They called this world unconquerable. Many had thrown themselves against its walls, and none had ever returned victorious. Yet as storms tore through the heavens and the fires of war consumed the land below, that belief was finally giving way.
High atop a shattered cliff stood a man who had once embodied that certainty.
Now, he could barely stand.
His golden slitted eyes tracked the widening fractures in the sky. Each rift glowed with a faint blue light, spreading slowly as thunder rolled through the heavens. The air trembled with every pulse, strained to its breaking point.
The clothes that once marked him as the highest authority were torn and burned, stiff with blood both fresh and old. His violet hair hung loose and matted against his face, whipped by violent winds. Blood ran down his arm from wounds he no longer felt, dripping from his fingertips onto the stone below.
He was tired.
Not the kind of tired that came from battle, but the kind that came from knowing nothing he did would be enough. He had held the line. He had crushed armies. He had forced victory where none should have been possible.
And still, the sky was breaking.
Another tremor shook the land, cracking stone beneath his boots. He tightened his grip on his side and forced himself to stay upright, his gaze never leaving the fractured sky above.
Then the air screamed.
He turned just as the storm clouds directly overhead twisted violently, spiraling inward. Lightning lashed through the clouds, illuminating a sudden void at their center.
Something fell.
A body burst through the storm and slammed into the cliff with crushing force. Stone shattered outward as the figure skidded across broken rock, coming to rest only a few steps from the edge. The impact echoed like thunder, swallowed quickly by the roar of the storm.
The man moved at once, pain forgotten.
The woman lay on her side, armor fractured and scorched, one arm twisted unnaturally beneath her. Blood streamed freely from a gash along her temple, running down her cheek and pooling against the stone. Her breathing was shallow and uneven, each breath a visible effort.
Lightning flashed, briefly outlining her figure in pale light.
"My queen," he said, disbelief cutting through his exhaustion as he knelt beside her.
Her eyes fluttered open at the sound of his voice. For a moment, something like relief crossed her face.
"You're still standing," she murmured. "Good."
He reached for her, steadying her shoulders. "You're hurt. Is the King—"
"Listen to me," she interrupted weakly.
Another wound split open in the sky above them, the blue glow brightening as thunder rolled close enough to shake the cliff. The pressure in the air deepened.
She reached for him, her hand trembling as she fumbled at her side. With visible effort, she pressed something into his palm.
A ring.
Simple in design, its band dark and unadorned. A black stone sat at its center, dull and unreadable.
"The ring," he said, surprised.
"Yes," she whispered. "Take it."
His jaw tightened. "What about you? What about my brother?"
Her gaze shifted, just briefly, toward the ruined horizon. "There is no time."
She gripped his wrist with surprising strength. "They are coming. For this."
He closed his fingers around the ring.
For a brief moment, his senses slipped inward.
Space unfolded inside the band, far larger than it should have been. At its center rested a single object.
An egg.
Nearly five feet tall, its surface was black as night, marked with slow white spiral patterns that wrapped around it without end. It lay in perfect stillness, unchanged, untouched by the chaos tearing the world apart.
Seeing it again only confirmed what they already knew.
This could not be allowed to fall into their hands.
Another violent tremor ran through the land, and somewhere far above, a rift widened with a sound like tearing metal.
"You have to go," she said. "Now."
He shook his head. "Every path is sealed. The sky—"
"There is one place they will not follow," she said, her voice growing urgent despite her failing strength. "One place where the fractures do not hold."
Understanding struck him cold.
"The Godscar," he said.
She nodded.
"That land is cursed," he said. "Nothing that enters returns whole."
"Nothing that stays here will return at all," she replied. "Run. Hide. Let the world forget you."
He stared at her, searching her bloodied face for doubt, for fear, for some sign that this was not the only answer left.
He found none.
Her grip loosened. "Once you cross," she whispered, "they shouldn't be able to follow."
Another tear screamed open overhead, larger than the last. The storm howled as if in protest.
