On the great continent of Auralis, time had always been undeniably clear. From peasants who measured their lives by the harvest to emperors who counted ages in dynasties, everyone accepted a truth that was never questioned: time moved forward without stopping, indifferent to glory, power, or destruction. Even the most ancient cultivators—those who could shatter mountains with a gesture or seal seas with a single formation—had never dared to claim they could stop it completely. Time could be distorted, slowed, or compressed in specific areas, but to stop it was a taboo the gods themselves did not even mention.
Until that night.
The Sun Capital of the Aureon Empire shone beneath the moon like a jewel carved by the hands of heaven. Rivers of spiritual energy flowed beneath the imperial avenues, powering floating palaces, watchtowers, and walls engraved with protective runes that had endured for thousands of years. At the absolute center of the capital stood the Tower of the Celestial Calendar, a structure so ancient that no imperial record could trace its origins. It was said to have been built even before the founding of the empire, when Auralis had no name and the continents were not yet connected by astral paths.
At the top of the tower, a group of imperial astronomers observed the skies using astral crystal instruments and living scrolls that constantly rewrote themselves. The calculations were clear, precise, indisputable. That night there would be a minor eclipse lasting exactly thirty-six breaths. There was no margin for error. The heavens followed laws stricter than any imperial decree.
When the moon began to slide into its predicted shadow, no one felt any alarm. Torches burned normally, the night wind blew softly, and the city slept in absolute silence.
Then something happened that no record could describe accurately, because no one was aware of it at the exact moment.
The world did not tremble. There was no explosion, no sound.
Time simply stopped moving.
The wind froze mid-motion. Imperial banners hung in the air as if painted on an invisible canvas. The flames of the torches stretched into impossible shapes, motionless, without heat or flicker. A bead of sweat stopped halfway down a guard's cheek. The astronomers did not fall or scream, because their thoughts were suspended as well.
For hours, the world existed without advancing even a single moment.
In absolute silence, the sky began to change.
The stars did not go dark; instead, they retreated as if they had never existed. The sky lost its depth and became an artificial, smooth, unnatural surface. Then a perfectly circular void appeared—the void of reality torn open in the vault of the heavens. It neither absorbed nor reflected light. It simply denied the existence of everything around it.
An eye appeared within this void.
It was neither flesh nor spiritual energy. It consisted of layered time, endless rings slowly rotating around one another. Impossible scenes were reflected on its surface: shattered continents, chained gods, broken thrones, entire races erased from existence as if they had never been born.
There was neither anger nor sympathy in that gaze.
Only authority.
An authority so ancient that the very concept of rebellion was absurd.
The eye calmly surveyed the vast continent of Auralis. It crossed deep oceans where ancient beings lay imprisoned. It paused briefly over mountain ranges where primordial beasts were bound beneath layers of imperial runes. It observed empires, kingdoms, ancient clans, hidden sects, and war zones, evaluating them like pieces on a board far too small.
Then it judged.
There was no voice. No decree.
Yet at that very moment, the nine secondary continents connected to Auralis by astral paths trembled in unison. In some places, the most ancient emperors died without any apparent cause. In others, seals that had remained intact for millennia cracked slightly. Ancient bells rang on their own and shattered; forgotten temples burned without fire; and sealed creatures opened their eyes for the first time in years.
The balance had been touched.
The eye blinked only once.
From its center descended something that could not be described as light or energy. It was a fragment of law, a drop of being torn from a higher level of reality. Passing through space, time, imperial formations, and divine seals without the slightest resistance, it landed in a poor and forgotten region of the continent, far from power and politics.
There was no effect. No sign.
It simply vanished.
As the drop was lost, the eye began to close. The void sealed itself as if it had never existed. The stars reappeared in their original positions, and the sky regained its natural depth.
Then time began to flow again.
Banners resumed their fluttering. Smoke spread. Torches flickered once more. The astronomers confirmed that the eclipse ended exactly as predicted. No one noticed that anything was missing. No one felt the absence of the stolen hour.
Only later did an impossible error appear in the emperor's records: a full hour that did not exist in any calendar, chronicle, or astral scroll. The Aureon Empire tried to conceal it, but the ancient cultivators understood the sign. They began to call it the Heaven-Stolen Hour, with fear and reverence.
That same night, in a sealed chamber beneath the Imperial Palace, an old man bound by countless formations opened his eyes. His body was withered, but his gaze still carried the weight of an entire era.
Far away, on another continent, a white-haired woman dropped her teacup and felt a chill run through her soul. A being imprisoned in a forgotten temple smiled for the first time in ten thousand years.
And in a nameless region, beneath silent rain, a child was born.
When he opened his eyes for the first time, time stirred slightly around him, as if questioning his authority.
No one noticed.
No one recorded it.
But at that moment, the destinies of entire continents began to deviate from their original paths.
The balance of the world had begun to break.