The pace was in chaos.
Emperor Vaelus III stood at the heart of the throne room, surrounded by shouting nobles, panicked schors, and knights who did not know who to take orders from. The reports had flooded in at dawn. Hundreds of people had colpsed in the streets. None of them had woken up. None of them had died. The best healers in Solmaria had worked through the night, using every spell, every blessing, every form of divine intervention.
Nothing worked.
Darius stood by the throne, arms crossed, watching the argument unfold.
"This is a sign of divine punishment," one noble spat. "A pgue upon the wicked—"
"Nonsense," another snapped. "There is no disease. The healers have confirmed that these people are alive in body but absent in soul."
"We must consult the Pantheon," a priest said desperately. "The gods will—"
"—do nothing," the Archprophet Lethrian interrupted.
The chamber fell silent. The Emperor's gaze darkened. "Expin." Lethrian exhaled slowly. His hands twitched at his sides, as if he was holding back the urge to cw at his own skin.
"I have spent the st twelve hours in the Grand Academy," he said. "I have consulted every record of the Eternal Cycle. Every prophecy. Every divine scripture."
He turned to the Emperor. "They are being rewritten." The words struck like thunder. Murmurs rippled through the chamber. The nobles exchanged uncertain gnces. The High Bishop furrowed his brows. "What do you mean, rewritten?" Lethrian's fingers curled into his robes. "I mean, entire sections of history are vanishing from the records. I mean, prophecies that once existed are now bnk parchment. I mean, the future—the thing we have always been able to predict—is being erased before it happens."
Silence.
The Emperor's expression did not change, but his knuckles whitened against the grip of his scepter. Darius took a slow breath. "And what do you believe is causing this?" Lethrian hesitated. He looked around the chamber, then took a step forward. "When I was a child," he said, "I asked my master what existed beyond our world. Beyond the cycle of fate."
The High Bishop nodded. "And what was his answer?"
Lethrian's voice was hollow. "There is nothing beyond fate." A ripple of unease passed through the room. Darius felt it, too. A slow, creeping sensation at the edge of his mind. Lethrian continued. "But now... something is breaking that truth." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Something is entering our world... from outside fate."
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The first true manifestation happened at midday.
It began in the Western District of Solmaria—a pce known for its grand temples and bustling markets. The streets were full. Merchants called out their prices, children ran between the stalls, knights walked their patrols. Then, without warning, sound itself vanished. There was no wind. No footsteps. No voices.
The entire district fell into a void of absolute silence. The people froze in pce, eyes darting wildly, mouths opening and closing, but no words escaped their lips. A knight banged his sword against a metal post. The steel rang against the stone—but there was no sound. Panic set in. Merchants waved their hands in frantic gestures, trying to speak but unable to hear their own voices. A mother clutched her child, her breath hitching, but the child's cries made no noise. Then—one by one—the people began to vanish. Not in an explosion. Not in blood or fire. They simply blinked out of existence. Their bodies disappeared. Their shadows remained.
By the time Darius and his knights arrived, the district was already half-empty.
Darius saw it with his own eyes. A woman turned toward him, desperate, hands outstretched— Then she was gone. Her shadow remained, stretched across the cobblestone like a stain on reality itself. A knight near Darius let out a choked breath. "Gods..." Darius turned to him. "Tell me you saw that." The knight nodded stiffly, sweat rolling down his brow. "What... what's happening?" another knight whispered.
Darius' jaw clenched. He did not answer. Because he did not know.
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Inside the Grand Academy, Lethrian watched in horror as the Eternal Cycle split.
Not changed. Not erased. Split. Two different timelines burned themselves into the stone. Two versions of Celestara, contradicting each other at once. One where the Western District of Solmaria still existed. One where it had already been erased. Two realities. One world. Lethrian staggered back. His mind screamed. This was not possible. The world could not sustain a paradox of this magnitude. And yet, there it was. Written in fate itself.
Lethrian gasped, his trembling fingers tracing the cracks forming between the two paths.
And then— The world chose. The second path burned away. And suddenly, in every memory, in every record, in every soul— The Western District had never existed.
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Darius stood in the empty streets.
The buildings were intact. The marketpce was untouched. But there were no people. There was no sign that anyone had ever been here. His men stood behind him, shifting uneasily. They knew something was missing. But already, the knowledge was fading. Darius forced himself to remember. He had seen them vanish.
But even as he clung to the memory, it felt... wrong. As if he was trying to recall a dream that had never happened. He turned to his men. "Return to the pace. Tell the Emperor—" A breath of cold air brushed against his skin.
Darius stiffened.
Something stood at the far end of the street. A figure, cloaked in bck, featureless. Its presence was wrong. Not unnatural. Not monstrous. Just... absent. A void in the shape of a man. Darius exhaled slowly. "You there." The figure did not move. His fingers tightened around his sword. "Who are you?" The figure tilted its head slightly. Then, it spoke.
"You do not remember me."
Darius' breath caught in his throat. The voice wasn't there. He had not heard it. He had remembered it being spoken. The figure took a step forward. Darius drew his bde. But deep in his mind, something whispered— "You have already lost."
