"He has come…"
Amid the shattered remains of the towering ancient temple, Azazel, the archon of destruction, stood with an imposing presence atop the blood-stained altar that shimmered faintly in the dim light. Time here twisted unnaturally—sometimes flowing backward, then racing forward, before pausing as if uncertain of its own course—filling the air with a thick tension and casting deep shadows that seemed to breathe with hidden menace. In his hand, he gripped a shard of the time chain, a sacred fragment from the Chronofracture, radiating a mystical glow that glittered like morning dew, a dazzling yet terrifying symbol of power.
"Cracks have appeared. And if time has been stained by the blood of Fitran's descendants…" he whispered, voice low but sharp.
"Then this ritual can be... hastened," he hissed, the sound echoing through the crumbling temple walls, as if the ruins themselves awaited the grim fate he spoke of.
"I will plant Qayïn before the child even cries for the first time."
Within the secret chamber of Gaia Palace, concealed behind walls draped in thick, dark purple flowering vines and embellished with intricately carved animal heads worn by the passage of time, Iris stood transfixed. Her eyes were fixed on the glyph left by her child, its mysterious shape glowing softly beneath the trembling flame of an oil lamp. The air was rich with the earthy scent of aged wood mingled with faint traces of exotic spices, wrapping the space in an enchanting stillness, as though time itself had paused to honor the glyph's significance. The gentle light traced every delicate curve and fine vein of the symbol, which shimmered faintly, pulsing subtly as if alive—an ancient magic brimming quietly with latent energy. Iris sensed a faint vibration thrumming through the air, a connection to an unseen, greater force poised just beyond her understanding, an invisible power waiting patiently to be woken.
Yet, there was something Iris had not yet perceived:
The glyph… was growing.
Unlike ordinary spells, it radiated a thrilling, almost palpable energy, spawning veins of shimmering aether crystals that pulsed and vibrated softly within the air. These delicate veins intertwined to form a multi-layered magic circle—an intricate construct reminiscent of the legendary Voidwright Circle, yet adorned with flowing, graceful patterns that seemed alive. Each line and curve moved in perfect harmony, as if tracing the hidden pathways of the dantian and meridians, secret cultivation techniques lost to time and shrouded in ancient mystery.
"He… is a Cultivation Master…" Iris breathed, her voice trembling, a fragile mixture of fear and awe casting a shadow over her every word.
"My child is not merely a wizard. He is condensing his very soul…"
Suddenly, Hugo appeared. Hugo, a revered master at Atlantis Magic School, renowned for his uncanny ability to decipher forgotten magical tongues, stepped cautiously into the chamber, his body shivering with a mix of dread and reverence as he beheld the enigmatic glyph.
"Queen… this is not merely a glyph… it is the core of a soul, the lingering essence of one who has transcended to the realm of Ascension…"
He lowered his voice, trembling with profound respect and unease. "Even… Fitran has not reached this pinnacle."
Deep within Gaia's shadowy, labyrinthine underground, Azazel carefully lowered a massive stone chest onto the cold, uneven floor with a deafening thud. The impact sent subtle vibrations reverberating through countless layers of earth, echoing into the abyss below. Inside the chest, there was no corpse as one might expect; instead, nestled within the ancient stone, a radiant time cage shimmered intensely, pulsing with a strange, otherworldly energy never before witnessed by mortal eyes.
"Qayïn—the cursed spirit from before the dawn of the universe—I will bind you inside,
even though your mortal vessel is yet unborn.
I will harness the echo of that unborn existence as the gateway that links us."
The fragile chronofracture began to quiver and crack, delicate fissures snaking through the time cage as if the very fabric of time itself was slowly unraveling and threatening to splinter.
With deliberate reverence, Azazel opened the weathered pages of the Forbidden Tome, Codex Tenebris: Lux Corrupta, an ancient grimoire rumored to have been penned to summon Qayïn from beyond time.
