The Sylphira Forest never truly sang.To ears long saturated with blood and betrayal like Zephyros’, the chiming of crystal leaves sounded more like thousands of tiny blades grinding against one another—sharp, cold, utterly devoid of feeling. The crystals drank in the dying light of Aethelgard’s rotting sky, scattering sickly pale-blue reflections across grasslands that resembled the skin of a corpse refusing to decay.Zephyros did not merely stand there.He remained motionless, carved from stillness itself, one hand gripping the hilt of the Essence Sword as though it were the final anchor preventing him from erasing the entire forest with a single swing.The blade was no longer dim.Silver light crawled along its surface, pulsing softly like the heartbeat of something newly awakened from death. The metal felt cold to the touch, yet beneath that coldness burned an inner core of energy demanding sacrifice.Curled atop a massive root protruding from the earth like the vein of some colos

Echo Valley no longer echoed with the sounds of nature.That night, only the hiss of dying flames and the copper stench of drying blood remained upon the scorched earth. Black smoke from the wreckage of General Zael’s airships hung low across the valley, suffocating the lungs of anyone still foolish enough to breathe deeply.At the center of the ruined square, Zephyros Vaelin stood motionless.He did not resemble a hero.He looked like a fragment of shadow that refused to leave.Hundreds of lower-caste survivors knelt before him, not out of reverence, but because terror had turned their joints weak. In their eyes, the man who had driven death away was the same being condemned in Silver City sermons as the end of all life itself.The Primordial Devil.The Harbinger of Ruin.Lyra stepped forward, cutting through the wall of fear.Her legs trembled, but her spine remained straight. Standing before Zephyros, she faced her own people.“Look at your hands!” Lyra’s voice tore through the sil

The sky above Echo Valley no longer possessed a horizon.It had become a vast crimson wound leaking the breath of death itself.At the center of that rupture hung Elara’s Eradication Core like a dying sun, trembling on the edge of collapse, ready to vaporize everything beneath it. The air suddenly grew unbearably heavy, saturated with static that made every hair stand upright. Oxygen itself seemed dragged upward into the heavens, leaving only suffocating emptiness behind.The Sylphira Crystal Forest surrounding the valley lost its haunting melody.The glass-like trees shook violently, releasing shrill frequencies sharp enough to rupture eardrums. Crystal leaves that once sang beautifully shattered apart, raining razor-edged fragments across the ground beneath the apocalyptic glow above.Nature was not mourning.It was convulsing in agony.At the center of the village square, dust and despair swirled together in choking waves.Yet the exiles did not run.Bare feet dug into the rocky so

Silver City did not welcome visitors.It judged them.The pale bluish radiance pouring from the floating metropolis was not illumination—it was sacred radiation, a holy glare that scorched the pores of anyone lacking Elara’s blessing. At the edge of the Ether Ocean cliffs, Zephyros stood motionless.To him, that glow was not beautiful.It was the scream of primordial energy violated and dragged screaming from the womb of the world simply to satisfy the ego of a counterfeit goddess.Beside him, Lyra struggled to breathe.The oxygen at this altitude was thin, poisoned by razor-sharp ether vapor that sliced through her throat with every inhale. She clenched the rough fabric of her cloak until her knuckles turned white.Each pulse of Silver City’s light made her tremble.The ancient blood flowing through her veins reacted instinctively—a natural rejection of the false frequency saturating the air.“Breathe.”Zephyros’ voice sounded less like human speech and more like the vibration of the

Echo Valley never truly slept.It merely rotted beneath a suffocating silence.The air within the exile lands usually reeked of sulfur and despair, yet tonight the atmosphere felt different—as though gravity itself had paused to hold its breath. Captain Varon gripped the hilt of his rusted sword until his knuckles whitened.Behind him, hundreds of discarded lower-caste refugees stood trembling together.Not from cold.From hope too painful to suppress.Before them, the ancient portal was no longer a lifeless slab of stone.It groaned.Its voice resembled twisted metal screaming beneath unbearable pressure while unstable streams of pale-blue energy leaked from its fractured surface.Varon knew infiltrating Silver City had been suicide.If Zephyros failed, this valley would become a mass grave before dawn.Then the fracture appeared.The portal split open—not from explosion, but from the arrival of something far more dominant.Zephyros stepped through first.No dust stained his cloak.N