In the unmarked ages of the world — when the stars hung closer to the earth, and the seas were deeper than memory — there rose a kingdom unlike any other.
A city not born of earth alone, nor solely of heaven's decree.
Atlantis.
Born from the mingling of Nephilim bloodlines and mortal kings, it stood as a testament to ambition unbound.
A city of impossible splendor, its towers gleamed with metals no modern forge could name.
Obelisks of pale blue crystal shimmered in the sun, and streets paved with stone that hummed with ancient power stretched between temples of glass and sky-iron.
The oceans around it glowed with an unnatural light, as though the waters themselves bent in adoration of the shining city.
Winds carried songs sung in languages forgotten even by the angels.
The very earth beneath it quivered with unease.
The Atlanteans were masters of craft and sorcery, their knowledge gifted by the Watchers, those fallen ones who walked openly among them in guises both beautiful and terrible.
They commanded the elements, spoke with the beasts of air and sea, and bent the winds and tides to their will.
But their greatest power lay not in their craft, nor their sorcery, nor even the ancient blood that coursed through their veins.
It lay in the three Shards of the Word they had claimed.
I beheld them as they uncovered these fragments — relics of the First Utterance, syllables spoken when the worlds were born, syllables whose echoes still shape the beating of every star, the crash of every wave.
Each shard was a vessel of pure, primal power.
To mortals, their mere presence was intoxicating;
To the fallen, a temptation impossible to resist.
With these Shards, the Atlantean kings forged artifacts that defied the natural order:
Obelisks that stilled the tides and tethered storms.
Temples that floated upon the air, untethered by earth or sky.
Engines that drew fire from the earth's molten heart, bending the world's bones to their whims.
And in time, their hunger grew.
The kings of Atlantis, led by King Adanir the Radiant, sought to ascend beyond the limitations of flesh.
They believed, as Lucifer once had, that they could rise as gods.
Their sages spoke of the Celestial Nexus — a convergence point where the veils between realms grew thin.
A place where the higher dominions brushed against the lower worlds.
And in their reckless pride, the Atlanteans sought to open it.
Using the Shards, they tore a wound in the fabric of creation itself.
I felt it as it happened — a shudder in the tapestry of fate, a tear through which ancient things peered.
The Watchers rejoiced, for they believed their exile would end.
Lucifer's voice echoed through the rift, promising dominion over heaven and earth.
And in the dark chambers of Atlantis, mortal priests chanted forbidden names in tongues older than stars.
But the Architect does not slumber.
From the highest heaven came a single, immutable decree.
The sentence upon pride.
The seas shall rise.
The towers shall fall.
The city of gods shall drown in the depths it sought to command.
And so it came to pass.
The earth trembled.
The mountains shuddered.
The skies burned with unnatural fire.
The Engines of the Nexus collapsed upon themselves, the wound in the veil growing wider, swallowing all within its reach.
Reality bent, the laws of heaven and earth unweaving in the lightless rift.
The three Shards of the Word vanished — cast back into the void, scattered across realms and futures unknown.
The Atlanteans fled.
Some to scattered islands, to hidden places beneath the earth, to the cold, deep places of the oceans where the sun's gaze could not reach.
Few survived.
Most were claimed by the rising waves.
Their shining city vanished beneath black waters, leaving only myth, and broken memory.
I beheld it — the seas roaring over streets of crystal, temples swallowed in foam and silence, the towers of Atlantis crumbling beneath the weight of heaven's fury.
But their folly was not forgotten.
For the sins of Atlantis, the earth itself had been wounded.
The Nephilim still roamed.
The Watchers remained.
And the blood of corrupted bloodlines seeped into the veins of men.
The Architect's judgment was not yet complete.
The great flood was coming.
I felt its weight in the loom of fate — the slow, inevitable unraveling of mortal defiance.
For though one city had fallen, the world's heart remained corrupt.
But in the midst of a world darkened by ancient sins, one mortal man stood apart.
His heart remained untainted.
He walked with wisdom, though no teacher had taught him.
He spoke to the wind and it listened.
He honored the old ways, though the old ways had long been forgotten.
His name was Noah.
And I, as ever, moved unseen in the currents beneath it.
For I was made to make things happen.