He closed his fingers around the ring and rose to his feet.
"I will come back," he said.
For a moment, her expression softened. Then she exhaled slowly, the tension leaving her shoulders as if something long carried had finally been set down.
"Go," she said.
The man nodded and launched himself into the sky, forcing his wounded body to obey as he ripped through the storm clouds. Pain flared with every movement, but he pushed forward, the ring burning faintly against his finger.
Behind him, the world wailed. Time lost meaning as he pushed through everything he had to reach that place, the one place he had never imagined entering in all his thousands of years of life.
The land beneath him changed.
The storm ended the moment he crossed the boundary. Wind vanished. Thunder fell silent. Even the light in the sky dimmed, not daring to disturb the silence in that place.
A vast hollow spread before him, carved deep into the land. At its center lay the ruins of an ancient city, long dead and forgotten. Destroyed structures leaned at strange angles. Cracked streets ran nowhere. Around the heart of the ruins stood a wide stone platform, surrounded by shattered statues.
Colossal statues ringed the platform.
They were broken at the waist or shoulders, their faces worn smooth by age. All of them faced inward, as if they had once stood guard over whatever lay at the center and failed.
This was the Godscar.
At the center of the circular platform hung an opening in the space with black smoke drifting out of it.
It was large, stable, and ominous.
The air around it did not move. Light bent toward it slightly, as if the world itself were leaning away. This was the true entrance to the Godscar. The point beyond which no one was meant to pass.
He slowed and glanced back once at the ruined world he had sworn to protect. His eyes dropped to the ring in his hand. He clenched it tight, drew a slow breath, and stepped into the rift.
The world twisted.
Pressure crushed in from all sides as space folded around him. His senses buzzed as the rift swallowed him whole.
Then—
Impact.
Forces slammed into him from multiple directions at once. Pain exploded across his body as invisible blows ripped into him, dragging him through warped space. His control faltered for a brief, terrifying moment. His mind screamed. This shouldn't be possible. They shouldn't be here.
Not inside the Godscar.
Something wrapped around his arm, burning as it pulled hard at the ring. His fingers spasmed as the weight intensified.
They were here.
They were going for the ring.
Shock cut through the pain.
A snarl rose from deep within his chest as blood spilled freely, his strength slipping faster than it ever had before.
"NO!," he roared.
He felt it then, the truth of his situation. His body was failing. His power was not enough. If this continued, the ring would be taken.
So he made a choice.
He burned everything.
Not just strength, but years. Potential. Life itself.
Power surged violently as his body roared with renewed strength. Bones shifted. Form expanded. Space buckled under the sudden release.
A dragon's roar erupted from his throat as he transformed.
The sound ripped outward, tearing him free and hurling him into the heart of the Godscar.
He did not turn back. He did not try to fight them. There were too many.
He ran.
He ran with everything he could pull from within himself. His massive form burst through the sky of the Godscar as he fled, the ruined air screaming around him. He could feel them behind him even now, closing the distance.
So he pushed harder.
He roared, and a white aura burst from his body, wrapping around him as his speed surged again. He twisted sharply in the air, changing direction toward the dark wall that stretched from the heavens down into the depths of the Godscar.
The wall was alive with rifts.
They opened and closed without pattern, jagged wounds tearing through space itself. He locked onto one and drove forward without hesitation.
As his body hurtled toward it, all sound faded away. Memories surged through his mind.
His daughter, still alive somewhere, unaware they were about to lose each other.
His wife, dying in his arms, her warmth slipping away as he begged her to stay.
Friends he had lost to a war that never gave them a choice.
With one final beat of his wings, he plunged into the rift and left his world behind.
The rift spat him out into the silent expanse of void.
A foreign world filled his vision with vast oceans below, debris from a shattered cosmic body drifting through the sky. His wounded form carved through the void and slammed into the world, rushing straight toward the endless blue waters below.
Darkness claimed him before impact.