The world around Kel simply… ceased to exist. His consciousness hung in absolute nothingness. No sensation. No sound. No scent. Just endless dark. Thankfully, it didn’t last long. Solid ground formed beneath his feet.

  Kel opened his eyes.

  He stood in an unfamiliar place – what looked like an old garden. Cracked statues leaned at awkward angles. Stone paths were almost completely swallowed by creeping vines. Overgrown hedges clawed at the sky, untamed and wild. Everything about it spoke of abandonment.

  This place hadn’t seen care in years.

  “I’m glad I was able to reach you.”

  The voice came from behind him – faintly familiar.

  Kel spun at once, instincts snapping into place, ready to defend or strike if necessary.

  A silhouette stood a few steps away, its form flickering in a soft green glow. Not quite solid. Not quite light. More like a presence pretending to have shape.

  Of course.

  That was the last thing he needed right now.

  Just like last time, the silhouette flickered and shifted, its outline warping again and again. Then, without warning, the green glow began to dim.

  Kel didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

  He simply watched as the thing in front of him grew denser – heavier – real.

  The light collapsed inward. A heartbeat later, a figure stood where the distortion had been.

  A child.

  A boy, no older than ten. Wavy light-brown hair brushed his chin, slightly overgrown. Sharp green eyes regarded Kel through a faint squint. An ordinary child at first glance.

  Except nothing about this was ordinary.

  The clothes were wrong. A long, old-fashioned tunic belted at the waist – the kind no one in the Nine Kingdoms had worn for centuries. Perhaps longer.

  “Children are usually considered harmless. Endearing. I thought this form might help us build trust.”

  Even his voice didn’t fit the body. It was calm. Even. Too deliberate.

  “Who are you?”

  Kel had a dozen sharper questions ready, but that was the one that slipped out first.

  The boy lowered his hands, a faint crease forming between his brows.

  “Please don’t disappoint me,” he said, sounding mildly irritated. “I require an intelligent assistant. I’ve been observing you, and so far, you’ve performed adequately. So why don’t you answer your own question?”

  Not human. That much was certain. Not a monster. Not a spirit. Not any magical entity Kel had ever encountered.

  He extended his senses, letting his mage-sight unfold.

  Nothing.

  No aura. No mana. No distortion.

  His magical vision showed exactly what his normal eyes did – a fair-haired child in archaic clothing, standing calmly in a forgotten garden.

  No trace of magic at all. And that was the most unnatural thing of all.

  Someone impossibly powerful stood before him. And impossibly strange.

  Something that knew about his journey in this world.

  The realization came almost at once – though certainty did not.

  “You’re the System, aren’t you?”

  The boy’s lips curved faintly.

  “I dislike that term. But broadly speaking… yes.”

  That only multiplied the questions.

  “What are you? Why do you need me? And what did you mean when you said time is running out?”

  The boy lifted a hand again, cutting him off with a small, almost impatient gesture.

  Instead of answering, he stepped off the overgrown path and sat down on a marble bench wrapped in ivy, as though they were simply two acquaintances meeting in a quiet park.

  Then he gestured for Kel to join him.

  Kel sat on the opposite end of the bench, careful to keep distance between them.

  The harmless appearance fooled no one.

  He could almost feel it against his skin – the immense pressure coiled inside that small frame. Contained. Controlled. Dangerous.

  The boy tilted his head slightly to the side, birdlike, studying him.

  It felt as though he were reading every thought as it formed. Every calculation. Every flicker of doubt. Maybe he was.

  At last, the boy began to speak.

  “I am Order. Yes – I am the System that allows magic to exist in this world. But I prefer the name Vanakt. I chose it in memory of the one who created me.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Created?

  That was the last answer Kel had expected.

  He had always assumed the magical order of the world was eternal. Fundamental. A law of existence, not something forged by mortal hands.

  A blast of hot wind struck his face. The garden vanished. They were no longer sitting on the ivy-covered bench. Now they stood on the slope of a low mountain. Ash drifted through the dry air like falling snow. Below them, a village was burning.

  Fields ready for harvest had become seas of flame. Smoke coiled into the sky. The crackle of fire mixed with screams.

  Kel narrowed his eyes. Goblins.

  At least three hundred of them swarmed through the settlement. Some were dragging loot from houses. Others had already begun dividing the spoils.

  Not just goods. People.

  Judging by the furious shrieks rising from the village, there were fewer captives than attackers – and that imbalance had sparked infighting.

  One goblin yanked at a young woman, trying to tear a child from her arms. The girl clung desperately to her dress, sobbing. She shoved at the creature in panic.

  The goblin responded with a brutal backhand. The blow sent her crashing to the ground.

  Kel leaned forward, ready to move. He couldn’t save the dead – but the captives were still alive.

  Cold fingers closed around his wrist. This time, the touch didn’t hurt.

  “Don’t,” Vanakt said quietly. “These are only echoes of what once was. You will save no one. You will change nothing.”

  The screams continued below them. Fire consumed wood and flesh alike. The goblins dragged their spoils through smoke and ash.

  Kel tried to pull free, but the boy’s grip did not yield.

  The scene shifted again.

  The fire and ash dissolved into gray light.

  Now they stood in the central square of a city.

  Torn festival garlands still hung between buildings. Paper lanterns swayed gently in the wind – remnants of a celebration that must have taken place some time ago. Now the square had become a mass grave.

  Carts rolled in one after another. Not with barrels of ale. With bodies wrapped in shrouds.

  A grizzled warrior in worn bronze armor clapped a younger guard on the shoulder.