The author of Codex Tenebris—a shadowy figure erased from all histories—went by the name "Adamah-Sephir, Former Guardian of the Seventh Pillar."
The faded script within whispered, "Sephir Lux Adamah, Voicer of the Black Dawn, Exegesis of the Ashen Flame, Shadow Writer of the Codex Tenebris."
Once renowned as Sephir Adamah, he was the most illustrious Arcanotheolog of the Seventh Light Order. A master interpreter of Lux Primordialis, the first sacred text capturing the primordial language of light—a legendary tongue said to have been spoken by the stars themselves as they wove the very laws of reality.
While investigating temporal anomalies at the edge of Void Arcadia, Sephir stumbled upon ancient texts that seemed to whisper in voices beyond sound—dark murmurs seeping from the very fissures of existence themselves. From these eerie echoes, he began to compile the Codex Tenebris, not as an act of defiance, but as a crucial chronicle of the inevitable distortions hidden within the light. He named this forbidden tome Lux Corrupta, the corrupted light that had absorbed forbidden secrets and gained knowledge too vast and dangerous.
The book was forged with the blood of a fallen seraphim, a celestial being forever suspended between radiant beauty and haunting decay. Its pages were bound and sealed with deliberately fractured fragments of time through an ancient and secretive ritual known as Kronofraktur. These temporal shards throbbed with the raw echoes of shattered pasts, animating the manuscript as a living relic that vibrated across layers of time itself.
In a tense moment, Azazel locked his gaze onto the cryptic symbols etched within the tome. Each word sang in a haunting melody, flooding his mind with waves of forbidden knowledge and primal fear—sensations too vast to fully express.
⸺ Text 49: Kronofraktur
(Shadow Tongue: the dialect of time fractures, used by the Weavers of the Past)
"Zey'ra karun vekh-tal... Kron a'surel nox-vharan."
(The fractures in time no longer lie dormant; the fragile barriers between present and future shatter and intertwine, bleeding one into the other with relentless fury.)
"Ith'maal Qayïn s'urekh... en'dhol vi essam drek valthae."
(Qayïn, the shadowed architect, prepares to implant the luminous core—an unformed essence—into a soul unwritten by the hands of history, primed to reshape destiny itself.)
"Nai'sur ve-chalen akhtara... suuth'nel vel karëna somveth."
(As the girl grows within the consuming darkness, the world's memory will fade until it forgets even the whisper of her name, lost in the void of silence and shadow.)
(ʾZhar'eth Kelghul: a woven-memory structure inscribed in a reversing spiral pattern, each thread pulsing with ancient purpose)
"Nel'va shuthrël... suva'ek tal Dûm'el qashna."
(The weaving begins… not from the steady tick of time, but from the raw edge of an unspoken wound, fresh and trembling beneath the surface.)
"Khael'un tzevor na'sereth... Nomen ve'chra tal Yra'shu, et'il suudhra."
(I embed an unborn name, fragile and potent, deep into the soul of a girl still cradled in dreams—her essence tender, waiting to be shaped.)
"Rhem'ael Qayïn vur'tali — seh'khul van elith nor sha'san."
(With Qayïn's shadowed thread, I sew silence into a fading breath—one no longer belonging to her, yet forever entwined with her being.)
"Threnoss... Threnoss... Asval korun dar'akth..."
(Listen closely... Listen... names spark like smoldering embers, igniting a burning history that lingers behind her eyes like flickering shadows in the twilight.)
Here, past and future conflate—threads of memory and destiny winding together in an inseparable tapestry, binding time and soul in a ceaseless, eternal dance. As this ritual reaches its pinnacle, Qayïn will root himself deep within the girl's soul, planting a core of darkness that nestles in the furthest recesses of her heart. With each breath she takes and every step she ascends toward becoming a Cultivation Master, her spirit will grow ever more tightly woven with these indelible shadows, an unyielding symbiosis of light and dark.
