Four years.
Four years had passed since the nursery of the Elvish Empire fell silent—since a demon lord's shadow slipped through cracks in the barrier and vanished with their son in a flare of impossible mana that shook the palace to its core.
Four years since the cradle turned cold.
The world beyond the walls of the **Aelthrys**, capital of the **Elvish Empire**, changed in ways no historian could have predicted. The skies burned red too often. The forests turned black where demon armies marched. Rivers ran murky with ash and spilled life. Children no longer played under the shimmering lights of the Silverwood trees; their silence became a grieving song, an echo of the empire's pain.
But no voice was more hollow than that of its rulers.
Queen Seraphielle stood atop the eastern battlements, where moon petals once drifted in gentle spirals on warm nights. Now only embers floated, drifting like dying fireflies. Her silver hair, once ethereal and radiant, had dimmed to the dull luster of frost. Dark circles bruised her eyes, and her wings—majestic, crystalline extensions of elvish life-force—bore cracks from magical strain.
Every night, without fail, she returned to the balcony of the nursery tower.
Even now, four years later, the maids still avoided approaching her when she stood there.
They feared interrupting a mother's grief.
She placed a trembling palm on the railing where she last felt Liam's warmth.
"I wasn't there," she whispered to the empty air. "I wasn't there to save you…"
The memory returned in flashes:
—The demon's ash scattered on the floor.
—The cradle glowing with unfamiliar mana.
—The sickening emptiness where her baby should have been.
The palace healers had told her the wave of mana was "unlike any elvish magic," "neither demonic nor draconic," "perhaps divine," "perhaps catastrophic."
None of them could tell her if her child was alive.
None dared say he was dead.
That uncertainty hollowed her from the inside.
*Had he cried for her? Had he suffered? Was he alone? Had he even felt fear before vanishing from her arms forever?*
She held her face in her hands. Her breath hitched. Her wings drooped.
"I failed you… Liam… I failed as your mother."
Her tears fell onto the balcony stone, silent as moonlight.
Emperor Thalorien did not weep.
Not because he didn't want to.
But because the world no longer gave him the luxury.
He stood on the northern front—a wasteland of shattered stone, burned treetops, and corpses littered in grotesque heaps. Human siege engines lay destroyed across the plains, demons melted into black sludge, and dragon bones protruded from the earth like jagged monuments.
Thalorien's armor—once a pristine gold—was now a mosaic of dents, burns, and dried blood.
Every night he thrust himself into the thickest part of the battle.
Every night his soldiers had to drag him away before he collapsed.
Every night he woke before dawn, unable to sleep.
His grief was too large for tears.
Too violent for mourning.
Too raw for rest.
Instead, he became wrath incarnate.
A general approached him cautiously.
"Your Majesty… we've pushed them back another three leagues. You don't need to—"
Thalorien raised *Starcleaver*, the blade glowing with blistering radiance.
"Bring me their commander," he growled. "Alive."
"Y-your Majesty? But—"
"That army attacked our borders today. That commander gave the order. If I cannot find the demon who stole my child—" His voice trembled, just barely. "—then I will interrogate every monster from here to the Abyss."
The general swallowed.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
He didn't argue.
Because no one argued with a man who had lost a son.
The three races had advanced far in those first months. Their hatred of elves ran deep—past political conflict, past ancient grudges, past even ideologies.
To them, the **Aetherion**, the liquid held by elves, represented a threat to the balance of the world. Aetherion energy extended life, enhanced magic, empowered armies, and fundamentally altered what was possible for elvish civilization.
The world believed the elves had stolen too much from the world tree, drained its essence for their own evolution.
The humans wanted power.
The dragons wanted dominance.
The demons wanted freedom from celestial limitations.
And together, they wanted elvish extinction.
The battles became monstrous.
Cities razed.
Mountain ranges collapsed.
Forests burned.
And the elves—though long-lived and powerful—were being worn down.
### But even the three races had limits.
Four years of constant war drained them too.
Humans lost half their knights and nearly all of their mages.
Dragons burned themselves out trying to breach elvish barriers.
Demons, though infinite in hatred, were finite in numbers.
The world began to crack under the prolonged conflict.
At last, all three races stepped back—not due to mercy, but exhaustion.
A cold peace settled across the continent.
Not trust.
Never trust.
Only survival.
---
## **THE PROTECTOR WHO WATCHED AND DID NOTHING**
High above the world, beyond winds that mortals could not breathe, on a floating citadel of crystallized cosmos, the **Planetary Protector** meditated.
He was known by many names:
**The Silent Sentinel**
**Keeper of the Veins**
**The Sixth-Tier God**
His element was *unbound stasis*, the art of freezing a world's foundation, allowing it to maintain form.
And in this hierarchy, he lived above all mortals—but beneath cosmic warriors.
### He was Tier 6.
Not Tier 7 like the legends hoped.
Not Tier 8, the mythical overseers.
Not even Tier 9 or above, where true cosmic rulers existed.
A Tier 6 Protector guarded the planet, not its people.
