Do you still remember... why Aionios forged these Rings?
Because in times past, when the Endless Hollow descended upon our world, they brought with them a shadow an ending without meaning, a silence without peace.
The sky tore open. Not with light or sound, but with absence. A wound in reality itself.
From that wound poured forth creatures of emptiness. Formless. Countless. Hungry for existence itself.
Our world stood on the threshold of greatness. We had conquered our skies, mapped our oceans, unified our peoples. The stars were within reach we were so close to touching them.
And then the shadow fell.
We didn't understand what we were fighting. Not at first. The Endless Hollow had no motive, no strategy, no malice. They simply were and where they walked, things ceased to be.
To save our world, to grasp at tomorrow, Aionios forged a desperate answer. We bound the souls of our warriors thousands upon thousands into Rings of light and will. Each Ring resonated with its bearer's essence, their determination given physical form. Each warrior carried their hope forged into metal and oath, their very souls made into weapons.
For years we fought. Cities fell and were reclaimed. Continents were scoured clean and defended again. The Endless Hollow were not invincible we could kill them, break them, scatter them.
But they were endless. For every thousand we destroyed, ten thousand more emerged from the wound that would not close.
We learned, too late, what that wound truly was. Where those creatures came from.
They were born from the gaze of something vast. Something that looked upon existence and saw only meaninglessness.
Nihility.
The shadow we fought was cast by an Aeon IX, who comprehends the ultimate futility of all things.
And as our warriors fell, one by one, we made a choice. We would not let their sacrifice be forgotten. Their Rings were gathered, melted down, reforged tempered in desperation and loss, in grief and defiance until thirteen remained.
The first was Void, forged from those who commanded space itself. It could tear open reality and fold distance like paper, making far become near and near become nothing. The Hollow walked paths this Ring severed those paths, leaving them stranded in nowhere.
The second was Reason, forged from those who understood creation's logic. It could construct weapons from pure thought, materialize shields from equations, give form to abstract concepts. As long as one could imagine it, Reason could build it and in war, imagination became infinite.
The third was Thunder, forged from those who wielded the storm's wrath. It could call down lightning to scorch the endless tide, turn the sky into a ceiling of electric fury, make the very air lethal to touch. The Hollow feared no pain, but Thunder taught them to fear annihilation.
The fourth was Wind, forged from those who rode the gale's freedom. It could summon hurricanes to scatter formations, create pressure barriers that crushed the formless, make the atmosphere itself reject the Hollow's presence. Where Wind blew, the enemy could not stand.
The fifth was Ice, forged from those who knew the peace of stillness. It could freeze time's march within its radius, trap entire armies in crystallized moments, make eternity from an instant. In Ice's domain, the Endless Hollow's advance became an eternal statue.
The sixth was Flame, forged from those who carried the first light. It could birth infernos that consumed even void, prove that nothing itself could burn, turn entire battlefields into pyres where emptiness itself became fuel. Flame declared: Even Nihility can be destroyed.
The seventh was Sentience, forged from those who guarded the sanctity of mind. It could shield consciousness from the Hollow's maddening emptiness, anchor identity against dissolution, let warriors remember why they fought when all reason screamed to surrender. Without Sentience, we would have lost ourselves before we lost the war.
The eighth was Stars, forged from those who reached for the heavens we'd never touch. It could bend gravity into crushing force, summon stellar phenomena, pull down cosmic fire. We could not reach the stars so Stars brought the cosmos to our enemies instead.
The ninth was Binding, forged from those who held the unbreakable line. It could seal and constrain the formless, give the endless a boundary, trap infinity in chains of pure will. What cannot be killed can still be imprisoned and Binding was our prison.
The tenth was Dominance, forged from those who refused to kneel before gods or Aeons. It could subjugate wills, command even the mindless, make the Hollow hesitate and falter. For brief, precious moments, Dominance turned the enemy's numbers against themselves.
The eleventh was Corruption, forged from those who understood that decay cuts both ways. It could accelerate entropy, make void devour void, turn the Hollow's own emptiness into a weapon against them. If we were to fall to Nihility, we would drag our enemies into that abyss with us.
The twelfth was Origin, forged from those who sought the truth beneath truth. It could perceive the fundamental nature of all existence, see the threads that bind reality, strike at the conceptual root of even abstract entities. Origin revealed that even creatures born from Nihility had a source and sources could be severed.
