MASTERS OF THE ETERNITY CHAPTER 24: THE RETURNING WAR
Ash still fell from the fractured sky.
What had once been the Aether March was now something else entirely — no longer a bastion of eternal stillness, but a battleground between memory and awakening. The false sky above had been ruptured by the First Wielder's return, revealing cracks through which the deeper resonance of the world now bled.
Raian stood in the aftermath, the Blade of Eternity humming like a living thing in his grip. His vision blurred between now and then — images of wars not his own, faces he never knew but somehow remembered. The echo of all wielders before him had been stirred, and their fragments now whispered through his soul.
> "This is what it means to carry the Blade," the Pale Twin murmured, standing beside him. "Not just power. Memory. Judgment. Lineage."
Izek limped to Raian's other side, gravity still warping faintly around his battered frame. Lira was quiet, the mark on her chest now glowing faintly, pulsing with the same rhythm as the now-vanished chanting statues. Her eyes were distant. Frighteningly distant.
> "Where... did he go?" she whispered.
The First Wielder had vanished — not with a burst of resonance or a flash of light, but simply stepped into a memory that no longer intersected cleanly with the present. He had told them the war was beginning again.
And then he was gone.
---
Hours passed in fractured silence. The trio emerged from the temple's ruins as if reborn — and waiting for them at the edge of the shattered stone field stood emissaries of both the Order and the Sable Creed.
One side wore shimmering armor and bore the insignia of balance. The other, cloaked in fractured veils, eyes burning with prophecy and defiance.
Neither spoke. Not yet.
Because overhead, the sky was bleeding.
A red arc had begun to stretch across the heavens — the beginning curve of the Eclipse.
> "Too early," the Pale Twin said under her breath. "This shouldn't be happening yet."
> "Unless someone accelerated the Cycle," Izek growled.
> "The Accord," Raian guessed. "The First Spear. He failed to kill us, so now he's forcing the war."
The Creed envoy stepped forward. A tall figure with half his face masked in bone-glass.
> "You've seen it. Touched the echo. The Blade recognizes you, Raian Kuron. So do we."
> "I'm not with anyone," Raian replied. "Not yet."
> "Then choose soon," the envoy said. "Because the world will not wait."
---
Later, as the trio camped on the edge of the eastern wind plains, the Pale Twin revealed more. She sat before a flickering fire — not for warmth, but for remembrance.
> "You asked what the Order is. What the Creed is. They were once one — the Vanguard of the Wielder. When the First Wielder sealed himself away to stop the Ascension Wars, he left no heir. Or so they thought."
> "So the Order chose stasis," she continued. "Structure. The Creed chose change. Adaptation. They've been at odds ever since."
> "And now?" Lira asked.
> "Now the heir has returned," the Pale Twin said, staring at Raian. "And both sides will claim him — or destroy him."
---
That night, Raian dreamed.
Not of war.
But of standing at the edge of a battlefield, countless figures kneeling before him. The Blade was different — alive with elements, colors shifting with breath and storm. The ground beneath him pulsed with environmental resonance. Trees bowed, wind obeyed, water curved toward him like worship.
The Elemental/Environmental aspect had awakened.
And standing behind him in the dream...
Was the First Wielder.
And a woman with white eyes, her face scarred with symbols. Her name echoed, barely remembered:
> "Renkai..."
When he awoke, his hands were burning.
Not from pain — but from awakening.
---
TO BE CONTINUED...