PART 1: GENESIS
Not many people understood what was happening when the world began to fall apart.
The residents in the great city of Aerinaelia were minding their business, tending to their disappointing farms, trading with fishy merchants and some were even bounty hunting. All of them didn't care about a single thing in the world, confident that their lifestyle was never going to come to an end.
And that's when it began.
The first wall fell without warning. One moment, Aerinaelia stood tall beneath the morning sun. The next, its gates were torn open, and the enemy poured in like a flood. There were no warnings, no horns, no time to prepare. Just screams, fire, and the sound of everything breaking at once.
The army made haste. The outer districts were lost before the guards could even raise their swords. Fires followed behind them, not to frighten, but to destroy. The council was killed before they could speak. The cathedral collapsed before the bells could ring.
It didn't feel like a battle. It felt like execution. Fast. Brutal. Final.
By midday, the city was finished.
Then came the army's leader.
He walked through the palace with no resistance. In the throne room, he found Aerinaelia's ruler waiting, too afraid to speak. The leader grabbed him, dragged him to the balcony, and threw him from the top of the palace.
But that wasn't the end.
At the heart of the palace, deep beneath the floor, he found the sealed chamber. There, bound by old magic, was Vryel, the 7th Orthodox Divinity. The leader broke the seal.
Vryel stepped out, wings shining like stars, his eyes full of silence and rage. He said nothing.
Then everything changed.
In a breath, the city was wiped away in seconds—invaders, defenders, the stone, the sky. All gone. Nothing left but ash and silence.
Then Vryel rose into the sky, and with a wave of his hand, the other seals across the world shattered. One by one, the other Orthodox Divinities were freed.
And with them came the end of everything that had once been held back.
****
Far from the slaughter, the dust rose in slow clouds behind the slave caravan as it moved across the cracked earth. Metal wheels groaned. Hooves crunched stone. No one spoke. The slaves were too tired. The guards too bored.
Cassia sat among them, her wrists rubbed raw from rusted chains. She didn't remember how long it had been since she was taken. Time had become a blur of heat, pain, and silence. She kept her eyes low—until she saw it.
Lunahria.
The city rose from the horizon like a dream—tall spires, moon-white walls, and banners that shimmered like water under starlight. It looked clean. Untouched. Unreal.
Cassia had heard stories. That in Lunahria, slaves could earn their names back. That there were nobles who paid for dancers instead of breaking them. She didn't believe it, not really. But it was better than the desert.
The sun began to set. The sky turned violet, and cold winds swept the trail. One of the guards cursed, glancing up. A strange glow flickered across the sky. It looked like distant lightning, but the clouds were still clear.
Then a tremor passed through the ground—deep and unsettling. It wasn't the earth. It was something else, something beneath.
Cassia stopped, her feet dragging for just a moment as she felt it. A pressure in the air, a weight that didn't belong.
The guards didn't seem to notice. They were too focused on the path ahead.
But Cassia's heart raced. The moment stretched on, thick with an unfamiliar sense of foreboding. Then, far in the distance, she saw it—at the edge of the horizon, an enormous flare of light. It wasn't natural. It was too bright, too chaotic, like the sky itself was breaking open.
A faint echo reached her ears, not a sound, but a feeling. A pulse. Something shifting. The balance of power in the world… was changing.
The flare of light vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving nothing but a strange stillness.
Cassia stood frozen in place, unsure of what she had just felt. The caravan continued onward, unaware, but she knew something had been unleashed.
And Lunahria... was no longer a safe haven.