When I opened my eyes, the world was white.
Not bright—white. No sun, no horizon, no shadows. Just the kind of blankness that eats color and sound alike, like existence had been scrubbed too clean.
For a moment I thought I'd gone blind. My hands were there, but pale, washed out, like they didn't belong to me. Even my voice came out wrong when I whispered,
"Aya? …Kaede?"
Silence. Then the faint echo of my own words returning half a second late—like the world had to think before answering.
I pushed myself up. The ground felt solid but not there—like standing on glass that went on forever. My boots didn't leave prints. Every step just rippled faintly, as though light itself was liquid.
Then I saw them.
A figure a few meters away, kneeling. Long hair, silver strands falling over armor dented and scorched. Aya. Her head was bowed, shoulders trembling as though in prayer.
I staggered toward her. The closer I got, the more the air warped—heat haze without heat. My voice broke through the distance.
"Aya!"
She lifted her head slowly. Her eyes were unfocused, glassy. "Haruto…? You're…" She blinked, confusion twisting her face. "You're late."
"Late?"
She gave a faint, disbelieving laugh. "We were supposed to meet at dawn. You overslept again."
I froze. That was something she'd said months ago, back before everything went to hell.
Before I could answer, Kaede's voice called from somewhere behind me, calm but strained. "Captain—don't move too fast. The field's unstable."
I turned—and she was there, yet not. Her outline flickered, shifting between her real self and a faint ghostly afterimage that didn't match her movements. Every time she blinked, the world around her twitched like a skipped frame in a film reel.
"What's happening to us?" I asked.
"Probably…" She hesitated. "Aether interference. The burst from the Core reached saturation before it collapsed. We're inside whatever's left."
Inside whatever's left.
I looked up, expecting a sky. There wasn't one. Just a white dome that stretched endlessly, a mirror that never reflected.
Then Yumi appeared in the distance—walking toward us like she'd been there all along, humming softly to herself. The tune was familiar but off-key, a lullaby that drifted and looped halfway through.
She smiled when she saw me. "Morning already?"
The words chilled me. Her voice echoed before she spoke.
"Yumi," I said carefully, "how long have you been here?"
She tilted her head. "Since last night. Or was it the night before? Time's hard to count when it doesn't move."
Kaede clenched her fists. "Something's wrong with her resonance. It's looping."
Aya stood finally, brushing invisible dust from her armor. "It's all wrong. This… this isn't dawn."
Her tone snapped me back—the sharp, certain edge of a soldier recognizing a trap.
"No," I said quietly. "It's not."
—
We regrouped as best we could, forming a rough circle on the blank terrain. The silence between us felt heavy enough to crush lungs.
Kaede began testing the ground, tapping it with her blade. Each strike left a faint shimmer, like the surface of a pond. No sound, just vibration.
"Physics is still half-alive," she muttered. "That's… something."
Yumi sat cross-legged a few steps away, staring at her reflection in the non-ground. "I can see the sky under us," she whispered. "It's upside down."
Aya glanced down, frowning. "Don't look too long."
I risked a glance anyway—and felt my stomach twist.
Beneath the transparent surface, faint shapes floated: ruins, corpses, fragments of the battlefield. The Aether Legion's flags torn apart, our campfires flickering as if preserved in amber.
The world below was frozen mid-war.
And above… nothing but the same blank white.
"I don't get it," Yumi said softly. "We won, didn't we? So why does it feel like we're still waiting for it to start?"
No one answered.
Then, somewhere far away, a faint chime rang. One clear note, pure and hollow.
It echoed across the horizonless plain, splitting the silence in two.
Aya straightened. "That sound—"
"I heard it too," I said. "It's coming from the north. Or… whatever direction that is now."
Kaede sheathed her blade. "Then we follow it. Anything's better than staying in this nothing."
I nodded. "Let's move."
We walked.
Hours—or minutes—passed. Time had no meaning here. The light never changed. We could've been moving in circles and wouldn't know. The only constant was that single, recurring chime—always just far enough to stay out of reach.
Aya took the lead, her every step measured. Yumi hummed again under her breath, the same looping tune. Kaede kept glancing at her compass, which spun like a coin on its edge.
I followed, my mind fogged. Every thought echoed twice before settling. Am I dreaming? Echo: dreaming…
And then came the voices.
Not loud, not external—just faint whispers slipping through the gaps in memory. Familiar, too familiar.
Haruto… it's almost morning.
You promised you'd wake me when the sun rose.
Don't forget, alright?
Lunaris's voice. Or a ghost of it.
