To the west of Emperor Arthur's soaring spires sat the heart of the Empire's information: Rodgers Newspapers. As the sole news distributor in Aethelgard, its reach was absolute; every whisper in the capital and every roar from the provinces eventually found its way onto its black-inked pages. From this hub, the narrative of the Empire was crafted and cast across the land.
In the quiet sanctuary of the top-floor office, Rodgers—the founder and voice of the establishment—sat across from a figure draped in mystery. The air in the room was heavy, thick with the scent of old parchment and the unsettling stillness that precedes a storm.
"Um," Rodgers started, his voice barely a tremor that pierced the oppressive silence.
"Hmm?" The Seer, a man whose sightless eyes were respected by kings and commoners alike, tilted his head slightly. "Yes? What is it, Rodgers?"
"Forgive me, Great One," Rodgers began, leaning forward with desperate politeness. "But I am concerned about the prophecy. What does it truly mean? Please, I must know."
The Seer remained a statue of calm, offering no immediate reply. Rodgers' anxiety surged, and he snatched up a fresh copy of that morning's edition. The headline stared back at him in bold, unapologetic strokes: A NEW DAWN IN AETHELGARD.
"This news we broadcasted this morning," Rodgers continued, his voice shaking. "It suggests that we will win this war. But so far… we have lost every single province. Only Cinder remains. The Tetrarchs—men we thought were gods—have all been defeated. Our people are being captured, and the enemy is at our doorstep. I know you don't make mistakes, Great One. Your decision to use that headline was deliberate. It makes me believe that the prophecy you mentioned yesterday—Three Stars, One Light—has a totally different interpretation than I first thought."
Rodgers looked at the silent Seer, the weight of the morning's headline feeling like a lie in his hands. "Great One… please say something. I'm scared."
The silence stretched, agonizing and long. Finally, Rodgers slumped back in his chair, defeated. "I'm sorry. Forget I asked." He turned his gaze toward the window, where the sun-drenched towers of the Emperor's castle stood like a golden tomb.
"You want to know the meaning of the prophecy, huh?"
The Seer's voice cut through the air like a newly forged spear. Rodgers snapped his attention back, his heart leaping into his throat. "Yes, Great One! Please, tell me."
"Hmmmm," the Seer paused, his sightless gaze seemingly fixed on something beyond the walls. "Let me ask you this, Rodgers. In these many centuries of crisis between our nations, who do you think was right? And more importantly… whose side do you take?"
Rodgers offered a small, sad smile. "Great One, I think you already know. Aethelgard was right. I am an Aethelgardian; I take our side."
"And why is that?"
"We are fighting for what is rightfully ours," Rodgers said firmly, reciting the history every child in Cinder knew by heart. "The Oathkeeper's Shadows was given to Thorenz instead of Aethel. Aethel was the firstborn twin! He was also the first to complete the test set by their father, Fredericko. Our ancestor was cheated of his birthright. Besides, this land is our home."
"This land," the Seer interrupted softly, "technically belongs to the Thorenzians."
Rodgers froze, his mouth falling open. "Great One… why would you say that?"
"Because it is the truth," the Seer replied, his voice devoid of bias. "Our great ancestor, Aethel, did not lose this land. He left it. He lost a duel that he started, and in his pride, he walked away of his own free will, despite Thorenz's relentless pleas for him to stay. The Thorenzians stayed. They built the empire known as Thorenzia. They didn't lose the land because they wanted to; they were tragically defeated and enslaved for centuries. History shows us that the Thorenzians are the true heirs to this soil."
Rodgers remained mute, his worldview fracturing. The Seer leaned forward, the shadows of the room deepening. "And as for the test of the Oathkeeper's Shadows… Fredericko was a man of profound wisdom. He was looking for a worthy successor to pass that powerful black blade to. Did you notice, Rodgers, that in the ancient stories, Fredericko never once mentioned that the one who finished the test fastest would inherit the sword?"
Rodgers thought back, his mind racing through the verses of the old legends. His eyes widened as the realization hit him. "Now that you mention it… it's starting to connect."
