The sunrise was not like any other.
Not in Silver City, nor in any world Kairos had known before.
This wasn't the same.
He stood on a limitless expanse of glassy earth, dotted with underbrush flashes of light that glimmered softly beneath his feet. Above, the sky was neither day nor twilight—an infinite white-blackness where stars, nebulas, and abomination auroras all danced in concord together.
The Worldforge.
A product of chaos and rebirth of everything.
Veyra followed behind him, tired and battered in her armor but eyes aglow with light. And then Arius and Riven, and growing numbers of the survivors — echoes of realities and timelines that lived through the previous war.
> "This. is what you brought into the world," Veyra slowed out in wonder.
Kairos nodded, his eyes distant. He could still feel the pulse of the Eclipse Genesis vibrating in the fabric of the world.
The cycle of rebirth, the endless cycle the Rebirth had so harshly enforced, was finally done. Souls were now free to go where they would, unencumbered, untroubled to seek rebirth, sleep, or unknown ways.
And yet.
His hands trembled.
At the very center of this new world's core, at the roots' depths, something started to move.
Building the Future
Days—or time-less moments—passed.
Kairos and the survivors began to construct the initial settlements of the Worldforge.
They constructed from shards of memory and fragments of being.
— Crystal spire cities burst into being, cities of will and mind afire with light.
— Rivers of living starlight coursed across the plains, feeding curious and odd vegetation.
— The heavens wrapped themselves softly, forming drifting islands, limitlessness plains, and glorious valleys where time stole or danced unrestrained.
Kairos toiled relentlessly.
Although weary, he led the rebuilding with the wisdom of his endless lives:
The philosopher's mind, the warlord's strategy, the engineer's precision
Veyra was his closest friend, convincing those who had made up their minds to remain behind, to recover, to construct a superior world untainted by fate.
Even at peace, though, Kairos's mind did not rest.
He would walk long alone to the Worldforge's rim, where discarded timelines glowed softly, as in glass cracks.
And each time, he could feel it.
A beat.
A whisper.
A shadow still resonating past the veil.
---
The Return of the Forgotten
It began quietly.
A night where red auroras painted the horizon, a shiver coursed through the pillars of the Worldforge.
Kairos stood stock-still.
Far away, near the Oblivion Scar—a churning crater in which unrealized realities continued to convulse—something moved.
He ran toward it, Veyra and Arius following.
There, standing up from the radiant soil, was a figure dressed in black, frayed robes, its face hidden behind a shattered, obsidian mask.
Kairos's gaze fixed. "That's impossible…"
Veyra gasped. "It can't be…"
I am Nythera," the woman said, her voice as dry and shifting as wind-blown sand.
"Last Herald of the Voidwrought Circle."
The name hit Kairos like a sledgehammer.
The Voidwrought Circle—a cabal of magic from before the Rebirth, even older than the cycle itself.
They'd long since faded into myth, rumored to labor not for control of reincarnation, but for utter destruction of all existence, to reduce everything to raw nothing.
Although you incinerated the Rebirth," Nythera replied, stepping forward, "you left the gate ajar. And now the Circle again awakens… to finish what even the Rebirth did not even try."
Nythera wasn't alone—she commanded an army, nothing and shadow soldiers, whose bodies ebbed and flowed into nothing, each of them carrying weapons forged out of concepts of non-being: spearsthat broke silences, swords of lost dreams, shields of crossed-out timelines.
Kairos's face contorted. His hand automatically rose to the Aetherbrand, and it flared to life, its fire pulsating in synchrony with the harmonies of his many lives.
I shattered the Rebirth," Kairos snarled, low tone, "I'll shatter you as well."
Nythera simply laughed darkly.
"You shattered one chain, Kairos. But we are the void beneath all chains."
---
Rallying the Defenders
Meanwhile, Veyra and Arius rushed back into Nova Spire's crystal city.
Veyra called up The Dawnforged, that army of mages and knights who wielded reality-warping armors forged from splinters of the Worldforge.
Arius called upon The Echoborn, they who bore branch-split timeline sigils that could reverse decisions by seconds at a time in combat.
Kairos called up his council of advisors before the great Spire.
Their leader's eyes flared with determination—though not without understanding.
This would be different.
The Voidwrought Circle were not hungry for dominance. They were not hungry to extinguish itself completely.
> "This time," Kairos said solemnly, "we aren't just fighting for our world. We're fighting to preserve the existence of existence itself."
The room fell silent.
Veyra stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"We stand with you. Again and always."
Kairos rose, gripping the Aetherbrand tighter.
He could feel the energies of his previous lives stirring once more—straining to course through him for the wars to come.
> The first war was won.
But the true war was beginning.