The thirteenth was Permanence, forged from those who refused to fade. It could anchor reality against dissolution, declare that this moment, this place, this person would NOT end, make immutable what IX decreed was temporary. Permanence was our defiance made manifest: We. Will. Not. Vanish.
With these thirteen Rings, wielded by the greatest warriors who remained, we grasped at victory. We fought for years seasons bleeding into one another, our children knowing only war, peace reduced to legends whispered around dying fires.
We won battles. Reclaimed ground. Pushed the tide back, meter by bloody meter.
We dared to hope.
But the Endless Hollow were endless.
For every front secured, two more collapsed. The Thirteen won every battle they fought.
We were losing the war.
And so, when their bodies broke and their wills frayed, when the final thirteen warriors stood alone on a world of graves, they made one final choice.
A choice born not of hope, but of defiance.
They shattered the thirteen Rings those symbols of our greatest warriors, our mightiest powers and forged them into two. They poured everything into this final creation: all the strength of the fallen thousands, all the conceptual might of the Thirteen, all the desperate love for a world already lost.
The first was Death and Beginning
forged from Flame, Ice, Wind, Thunder, Corruption, and Sentience. It embodied the cycle that proves endings birth new starts, that from ashes life may grow again, that winter gives way to spring, that death is not an ending but a transformation. This Ring declared: What falls will rise again.
The second was Finality
forged from Void, Reason, Stars, Origin, Binding, Dominance, and Permanence. It embodied the absolute end, the inevitable conclusion, the omega point where all journeys cease, the final word that permits no argument. This Ring declared: All things must end. Even Nihility itself.
Two Rings. One warrior. The last of Aionios.
The world placed its final hope upon his shoulders.
But you and I both know salvation does not exist for a world touched by an Aeon's shadow.
Aionios fell.
Not with fire or thunder, but with silence. A silence so complete it swallowed even the memory of sound.
The Endless Hollow consumed everything the cities where we'd built our dreams, the forests where our children had played, the oceans we'd charted with such pride, the very stars we'd reached for. Our technology, our culture, our art, our names all devoured by the void.
Humanity did not die gloriously. We simply... ceased. Dissolved into Nihility's embrace like tears in rain.
The price of our years of resistance was the world in its entirety.
And in the end, that entirety was lost.
Nothing remained but ruins and silence and the Endless Hollow, still pouring through the wound in reality, consuming even the memory of what Aionios had been.
Only one remained.
The last warrior, bearing two Rings and the weight of thousands upon thousands of souls—every warrior who'd fought, every person who'd hoped, every child who'd dreamed of tomorrow. He stood alone in the ruins, surrounded by the Endless Hollow, and something changed.
The two Rings flared. Death-and-Beginning pulsed with the warmth of life that refuses to end. Finality blazed with the cold certainty of absolute conclusion.
And IX noticed.
The Aeon of Nihility who gazes upon the meaninglessness of all existence turned Its attention fully to this final warrior. This mortal who carried contradictions in each hand who wielded both the end and the beginning, who embodied both the acceptance of oblivion and the refusal to let hope die.
A mortal who had looked into the void and refused to blink.
In that moment, the last warrior became something more than mortal.
He became an Emanator a reflection of IX itself, blessed and cursed with the power of Nihility.
A living contradiction. A paradox given form. An ending that seeks a beginning. A servant of meaninglessness who carries the meaningful hope of a dead civilization.
So do you still remember why Aionios forged these Rings?
Because of hope. Because we believed in tomorrow, even when today was dying. Because we thought that struggle meant something even against infinity, even against an Aeon, even when every rational thought screamed that we could not win.
Because we were mortal, and mortals do not accept oblivion quietly.
We were wrong. Tomorrow never came. Our hope was a lie we told ourselves to keep fighting. Salvation does not exist for a world touched by Nihility's shadow.
And yet...
And yet that last warrior still walks. Still searches. Still carries the silent souls of a dead world like precious treasures, seeking a new beginning that may never exist.
He wanders the space between stars, a ghost of a dead world, an Emanator who rejects his own Path's truth.
In times past, Aionios the world upon which the Endless Hollow descended was surely as beautiful as any star in the sky. We had art and music and laughter. We had families and dreams and futures. We were on the verge of touching the cosmos.
We were alive.
Do you still remember?
I do.
Even as I fade.
Even as I walk forward, one step at a time, into the void between worlds.
Each step forward, one I can never walk back.
Until these two Rings are forged into something new.
Until the souls I carry find their tomorrow.
I know this is fleeting.
And yet...
And yet—