About nine centuries ago.
Cities rose.
Cities burned.
Cities fell.
And cities rose again.
In time, those born with Karnithesis—powerful gifts shaped by soul, trauma, and conviction—rose above the rest. They called themselves Eidolons. But they were not saviors.
They were kings.
Tyrants.
Warlords.
Each wielded their power not to heal, but to rule.
Empires clashed. Cities crumbled.
And the common people—those without Karnithesis—were crushed beneath the weight of battles they never chose.
The world groaned under endless bloodshed.
There were no ancient tomes that explained Karnithesis. No scrolls or scriptures passed down. Its origin wasn't studied—it was feared. Understood only through destruction.
And then—
He appeared.
A man, no older than his mid-twenties, clad not in armor, but humility.
His eyes gleamed with something unseen in generations.
Hope.
He wielded not one, but all forms of Karnithesis.
Pyra. Lux. Umbra. And more. Every known expression of Eidolon power bent to his will.
His name… was Adam.
The world watched with bated breath.
The self-crowned Eidolon Kings—threatened and enraged—united in fear of him.
They waged war against him.
The skies burned. Oceans churned.
Entire cities vanished in the wake of their battle.
But in the end… Adam stood alone.
Victorious.
And when the world expected him to raise a throne—
He didn't.
He turned his back on power.
He refused to be worshipped.
He offered only one truth:
"I do not want followers. Only memory.
Let this be passed down—not glorified, not distorted.
Just remembered. So it never happens again."
Peace followed.
Brief. Fragile. Haunted.
Until the day a child was born…
His Karnithesis awakened at birth.
His body shimmered with divine light. His cry cracked the air like dawn splitting night.
He was a Lux.
More came after him. Children born awakened.
Adam returned once more—not as a warrior, but a guardian.
He gathered these children.
Taught them.
Protected them.
He forged a sanctuary in the shadow of forgotten wars. A secret cradle of power and principle.
Velarion rose.
There, they were raised to become not kings—
But Eidolon Masters.
Defenders.
Watchers.
Reminders.
So that what once was… would never be again.
Present DayEshavor - The Temple of Broken Time
Mirrors floated, suspended in an endless void. The sky beneath them mirrored that above—blue, vast, and calm. Yet, the ground beneath was solid, as if suspended in an illusion of reality, an anomaly within the fabric of time itself.
At the center of this strange dimension, a small, rectangular table sat, surrounded by ethereal chairs. Seated at the table were four beings of immense power—Zodiacs.
Mini—the twin sister of Gem, together making up the sign of Gemini—sat with an air of quiet intensity. Her presence was sharp, and her voice, when it came, had a biting edge.
Libra—almost human, but with fangs like a serpent's and skin too pale to belong to anything mortal—watched Castiel with a gaze that seemed to pierce into his soul. She carried herself with a cold, measured power.
Pisces—a gargantuan figure, his body a blend of muscle and thick fish scales covering his arms, legs, and back—towered over the others, silent but vigilant.
And lastly, Virgo—completely human in appearance, yet undeniably powerful. Despite her young age, no older than twelve, her aura suggested something far older, far more ancient, and far more significant.
The silence hung heavy in the air until Mini broke it.
"You're finally awake, huh?" Her voice scraped against the air, harsh and probing. "Hero?"
Castiel's eyes darted around in awe. The surroundings were nothing like he had ever imagined—he felt like a stranger in this foreign space, disconnected from everything he knew. His breath caught in his throat.
"You're a hard man to find," Libra hissed, her voice soft but imbued with a threatening tone. Her gaze fixed on him. "Adam."
Castiel's heart skipped a beat at the mention of that name. His mind raced, trying to piece together the significance of what had just been said. It wasn't possible—he couldn't have been brought here because of that name, could he?
But the Zodiacs had already begun to circle, as though this was a long-awaited confrontation.
Suddenly, something shimmered at the edge of Castiel's vision.
The floating mirrors began to stir.