"Thus," the Seer concluded, his voice echoing with the weight of ancient law, "the Oathkeeper's Shadows—and the right to rule this land—rightfully belongs to the Thorenzians."
Rodgers shook his head, struggling to reconcile a lifetime of propaganda with the Seer's revelations. "But Great One, what does our ancient history have to do with the prophecy? Why dig up the bones of ancestors while the city burns?"
"You see, Rodgers, our history is not merely a record of events," the Seer said, his sightless eyes turning toward the ceiling as if reading the constellations through the stone. "It is a cycle shrouded by a Curse."
"A Curse?" Rodgers whispered, a cold chill settling in his marrow. "What kind of Curse?"
"The worst kind," the Seer replied. "A fratricidal war between brothers that has lasted for generations, spanning centuries. Blood spilled by kin, poisoning the soil. But this is not a two-player game, Rodgers. There is a third party involved in this tragedy."
"A third party?" Rodgers asked, leaning in. "Who?"
"The Vylonians."
Rodgers' eyes widened, and he nearly stumbled back from his desk. "What? Are you kidding me? Queen Lysandra Delacronix singlehandedly decimated the Vylonian Empire few weeks ago. There is no way they are still standing. She left nothing but ash!"
"Unfortunately, Rodgers, reality is often hidden beneath the veil of a victor's story. It is a fact known only by me, the Emperor, and the Queen herself. Through my own spies embedded within the Chronohelix camp, I have discovered the truth: the Vylonians survived. They did not just endure; they have thrived in the shadows."
"None of them died?" Rodgers' voice was thick with disbelief. "That's impossible. No one survives the Queen's wrath."
"Their survival is not the point," the Seer continued, dismissing the shock with a wave of his hand. "What matters is the present. Three nations are currently locked in this violent embrace. These are the Three Stars of the prophecy. They fight now, yes, but this war is not designed to destroy any of them. It is a crucible—a stepping stone meant to usher all three nations into a new era filled with peace and joy."
Rodgers blinked, trying to grasp the concept of such a massive shift. "A truce? You're suggesting a ceasefire?"
"It is far more than a simple truce," the Seer said, his voice dropping to a reverent hum. "What has already begun to happen between the Thorenzians and the Vylonians is about to encompass the Aethelgardians as well. This unity, Rodgers, is the Great Light mentioned in the prophecy—the Light that overwhelms the darkness of the endless void."
"What happened between the Thorenzians and the Vylonians?" Rodgers pressed, his reporter's instinct flaring even in his terror. "What did they do?"
The Seer offered a small, enigmatic smile. "Well, you shall find out soon enough. But mark my words: the dawn is coming. And whoever refuses to accept the light of this new era shall be swept away along with the darkness of this accursed age."
Rodgers felt his breath hitch in his chest. He looked back out the window at the smoke rising from the capital, the Seer's words ringing in his ears like a funeral bell for the world he knew. He realized then that the "New Dawn" wasn't a military victory for his King—it was the total dissolution of the Empire.
The heavy silence of the office was miles away from the blistering heat of the palace. Inside the Throne Room, the atmosphere had reached a flashpoint. Valerus stood amidst the ruins of the chamber, his knuckles white around the hilts of his twin blades. His fury was no longer a cold thing; it was a boiling, volcanic pressure that radiated off him in waves.
"Bastard!" Lysandra spat, her voice trembling with a jagged, manic rage. She gestured wildly to the shattered windows, the smoke of the capital visible in the distance. "Look at what you've done! The provinces weren't enough for you? You've torn the Empire apart, and now you come here for my husband's head? For mine?"
Valerus didn't flinch. He glared at the royal couple, his eyes hard as flint, before taking a long, measured breath to steady his pulse. "That depends," he said, his voice eerily calm.
"Depends?" Arthur's surprise was palpable, his brow twitching with a mixture of confusion and insult. "On what?"
