MASTERS OF THE ETERNITY
CHAPTER 20: THE AETHER MARCH
The skies above the eastern ridge had never looked like this.
Where once clouds rolled soft and lazy, now jagged streaks of light and shadow tore through the horizon, spiraling toward a single, blinding center.
Aether.
Unbound. Shifting.
The land warped around it, trees bending inward, rivers reversing course, time itself glitching in and out of step.
Raian, Lira, and Izek stood at the edge of the cliff, staring down into what looked like another world. The Aether March wasn't a place — it was a breach. A fracture in the laws of nature.
And somewhere inside, the Pale Twin waited.
---
"We go in on foot," Raian said, gripping the reforged Blade tightly. It responded like a living thing now — always alert, always aware.
Izek stared at the rift below. "Foot's a strong word for what's about to happen to us in there."
Lira didn't speak. Her eyes were distant. The mark on her chest pulsed faintly, syncing with the Blade's rhythm.
Raian glanced at her. "If it's too much—"
"I'm going," she said flatly. "If this is where it ends, then I want to see it."
---
They stepped into the March.
The air rippled instantly — sounds folding over each other like overlapping songs. Visions flashed in their peripherals. Not memories… echoes. Lives unlived. Choices unmade.
Raian saw himself standing alone with the Blade — a path where he never met Izek or Lira.
Izek saw a world where he never awakened, where the Hollowkind overran his outpost.
Lira saw herself already consumed — face hollow, eyes empty.
But none of them turned back.
---
Further in, the land restructured violently.
A valley bloomed beneath their feet, then snapped into a city — shattered towers floating in midair, held together by resonance threads visible only through instinct. Gravity reversed and returned in pulses.
But at the center of it all, untouched by the chaos, stood a temple of white stone and shifting glass.
The final bastion of the Creed.
---
Two figures waited at the entrance.
One knelt — a Hollowkind of regal bearing, its body infused with lines of glowing crystal. The other stood tall, a woman cloaked in silver and black, her features obscured by a porcelain half-mask.
The Pale Twin.
She stepped forward, and the world seemed to hold its breath.
"Raian," she said, voice like silk wrapped in storm.
"I know what you carry."
Raian raised the Blade slightly. "Then you know what I came for."
The Pale Twin smiled — almost sadly.
"You came for an end."
She gestured to the March around them.
"But this place is a beginning."
---
To Be Continued…