They flickered with radiant light, then each one ignited—alive with images. Not mere reflections, but memories.
Castiel's breath caught.
One mirror showed him as a child, standing alone in the rain, clutching a cracked wooden sword.
Another revealed the day he first stepped into Blightvale, his boots sinking into the mud, his eyes cold and determined.
In yet another, Zera's hand reached up to grasp his, eyes full of trust.
And another showed the night he was cursed with immortality.
He turned slowly in place, surrounded now by the timeline of his existence—each mirror a ghost, each memory a wound. Some played moments of triumph. Others, unbearable pain. The kind that never faded.
"This place reveals truth," Virgo spoke at last, her voice calm yet weighty, as if she had lived eons. "Time cannot lie within Eshavor."
Mini tilted her head with a cruel smile. "Your life plays out for us like a broken reel. Look how far the 'hero' has fallen."
Castiel stepped back, his heart thundering in his chest.
"You see them now," Libra said, rising from her chair. "The choices. The consequences. The fractures in your fate."
Pisces grunted, arms crossed. "He still bleeds like a mortal."
Castiel clenched his fists. "Why show me this?"
Libra narrowed her pale eyes. "Because before you can face what's coming, you must remember who you were... and what you were never meant to be."
He turned again to the mirrors—some reflected moments he didn't recognize. Others… hadn't happened yet.
Virgo stood from her seat, her small frame bathed in light from the mirrors—an unnatural contrast to the shadow she cast. Her eyes locked onto Castiel's.
"There is a fracture in the weave of destiny," she whispered. "A splintered thread that was never meant to form."
Castiel stared at her, confused, heart pounding.
Mini rolled her eyes. "She means you, darling."
Virgo stepped forward, the floating mirrors parting to make way for her. "You were not written in the Song of the End. And yet, here you stand—alive when you should be ash, immortal when you should be dust."
Libra circled the table. "The prophecy is older than the Zodiacs. Older than the Stone. It speaks of a false flame… a light cast by shadow… a Lux Reversal."
Pisces growled lowly. "And when that false light walks among the living, the barrier between realms cracks. Karnithesis stirs. The Sleeping Sin awakens."
"The Sleeping Sin?" Castiel echoed.
Virgo nodded solemnly. "A being so vast and ancient even the Heavens dared not name it. Sealed beneath creation itself. And you—" she pointed at him, "—are the key that could unseal it. Or the sword that keeps it chained."
The air went still.
Castiel turned slowly in place, the mirrors now showing a single, unified image: a dark spire erupting from the earth, swallowing the sky in flame.
Mini grinned with wicked glee. "So tell us, Castiel... hero, sinner, anomaly..."
Libra finished the question.
"Will you save the world from the sin buried beneath it—or wake it?"
"It's not my duty to save the world," Castiel growled, voice tight with fury. "I'm not one of God's soldiers. I'm merely His messenger."
He looked each of them in the eye—Gemini, Libra, Pisces, Virgo. "And I'm sure you already know my mission. How I scoured time and silence to find you—how I wandered through dying kingdoms, hollowed lands, and broken dreams to reach this cursed temple."
The mirrors flickered with glimpses of his journey—ruins, bloodied battlegrounds, children screaming in fire.
"And through it all, you watched," he said, slamming his fist onto the floating table. The solid nothingness beneath them rippled. "You watched the world rot. Burn. Drown in its own sin. You let the wicked rise and the innocent perish."
Pisces shifted, his scaled arms flexing, breath deepening with restrained fury.
Libra noticed the tremble in Castiel's clenched hands. Then the glisten in his eyes.
"I begged for your signs," Castiel whispered, the anger breaking into quiet grief. "Prayed you would descend. That the stars would turn in our favor."
He looked down. "But you never came."
Silence.
Pisces moved as if to speak—but Libra raised her hand. Stillness returned.
Virgo stepped closer, her tone quiet but carrying weight beyond her years.