"Simple," Valerus replied, the golden mark on his neck pulsing. "Give up. Lay down your arms and end the fighting now."
For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then, the Emperor and the Queen erupted into a chorus of mocking laughter that echoed off the high marble ceilings.
"We will never do that," Arthur sneered, his eyes flashing with imperial pride.
The moment the words left Arthur's lips, Valerus moved. In a blur of motion, he swung his golden sword, Apex. A torrential wave of white-hot flames erupted from the blade, a concentrated sun that engulfed the Emperor instantly. The heat was so intense the floor tiles liquefied. When the fire dissipated, nothing remained of the Emperor but a pile of smoldering ash on the rug.
"Now," Valerus grunted, his chest heaving as he pointed the smoking tip of Apex at the Queen. "All that's left is you, Lysandra Delacronix."
Lysandra looked at the pile of ash that was once her husband, then back at Valerus. She didn't scream. She didn't weep. Instead, she burst into a terrifying, melodic cacophony of laughter.
Valerus's brow furrowed in genuine confusion. The world was ending, her husband was a pile of soot, and she was laughing as if he had told a joke. "What is wrong with you?" he growled.
Lysandra stopped, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. "Honey," she cooed, her gaze locked on Valerus, "Stop the act. You've had your fun."
To Valerus's utter bewilderment, the ash began to swirl and knit together. In a horrific display of biological defiance, muscles, nerves, and skin wove themselves back out of the air. Arthur stood back up, smoothing his regal tunic as his body regenerated to its pristine state. A confident, predatory smile played at his lips.
"You thought you killed me, huh?" Arthur said, tilting his head. "Nice try."
Desperation, sharp and cold, finally took hold of Valerus. He didn't stop to think; he simply unleashed everything. Using Apex and his black sword, Valor, he became a whirlwind of all five Hera types. He swung a gale of wind that shattered the remaining windows and sent the couple flying into the open sky—but they simply drifted back into the room on invisible currents.
He rained down pillars of fire, but their skin merely glowed before the burns vanished. He struck them with lightning that should have vaporized their hearts, yet they stood unmoved. He erupted the floor into jagged earth, crushing them beneath tons of rock, only for them to step out from the rubble with their bones snapping back into place instantly. He lashed out with torrents of water, but it washed over them like rain on glass.
Valerus stopped, his lungs burning, his eyes wide with a shock that bordered on terror. "What in the world… what are you?"
Arthur and Lysandra laughed in unison, a haunting, synchronized sound. "Can't you tell?" Lysandra asked, her voice dripping with poison.
The two of them turned to each other, sharing a slow, passionate kiss in the center of the battlefield, a grotesque display of affection amidst the ruins. They disengaged, turning their united gaze back to Valerus
"If you can't tell, then we'll tell ya," Arthur said, his voice booming with a newfound, terrifying authority.
They spoke the words together, a chilling chorus: "WE ARE IMMORTAL."
"What?" Valerus whispered, the word feeling heavy in his mouth. "Immortal? That's impossible."
"Oh, it's very possible," Arthur replied. "Immortality was the Great Project of the Delacronix clan—a secret they cultivated for centuries, passed down through the bloodline like a holy relic. But my sweet, beautiful Queen and I… we are the ones who finally completed it. We have transcended the cycle of life and death."
Lysandra's eyes sharpened, the playfulness vanishing in an instant. She raised a hand, her fingers twitching with a dark, lethal energy. "Alright. The talking is over. It's time to end this rebellion once and for all."
Arthur and Lysandra reached for one another, their fingers interlocking in a grip that seemed to bind their very souls. As their eyes drifted shut, a low, guttural hum vibrated through the air—not from their throats, but from the foundations of the world itself.
The earth began to heave. The great throne room, once a symbol of absolute power, groaned as fissures snaked up the marble pillars. Valerus stumbled, his dual blades scraping the floor. "What is this?" he muttered, the hair on his neck standing up as the atmospheric pressure plummeted.
Then, the floor vanished.