  “The doctors say fewer fell sick today than yesterday,” he said, forcing optimism into his voice. “Fewer dead too. Looks like the plague’s breaking. Gates should open soon.”

  He gave a tired grin.

  “When they let us out, I’m heading straight to a tavern. I’ll eat enough for all these cursed weeks. What about you?”

  The younger man lifted hollow, sunken eyes.

  “I think there are fewer sick,” he murmured, “because there’s barely anyone left alive.”

  His hand tightened over his chest.

  “I’m not even sure we – ”

  He broke off, seized by a violent cough, doubling over as it tore through him.

  Slaughter. Plague. Drought. Famine.

  The visions bled into one another without pause, until Kel found himself once more on the mountainside.

  The burned village was gone.

  In its place lay nothing but dry, barren earth stretching to the horizon.

  “Why are you showing me all this?” Kel asked after a moment of silence.

  It was easier to call him by name. To think of him as Vanakt – not as the System.

  “That,” Vanakt said softly, “is how my creator saw this world. Cruel. Pathetic. Dying. A realm stripped of hope.”

  His gaze drifted across the wasteland.

  “Neither he nor I believed magic would solve everything. But it would solve much. And so he chose to gift it to this world.”

  Kel frowned.

  “He began inventing spells? Runes? Sigils?” He struggled to grasp the idea. Magic wasn’t something you handed out like bread.

  Vanakt’s faint smile returned.

  “My creator was an outsider. As you are. He came from a world where magic was as natural as breathing.”

  The wind stirred the dust at their feet.

  “And he planted its seeds here.”

  Two figures appeared at the foot of the mountain – a man and a woman.

  Kel didn’t recognize the woman. But it took him only a single glance to understand who the man was.

  It seemed the System had borrowed not only its creator’s name, but his face as well.

  The man looked about twenty years older than the version standing beside Kel now. Long hair was tied back into a low tail. A massive scar cut across his left cheek, the kind left by a blade. But his expression was nothing like his creation’s.

  Fine lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes – the marks of someone who smiled often and without restraint. Even now, he was laughing, gesturing animatedly as he spoke to the dark-skinned woman walking at his side.

  There was warmth in him.

  Kel tried to cast a spell to catch their voices.

  Nothing.

  Yet the spell enhancing his sight still held, allowing him to see them clearly despite the distance.

  So he was allowed to watch. Just not to listen. Kel shot Vanakt a sideways glance but said nothing.

  That meant the creator was speaking about something important. Something not meant for him.

  He must have been an extraordinary man, if he could speak of important things so lightly – as though he were simply telling an amusing story.

  He laughed freely, hands moving as he spoke, sunlight catching in his hair.

  Then again, that was only Kel’s assumption.

  Maybe Vanakt-the-Original was simply telling jokes right now, and the System was refusing to share them out of sheer pettiness.

  Or perhaps it was protecting its creator’s dignity.

  Because the jokes were terrible.

  There was no point in speculating, so Kel kept watching.

  After some time, the man stepped away from his companion.

  It was time for magic.

  Kel watched intently as the man traced symbols in the air and along the ground, following every gesture, every movement of his hands. But he couldn’t recognize a single thing. None of it matched the runes, circles, or spell structures he knew.

  One look at the way the man cast was enough to make it clear – he truly wasn’t from this world. The magic he used wasn’t native to this place.

  Though, if the System was telling the truth, before Vanakt… there hadn’t been any magic here at all.

  he symbols didn’t fade.

  They remained suspended in the air, burning brighter with every passing second.

  The ground trembled beneath them. The air thickened, turning heavy and difficult to breathe, as if the world itself were bracing for impact.

  More sigils formed – dozens, then hundreds – until they fused into a single radiant, pulsing mass of light that hurt to look at.

  Kel felt a quiet, almost guilty relief that this was the past. That none of this could reach him.

  The magical pressure alone would have annihilated anyone within miles. Flesh would tear. Even an Archmage at the height of his power would struggle to remain standing beneath that kind of force.

  So who had the original Vanakt truly been?

  What kind of being could command something like this?

  And where did he come from&

  A blinding flash swallowed the mountainside.

  The vision collapsed.

  Kel found himself back in the abandoned garden, seated once more on the ivy-wrapped marble bench. Only now dusk had fallen, painting the ruins in muted shades of gray and blue. A fine drizzle drifted from the darkening sky.

  Cold droplets touched his face.

  Vanakt sat beside him, head lowered, unmoving. He made no attempt to shield himself from the rain.

  Strange. Two Vanakts – the creator, and the one sitting beside him.

  He wiped the rain from his face and finally broke the silence.

  “That was impressive,” Kel said quietly. “No sarcasm. But why show me all of it?”

  Kel flinched. The boy spoke in Kel’s own voice

  “You asked the questions. I decided to answer. Remember when I said this world had no hope?”

  Kel nodded.

  “Well. The lack of hope wasn’t because of the absence of magic. There are plenty of worlds that exist without it – you should know that. But my world was on the brink of annihilation, and only the Creator and I saved it from ceasing to exist.”

  Vanakt’s green eyes gleamed faintly in the fading light. “As I said before, without magic, this world will cease to exist. I am its rules. Its foundation. You could even say… its heart. I watch. I correct. And when time is short, I act. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever.” Vanakt fell silent. Kel felt a shiver run down his spine – he understood the implication. The Gray Calamity hadn’t been part of the creator’s plans, nor the system’s.

  “To my greater regret,” Vanakt continued, “I, as Order, am bound by rules too. And now your turn comes. Why do I need you? To bend the rules. Maybe even rewrite them.

  So… tell me – what do you know about the Ascended?”