"Do not mistake stillness for apathy, Castiel. We were bound. Watching was all we could do. And even that... cost us."
Mini finally broke the silence with a soft, scornful laugh. "Poor little hero. Still thinks the heavens are fair."
Libra turned to Castiel. "Your pain is justified. But you're not the only one who's suffered."
The mirrors swirled again—this time showing a glimpse of the Zodiacs in chains, trapped in realms fractured by chaos.
"You want the truth?" Virgo asked softly, stepping beside him. Her voice carried no malice—only sorrow, etched deep in centuries of silence.
She lifted her hand.
The floating mirrors around them pulsed, flickered, then merged—glass melting into glass—until they formed a colossal dome of memory. Castiel stood at the center with the Zodiacs, surrounded on all sides by shifting light and shadow. And then—
The Past revealed itself.
A blood-red sky loomed above.
Earth. But not as Castiel remembered.
The land was choked in ash and flame. Cities crumbled. Mountains bled. Oceans boiled. The ground itself quaked beneath an advancing tide of darkness.
Nachtschrei stood at the forefront—a tall, elegant terror cloaked in writhing shadows, his smile a grave for hope.
Beside him was Legion, a single being made of seven, each shifting form representing a sin, speaking in layered voices that turned the air toxic.
And then, from the smoke, came Lucifer Morningstar—wings vast and blackened, dragging behind him like a funeral veil. His eyes were stars long dead. His presence bent reality.
A horde of demons followed, flooding the earth like a plague.
The skies wept fire.
The earth cried out.
And the mortals… they perished screaming.
In their celestial realms, the Zodiacs watched. Powerless.
Trapped behind a radiant seal woven in the time before time.
Aegis—a dark, ungodly enchantment cast by Lucifer—barred them from intervening. No force, not even theirs, could cross its boundary.
"We screamed," Virgo whispered. "We cried until our voices cracked the stars. But Earth would not let us in."
And so they did the unthinkable.
Desperation. Unity. Sacrifice.
From across the constellations, the Twelve channeled everything they had—their essence, their will, their dominions. They poured it all into a single vessel:
The Zodiac God.
A being not born but forged—divine and perfect in theory.
But something went horribly wrong.
When the Zodiac God awoke…
It had no heart.
No voice.
No will.
In giving it everything, the Zodiacs had given it their minds, their power, their identity. They forgot who they were. Lost in void-states, echoes drifting across starfields.
Time forgot them. So did Earth.
But Libra… remembered.
Somehow, somewhere, a piece of her endured.
She wandered—through dimensions fractured and stitched, realms untethered to time.
Until at last, she stood before a forgotten place whispered in dying tongues:
Eshavor. The Temple of Broken Time.A realm that remembered her.Once hers.
There, she found the shattered hourglass of creation. And in its sands, herself.
She awakened.
And in doing so, reawakened the others. One by one.
Their powers returned. Their minds returned.
But so did the memory of their failure.
The mirrored dome faded. The present returned.
Castiel stood frozen. Words gone. Breath heavy.
"You see now," Virgo said, her voice like wind through old stone. "We didn't forsake the world… The world forsook us first."
Castiel's eyes widened as the truth settled in.
The kind of evil they were facing… it wasn't just demonic—it was cosmic. Unrelenting. Designed to break even the divine.
The room—the mirrored dome forged by Virgo—reflected not just his memories, but the war-torn scars of history, the bloodshed that birthed silence, the helpless cries of humanity echoing in eternity. The betrayal. The abandonment.
Then, in perfect synchrony, the four Zodiacs—Mini, Libra, Pisces, and Virgo—rose from their seats.
Their voices united as one:
"So, Hero… will you help reunite the lost Zodiacs… and bring back God?"
The weight of the world trembled on the edge of silence.
They watched him carefully—each with a smile too ancient to be innocent.
Castiel looked at them, not with reverence, but with a defiant smirk of his own.
His eyes glowed, burning with passion.
"Do you even need to ask?"