Molten rock, bright and hungry, erupted from the crust beneath the palace. Fountains of lava geysered through the hallways, melting stone into slag. The castle, the pride of the Aethelgardian line, began to crumble into a heap of glowing rubble.
Arthur and Lysandra rose into the air, their regal robes billowing as they drifted upward from the ruin. Valerus didn't hesitate; he summoned a cyclone of Wind Hera beneath his boots, launching himself into the sky. Within minutes, the seat of the Empire was nothing but a smoldering scar on the horizon.
Below, the citizens of Cinder and the occupying Chronohelixian forces looked up in terror. The war for the ground had ceased; it was now an aerial slaughter. Three figures hung suspended against the bruised sky, gods playing among the clouds.
"Now, Valerus," Lysandra called out, her voice carrying over the roar of the fire. "It is time for you to die."
Arthur nodded, his face illuminated by the orange glow from below. "That's right."
In terrifying unison, they raised their hands. "Overdrive: Earth Devastation!"
The world screamed. Massive columns of magma surged upward, defying gravity to reach Valerus in the heavens. Valerus desperately slammed his hands together, raising colossal boulders from the debris to act as a shield, but the volcanic heat was absolute. The stones liquefied in seconds, turning into a rain of molten glass.
The overflow of the attack cascaded back down toward the city. The people of Cinder shrieked, running blindly through the streets as the lava began to melt the very roads beneath their feet.
"Stop!" Valerus roared, looking down at the carnage. "These are your people! Your own subjects! You're going to kill them all!"
"Who cares?" Arthur shouted back, his voice cold and detached. "We have no use for weaklings who allow themselves to be captured so easily. They are a failed generation."
Valerus's eyes narrowed, his heart thundering with a mixture of grief and fury.
"If they die, we simply start again," Lysandra added with a sickening sweetness. "We will build a stronger, better Empire. After all, we have forever. We cannot die."
Valerus ignored them, his gaze scanning the burning streets below. "Caius!" he screamed. He saw Gwen in the distance, her face streaked with soot and tears as she sprinted away from a wall of lava. "Where is Caius?"
Then, he saw him.
His friend—the puppet master who had fought so hard for Chronohelix—lay motionless. The encroaching magma reached his body, and in a heart-wrenching second, the corpse was consumed. Caius's form turned to ash, sinking into the glowing orange sea.
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over Valerus. He stopped flying, hovering still as a statue. "Hey," he whispered, his voice trembling. "My friend… was just burned to ashes."
Arthur scoffed, dismissive. "Your friend? Oh, you mean that annoying pest. The mind-controller? He was a blight on my empire."
Valerus's head snapped up. A terrifying aura, half-gold and half-black, erupted from his skin, vibrating with a frequency that made the air bleed. "Take that back!" he whispered. "Now!"
"Take what back?" Arthur laughed. "The boy was a pest!"
The word had barely left Arthur's mouth when the world changed.
The lava that had been ravaging the capital suddenly stopped its flow. As if answering a silent command, the molten rock surged upward, flying toward Valerus and clinging to his body like a suit of living, glowing armor. Below, the streets cleared; the people were suddenly safe, shielded by the very fire that had sought to consume them.
The sky turned a bruised, sickly purple. A localized windstorm of impossible magnitude began to tear through Cinder, ripping the roofs off castles—yet the people on the ground felt only a gentle breeze. They were being protected by the eye of the storm.
Purple lightning began to lace through the clouds, crackling with a sound like shattering glass. Black flames erupted from Valerus's volcanic armor, forming a revolving halo of dark fire around him.
Arthur and Lysandra were tossed about like autumn leaves by the sudden gale. "What is this?" Arthur cried, his face pale with a sudden, bone-deep fear.
"I knew it," Lysandra screamed over the wind. "Among the Thorenzians, this man… Valerus… he is the anomaly! He is dangerous!"
Valerus didn't speak. He didn't need to. He flew toward them, a silhouette of black fire and purple lightning. The wind was so fierce that the immortals couldn't even raise their arms to defend themselves.