I froze mid-step. Aya noticed immediately. "Haruto?"
"I…" I pressed a hand to my temple. "I heard her."
"Her?" Kaede asked sharply.
"Lunaris."
The name hung there like a curse.
Yumi stopped humming. "The goddess?"
"No," I said. "Not the goddess. Just… her voice."
Aya's eyes softened but didn't lose focus. "Don't follow it. Not yet."
She was right, but the sound grew stronger with every step we took. The chime and her voice intertwined, weaving a rhythm that tugged at my chest like invisible strings.
When the ground ahead began to slope downward, we reached what looked like a lake—or maybe a mirror pretending to be one. Its surface shimmered with colors that shouldn't exist.
At its center floated a single shard of crystal, glowing faintly.
"The Core?" Kaede breathed.
I stepped closer. The shard pulsed once, twice—synchronized with my heartbeat.
Haruto…
Her voice again. Softer now. Closer.
Aya's hand gripped my arm. "Don't."
But the light from the shard spread across the lake, rippling like breath. The surface shifted, revealing reflections of us—but not us.
In the reflection, Aya's armor was pristine, unscarred. Kaede smiled easily, no tension in her eyes. Yumi stood in sunlight instead of white void.
And me… I was standing beside Lunaris.
Not the divine form from before, but human. Smiling. Her hand resting on my shoulder.
"Is that—" Kaede whispered, unable to finish.
The reflections started moving on their own. Talking, laughing. A life that might've been.
Then they began to fade, one by one.
The lake's surface cracked like glass.
Aya yanked me backward just as the ground erupted in white dust. The shard burst into a wave of light that swallowed everything for a heartbeat.
When it cleared, the lake was gone.
All that remained was a single, faintly glowing line stretching toward the horizon—like a path drawn in light.
Yumi whispered, "Maybe it's showing us the way out."
Kaede shook her head. "Or the way deeper."
Aya looked at me. "Your call, Captain."
I stared at that glowing path, the silence humming around it. Every instinct screamed that it wasn't real.
But her voice came again. Follow it, Haruto. You're almost home.
Home.
I took a step forward.
And the world shifted.
The white began to ripple. Shapes flickered at the edges of vision—trees, ruins, the outlines of a sky trying to remember itself. The illusion wavered like fabric in wind.
Aya shouted something, but her voice came through underwater. Kaede's hand reached for me, too slow. Yumi's song cut off mid-note.
Then everything folded inward.
A sound like thunder—no, like breath—filled the void.
And I was alone.
—
The storm that tore through the Aether Citadel did not end with thunder — it ended with silence.
The kind of silence that tastes like ash and regret.
When the first rays of sunlight should have broken the horizon, they didn't. Instead, the sky remained a pale, bruised gray, as if even the sun was hesitating to rise over what had been done.
I lay on the cracked marble floor of the Citadel's central hall, chest heaving, every breath burning like acid. The once-pristine floor was scorched and fractured, lines of black energy still twitching across its surface, flickering like dying veins.
My sword — if you could still call it that — was half-dissolved, humming faintly with residual aether. My fingers were numb around its hilt.
And Lunaris…
She stood several meters away, framed by the gray light filtering through the shattered dome above. Her white hair was matted with soot and blood, her once-luminous eyes dimmed. The ethereal glow that had always surrounded her flickered now, unstable, as if her very existence was unraveling thread by thread.
"You shouldn't have done it," she whispered.
Her voice was soft — not angry, not cold. Just tired.
I wanted to answer her. To say I hadn't had a choice. To say that I couldn't let her destroy everything, even if it meant becoming the monster she wanted to destroy. But my mouth wouldn't open.
The silence stretched.
Then, faintly, I heard the sound of footsteps — unsteady, cautious.
The others were arriving.
Lyria was the first to appear from the smoke. Her armor was cracked, her blade chipped, her left arm bandaged in what looked like a torn flag. Behind her came Seris, supporting Rena, whose face was pale and streaked with blood. They looked like they had crawled through hell and back — because they had.
Lyria's gaze swept across the hall and froze on Lunaris.
Then on me.
"Haruto…" she began, but her voice faltered.
Rena looked between us, her lips trembling. "You stopped her, didn't you?"
Stopped her.
That word. It felt wrong.
Lunaris looked at me again — and for the first time, smiled. Not her mocking smile, not her serene goddess smile. A human one. Small, fragile.
"Do you think you've stopped anything, Haruto?" she said quietly. "This world doesn't need gods to destroy it. It just needs people who believe they're right."