Yet...
At the same time, Fitran began to catch faint whispers slipping through the fragile cracks at the edges of reality. The voices were soft and ethereal, like distant vibrations carried on a fragile breeze, coaxing him to pierce the veil of the tangible world and step beyond into a shadowed, hidden realm. No distinct words formed, only elusive echoes that stirred a deep recognition within his soul—a haunting call that seemed to rise from the very depths of his essence, from a long-buried fragment of his spirit.
"Father… don't let me become Qayïn…"
⸺ Text No. 53: The Inverted Litany (Language of Shadows)
1.
"Vel'na thor ek'seil… no'mu val rev'othen, shaal thrae'rûn."
(Come, the unliving… not to be saved, but to return.)
2.
"Naimi'sel va-khara... Suth'kai dho mem'ur akh'ir nam-tha eves'al."
(The child's name erased… The ancestor's name carved in the wounds of time.)
3.
"Zal'ek mori-thaa… ruk-en vel suulh-dath, terion as'khalae."
(My hand is not mine… it belongs to the shadow that inherits the body.)
4.
"Ae'nor uth ka zhelev… mondei ul vrek'tar shaav'thir."
(And if the world rejects it, then the world is folded within a broken song.)
As Azazel uttered the final line of the verse, time seemed to shatter into countless fragments, each shimmering with the weight of ancient magic. The whispers of long-forgotten souls echoed around him, filling the air with a palpable tremor of arcane energy. Before him stood the nameless girl, her veins coursing with the fierce blood of Fitran—an unyielding, primordial power that pulsed just beneath her skin. At the center of her dantiaan, the spirit of Iris glowed with a soft yet piercing starlight, slicing through the surrounding darkness like a beacon of ancient hope.
"I will not let you continue this," she declared, her voice unwavering and filled with steely resolve.
Azazel remained motionless, struck by the fearless conviction radiating from this mysterious figure who had breached the once impenetrable fortress of his soul. "Interesting," he murmured, his voice cold yet laced with a newfound intrigue.
"Why do you carry the soul of Qayîn, little girl?" Azazel asked, his eyes narrowing with a mixture of curiosity and caution, probing the depths of her resolve.
The girl met his gaze without hesitation, her eyes shimmering like distant stars scattered across a velvet night sky. "Because I am the legacy of those who defied annihilation—souls you once deemed lost to oblivion," she replied with calm certainty. Her voice was a steady whisper, like a nocturnal breeze that stirs the leaves yet cannot be silenced.
Azazel's brow creased as he studied the aura of power radiating from her small frame, a force both fragile and formidable. "You are not merely the vessel of Fitran's blood or Iris's spirit," he observed thoughtfully, "but the living emblem of a new dawn. Do you truly grasp the weight of the burden you bear?"
"I do," she answered, stepping forward resolutely. The faint glow surrounding her intensified, casting back the shadowy tendrils clinging to Azazel's form. "This fight is more than a clash between us—it is a war between a dark, unyielding past and a future that holds the promise of hope."
A solemn ache shadowed her features as she placed a trembling hand over her chest, where the Qayîn mark was sealed. "Aunt Rinoa, who raised me from my earliest days, died because of this cruel struggle," she confessed, the weight of loss almost palpable in the air around her.
Azazel unleashed a cold, echoing laugh that pierced the stillness, reverberating like a dagger into her heart. "If that is your truth, then steel yourself. Fate is a merciless thread, woven with complexities far darker and more cruel than you can imagine."
Beneath the dimming sky streaked with bruised purples and fiery oranges, the two figures stood unwavering, their silhouettes etched against the dying light. They braced themselves for a cataclysmic clash—one that threatened to unravel the very fabric of their world. Around them, the fractured strands of time writhed like a wounded creature—its jagged edges twisting and contorting as it fought desperately either to mend its shattered existence or to consume all in a final, unstoppable collapse.