Valerus threw back his head and let out a roar that shook the heavens.
"OVERDRIVE: APOCALYPSE!"
Valerus raised his right hand, his palm open and trembling with a cold, celestial authority. In that instant, the laws of biology were rewritten. Arthur and Lysandra gasped, their hands flying to their throats as blood began to seep—not from wounds, but directly through the pores of their skin. The crimson fluid didn't fall; it rose, defying gravity to swirl upward in a sickening, pressurized vortex that encased their heads in globes of their own life-force.
The Emperor and Queen thrashed, clawing at the liquid masks, their muffled screams lost in the roar of the storm.
With a snarl of grief and rage, Valerus snapped his palm shut.
The effect was instantaneous and horrific. The atmospheric pressure within the blood-globes spiked to an impossible degree before exploding outward. The heads of the immortals were reduced to a spray of gore and bone, their headless torsos flung around like ragdolls by the howling windstorm that answered Valerus's every twitch.
But Valerus was far from finished. He knew the nature of his prey.
He raised his twin swords—the golden Apex and the ebony Valor—high toward the bruised heavens. Like steel magnets for the end of the world, both blades began to draw in the chaotic energies of the Apocalypse. The howling gale, the jagged arcs of purple lightning, the floating clouds of imperial blood, the searing black flames, and the molten slag of the volcanoes all spiraled inward. The two swords became a single, blinding pillar of transcendent energy that threatened to crack the very firmament.
Arthur and Lysandra's bodies—already knitting together with supernatural speed—were caught in an updraft of such ferocity that they were hauled thousands of feet into the stratosphere, helpless against the vacuum.
"UNIVERSAL DAMNATION!" Valerus screamed, his voice tearing his own throat.
He swung the blades in a downward X-arc, releasing the accumulated mass of the five elements in a single, catastrophic beam of light. The sheer kinetic force of the discharge didn't just strike the royal couple; it carried them. They became a streak of fire as they were blasted out of the atmosphere, propelled through the cold void of space.
The beam followed them, a relentless lance of destruction that finally terminated as it slammed into the lunar surface. A silent, blinding flash illuminated the night sky. A massive portion of the moon—nearly 79% of its mass—was pulverized into a cloud of stardust and rubble under the weight of the Valerus' fury. On Earth, the people watched in stunned awe.
Back in the ruined capital, a heavy, ringing silence fell. Valerus let out a ragged gasp, his Overdrive flicking out like a dying candle. The volcanic armor crumbled into gray ash, and the purple lightning vanished. His lungs burned with the scent of ozone and sulfur. His legs finally gave way, and he collapsed onto the scorched earth, his chest heaving as he fought for air.
The citizens of Cinder and the Chronohelixian soldiers emerged from the shadows. A tentative, growing cheer began to rise. They had seen the gods cast out. They had seen the moon broken.
"Is… is everyone alright?" Valerus wheezed, pushing himself up on shaking arms. He looked toward Gwen and the survivors, his eyes searching for the ghost of a smile among the grief.
But the cheers died in an instant. A collective gasp of pure, unadulterated terror rippled through the crowd.
Valerus froze. A high-pitched whistling sound grew louder, screaming down from the heavens. Two streaks of fire—like falling stars returning to their point of origin—slammed into the earth behind him with the force of a meteor strike.
Dust and debris choked the air. Valerus turned, his movements slow and leaden with dread. Through the settling haze, he saw two mangled, charred heaps of meat and shattered bone. They should have been corpses. They should have been gone.
But as he watched, his eyes widening in a mask of disbelief, the charred meat began to pulse. The pulverized skulls reformed, the teeth clicking into place, the skin weaving over raw muscle with a wet, rhythmic sound. Within seconds, Arthur and Lysandra stood tall once more, their regal poise undisturbed, as if the trip to the moon had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
Arthur threw back his head and let out a sinister, jagged laugh that chilled the sun itself.
"We told you, Valerus," the Emperor said, his eyes glowing with an eternal, mocking light. "We are immortal. We cannot die!"