The words hit deeper than any wound.
And then — she took a step forward.
The remaining aether around her began to lift, particles of light spiraling upward, fading into the air like fireflies being erased one by one.
"No—" I reached out, my fingers trembling. "Lunaris, don't—"
But she was already gone before I could finish.
Her form dissolved into pure light — and that light scattered like dust caught in the wind.
Lyria fell to her knees. Seris closed her eyes. Rena turned away, covering her mouth to stifle a sob.
And I…
I just stood there, hand still outstretched, staring at the empty space where she'd been.
The silence returned, heavier this time.
It was over.
The war, the rebellion, the goddess — all gone.
But deep down, I knew the truth.
Nothing was over. Not really.
---
Hours later, after the wounded were tended to and the dead were counted, I stood at the Citadel's edge, overlooking the ruined landscape. The Aether Legion's banners lay in tatters below, fluttering weakly in the wind. The once-glowing rivers of energy that had run through the capital were now dull and gray, pulsing faintly like veins of dying light.
"Haruto."
Lyria's voice behind me was quiet, uncertain.
I didn't turn. "How many did we lose?"
"Too many."
The answer was simple, and it was enough.
I exhaled, feeling the weight of it all press down on my chest. Every life that had been extinguished because of my decisions — or my failures.
"She didn't vanish completely, did she?" Lyria asked after a pause.
I hesitated. "No."
And it was true. I could still feel it — a faint echo inside me, a pulse that didn't belong to me. The weapon she'd awakened within me… it wasn't gone. If anything, it felt more awake than ever.
"She's part of me now," I murmured. "Maybe she always was."
Lyria didn't answer.
For a long time, neither of us spoke. The wind howled through the shattered towers, carrying with it the scent of smoke and steel.
"Do you regret it?" she asked finally.
I turned my gaze toward the horizon — the horizon where dawn should have been. The line between sky and earth was blurred, swallowed by gray.
"Regret?" I said, my voice flat. "If I did, would it change anything?"
Her expression softened, almost pitying. "You're not the same man I met, Haruto."
I gave a short, hollow laugh. "No one walks through fire and stays the same."
She didn't argue. Just nodded, then walked away. Her footsteps faded into the distance, leaving me alone once more.
I stared upward.
The clouds swirled faintly above, and for a split second, I could almost see her face there — Lunaris, smiling faintly, her voice a whisper in my mind.
"You wanted a dawn that never ends... but there's no such thing, Haruto. Not for gods. Not for men."
The words echoed like a curse.
---
Later that night, when the others were asleep in the makeshift camps below, I stood by the edge of the broken spire again, clutching the remains of my blade.
The cracks in it glowed faintly — the same pale blue as Lunaris's light. I ran my thumb over one, and the air shimmered faintly around me.
There was a heartbeat — not mine — pulsing within the metal.
And then I heard it again. Her voice.
Distant, hollow, yet unmistakable.
"You can't escape me, Haruto. You never could."
The temperature dropped. The air rippled.
For a moment, I thought it was my imagination. But then, in the reflection of the blade, I saw her.
Lunaris — faint, translucent, like a ghost carved from moonlight.
Her eyes met mine. "You think you've won?"
I swallowed hard. "You're dead."
She smiled. "You've only killed what you could see. The rest… you've let in."
And as she said it, a burning pain erupted through my chest. The mark — the one she had branded me with during our final clash — flared again, glowing violently beneath my skin.
I dropped to one knee, gasping. The air around me distorted, the aether trembling like it was alive.
Lunaris stepped closer — or rather, her spirit did. "You tried to defy destiny, Haruto. But destiny doesn't care what you want."
Her hand reached for my face, and though it passed through, I felt the chill, the reminder of what she was — what she still was.
And then she whispered something so faint, I almost missed it:
"When the next dawn comes… it won't be light that rises."
The vision shattered.
The glow faded.
The pain subsided.
I was alone again, trembling, drenched in sweat.
I looked at the blade — now completely inert.
But deep down, I knew she was still there.
Waiting.
---
When morning finally came, there was still no sunrise. The sky remained the same — dim and lifeless, as though the world itself had stopped breathing.
The others gathered, discussing plans for rebuilding, searching for survivors, restoring what little was left of order.
I didn't join them.
I couldn't.
Because somewhere in that eternal twilight, I felt her — watching, whispering, waiting.
The dawn hadn't come.
And part of me wondered if it ever would.
To be continued in Chapter 20 – "The Goddess Within the Shadow."