He opened his eyes once during the century's bloodiest battle.
He sensed the death of thousands.
He sensed elemental collapse.
He sensed the cracking of the world's mana layer.
But he also sensed something else:
A strange, impossible energy within the Elvish Empire.
A child.
A law.
A glitch in destiny.
He frowned.
"That presence… does not belong to this world."
He watched it flare—bright, brief, then disappear.
He waited.
He did not intervene.
"Mortals must solve mortal conflicts," he murmured.
And with that, he returned to meditation, tuning out the screams of millions below.
---
## **THE FALL OF AELTHRYS**
Aelthrys, the glittering capital, had once been known as *The City of Eternal Silver*, a city whose walls glowed under moonlight like celestial spines piercing the night.
Now the walls were scarred.
Scorch marks crawled along the towers.
Fallen rubble lay in every street.
Blood seeped between cobblestone cracks.
Merchants were gone; soldiers replaced citizens.
Children no longer laughed; they hid.
The city lived in a half-ruined state, kept alive by desperate magic and the stubbornness of elves.
Queen Seraphielle became both shield and sword to her people.
She encased the city in a new barrier—one that drained her life slowly but held against the final dragon raid.
She fought beside her people, her tears falling unseen beneath her war mask.
She healed the dying, even when her own soul bled.
But she never stopped returning to the balcony.
Never stopped whispering his name.
"Liam… please come home…"
---
## **THE EMPEROR WHO COULD NOT FORGIVE HIMSELF**
Thalorien wandered into the nursery only once every few months.
Each time, he stood at the doorway.
He never entered.
He could not.
The cradle remained untouched.
The toys were exactly as they had been left.
The silk blanket Seraphielle had woven by hand lay folded neatly.
He touched the frame of the doorway.
"Son," he whispered, voice cracking, "you deserved more time…"
He placed a hand on the wall.
The stone beneath his fingers was scarred—faint but real—from the mana wave that consumed the demon assassin.
"I wasn't there to protect you."
He swallowed, the pain raw enough to choke him.
"Forgive me."
He turned away, unable to stay longer.
His generals waited.
The world waited.
War waited.
But more than anything—
His grief waited.
Even when he tried to bury it beneath battles, it found ways to surface.
When demon horns sounded during midnight storms.
When the wind carried the faintest whisper of a child's cry.
When he saw other fathers hold their newborns.
Each time felt like a blade twisted in his heart.
---
## **FOUR YEARS OF REGRET**
Rumors spread among elves:
"The queen speaks to ghosts."
"The emperor grows quieter every year."
"The empire can't survive another attack."
"Our rulers carry too much grief."
But none spoke it in front of Thalorien or Seraphielle.
Their sorrow had become part of the empire's myth.
A tragedy written in stardust and blood.
Yet, after four brutal years—
The three races finally retreated.
Not because elves won.
Not because they repented.
But because they **lost too much**.
The cost of continuing war outweighed their hatred.
### And so, a fragile peace settled.
Cities rebuilt.
Trade routes reopened cautiously.
Battles ceased.
Borders quieted.
But inside the palace…
There was no peace.
Seraphielle no longer smiled.
Thalorien no longer laughed.
The throne hall felt colder each season.
The nursery remained silent.
The empire survived—
But its heart was cracked.
---
## **THE DARK RUMORS**
Across taverns and abandoned war camps, whispers spread:
"An elvish prince vanished during a demon attack."
"The mana that killed the demon was unnatural."
"Perhaps the prince is alive."
"Or perhaps the elves are cursed."
No one knew the truth.
And no one dared ask the emperor or queen.
The world turned cold.
The continents, once thriving, now resembled a graveyard of half-rebuilt kingdoms and broken alliances.
Humans hid behind stone walls.
Dragons retreated to volcanic caverns.
Demons returned to the Abyss, licking their wounds.
But all feared the same thing:
The elves were weak now.
But they had survived.
And elves who survive do not forget.
High above, the protector of the planet opened his eyes one final time in those years.
He looked down at the war-torn lands.
"I sense it again…"
A pulse.
A vibration.
A child's cosmic signature flickering faintly, like a heartbeat beyond reality.
"Not dead… not alive… somewhere between."
He traced the faint echo.
"Training…" he murmured. "Preparing…"
His eyebrows furrowed.
"That child is not bound to the world's Tier system. His law is older than this planet."
He narrowed his gaze.
"If he returns… the world will shift."
He closed his eyes, sighing.
"A lower world should not house such anomalies."
And he returned to silence, knowing the storm had merely been delayed—not ended.
Four years passed.
The Elvish Empire stood.
But its king and queen were fading into ghosts.
Thalorien's heart grew colder each winter.
Seraphielle's wings cracked more each passing month.
The empire whispered:
> "Our rulers lost their son.
> Our empire lost its light."
No one expected a miracle.
No one expected a return.
Liam had become a memory.
A tragedy.
A scar.
And the world moved forward, limping, bleeding, exhausted…
Completely unaware that the boy they mourned—
was learning how to become a god.