his nerveless fingers. The silence of the woods was absolute, save for the creak of the rope.
"No," Alaric whispered. The "Gloom" that had been simmering in his chest for months finally boiled over. "No! I was supposed to save you! I was supposed to be the Knight of Justice!"
He looked at her pale, lifeless face—the woman he had judged, the woman he had hunted—and the realization hit him like a physical blow. He had been a puppet. His "justice" was nothing but a shroud.
The grief was too much for a human heart to contain. Alaric's mana—the pure, holy light granted to the Empire's greatest protector—began to vibrate. It wasn't the gentle glow of a blessing. It was a jagged, violent gold.
"BRING HER BACK!" Alaric roared at the sky, his voice cracking.
His mana exploded. It wasn't a spell; it was an act of pure, desperate cosmic defiance. The golden light expanded in a shockwave that leveled the trees, turning the woods into a white void. It reached across the Empire, catching Killian in the slums and Seraphina in her cold, dark hole.
The force of the regression was like being dragged through broken glass.
The Rebirth
Seraphina bolted upright in her bed, her lungs burning as if she had just been submerged in ice water. Her mind was a fractured mirror, reflecting images of a dungeon, a rope, and a man with crimson eyes.
Across the city, in the Holy Cathedral, Evelina woke up with her hands clawing at her throat, the phantom sensation of the noose still tightening. Her hair, once golden, had streaks of bone-white—the "Mana-Burn" of Alaric's explosion.
In the barracks, Alaric didn't wake up with a smile. He woke up and immediately vomited, his body shaking with the memory of the white void. He looked at his hands and saw the "Golden Knight," but he felt like a murderer.
And in the shadows of the palace, Killian stood perfectly still. His crimson eyes were bloodshot, his heart racing. He remembered the search. He remembered the failure.
The four of them were back. But they were not "young" anymore. They were four ghosts trapped in living bodies, their souls scarred by the violent magic of Alaric's sorrow.
The game had begun again but they are already too damaged.