"When gods bled, their light did not vanish — it fell."
The battlefield of Kurukshetra burned brighter than the sun that once watched over it.
A thousand banners were shredded by the wind, and the scent of ash and iron filled the horizon. The earth itself trembled, unable to bear the weight of divinity unleashed by mortal hands.
Arjuna's Gandiva sang first — a sound like thunder breaking through silk. Each arrow split the sky into mirrored fragments, their trails shimmering in gold. Across from him, Karna drew Vijaya, the bow of death, its pull warping the very air. When the two weapons met, the heavens rippled.
The clash was not of men, but of cosmic wills.
The arrows collided midair — light devouring light — and the collision birthed a blinding bloom. From its heart, particles of radiance scattered like molten pollen. They drifted downward, untouched by the flames of war, sinking into the soil where countless warriors fell.
Aether.
The first breath of the cosmos was reborn through destruction.
Around them, the world fractured further. Bheeshma's spears of wind carved mountains into plains. Drona's astras ignited like newborn stars. Every invocation, every mantra, tore the fabric of reality thinner until the ground beneath the chariots glowed as if it were made of liquid fire.
And in the midst of it all, Krishna raised his hand. The Sudarshan Chakra whirled from his palm — a sun given motion. It spun through the air, its edges singing hymns older than the world. As it rose, it veiled the sun itself, bending light and shadow. For an instant, the world forgot color — all that remained was blinding gold.
That was when the air first learned to hum.
The residue of countless astras merged in that silence — a celestial ash, unseen, unfelt, yet eternal. It seeped into the world's veins: the soil, the ocean, the wind. Forgotten by gods, ignored by mortals, it waited.
And when the last warrior fell, and the last vow was broken, the earth whispered its first secret — the language of Aether.
Centuries blurred like dust in the wind. Empires rose upon bones. The gods withdrew into myth.
But deep beneath temples and deserts, the residue endured — glimmering like trapped dawn.
It was a child who first found it.
Not a sage or a soldier, but a boy digging for water in the ruins of a forgotten field. His hand struck something that shimmered — not gold, not light, but something that breathed. When he touched it, the dust lifted around him, weightless. The boy ran, terrified, but the light followed — clinging to him, whispering warmth.
That was the first rediscovery. The first ignition.
Years later, men of ambition and science sought what that boy had touched. They extracted it, named it, and bound it. They learned to make it sing again. They built engines that hummed with divine resonance, blades that shimmered like liquid suns, and towers that could bend the wind itself.
Humanity had harnessed divinity.
They called it progress.
The world called it sacrilege.
And yet, even the gods stayed silent.
Perhaps they had learned — balance always claims its due.
In time, cities rose that pierced the clouds — Shambhala, the floating citadel, where Aether ran through every vein of metal and glass. The sky itself turned gold beneath its light. The people lived in eternal daylight, never questioning what kept the sun burning above them.
Beneath them, far below the clouds, the ruins of the old world still shimmered faintly. The soil, cracked and hollow, glowed in places where Aether bled too deep. They said that at night, when the world stilled, one could hear it hum — the sound of gods turning in their sleep.
No one remembered where it began.
No one questioned what it replaced.
They only knew its promise — endless power, endless peace.
Until the fractures began again.
Until the balance stirred.
And as the light of Shambhala dimmed for the first time in centuries, a new dawn cracked the sky — not golden, but ashen. The heavens trembled as if remembering their first wound. Somewhere in the deep below, Aether shivered like a living thing, as if recalling the day gods fell.
The world was built on echoes.
And every echo returns.