Sylas looked at the empty Subspace, considered for a moment, then waved his hand. The vast dimension rapidly shrank under his will, condensing and compressing until it transformed into an illusory gemstone, a Space Gem that glimmered with ethereal light.
He took the gem and pressed it against his forehead. It transformed into a beam of radiance and entered his body, merging seamlessly with his Soul Crystal.
Thus, the Subspace became a realm within Sylas's soul, a personal dimension contained entirely within his being.
The System seemed to welcome this change. It moved of its own accord into the Subspace, transforming into a golden, radiant sun that hung within the interior space like a celestial body illuminating a private cosmos.
Under the System's influence, the originally illusory Subspace began to shift. Its substance grew denser, more tangible, as though it were gradually evolving from a phantom dimension into a true world.
This transformation filled Sylas with wonder. He watched with eager anticipation, waiting to see what the Subspace would ultimately become.
After all of this was over, a vast span of time passed in the world of Arda.
Morgoth remained missing, his whereabouts unknown. Perhaps he was hiding somewhere in the furthest reaches of the Void, researching the Flame Imperishable.
Sylas returned to Valinor, reunited with his wife and children, and spent a warm, peaceful era together.
Countless ages turned.
Humanity had long since entered the Space Age. Human footprints covered every corner of the universe that Varda and Sylas had created. The power of humanity had grown indistinguishable from that of the gods; some individuals possessed strength rivaling the Valar themselves. They had achieved near-immortality and invented weapons capable of destroying entire worlds.
Valinor had severed all contact with Arda. Even Ulmo, who had long dwelt alone in the vast oceans, had returned to his residence in the Blessed Realm. With humanity's current capabilities, they had already explored the breadth of the cosmos, the depths of the ocean, and the foundations of the earth held no secrets from them any longer.
After much deliberation, the Valar had severed Valinor's connection to Arda completely, ensuring that humanity could not discover it and disrupt its peace.
Humanity was a strange race. When faced with a powerful external enemy, they became magnificently united. But when no external threat existed, they fell into bitter internal conflict.
Since the dawn of the cosmic age, humanity had waged countless wars. The earth was ravaged and scarred, countless lives lost. Varda's star system, the celestial architecture she had so lovingly created, was shattered by the destructive bombardment of human weapons. The devastation surpassed even the War of Wrath in the First Age.
The Valar watched with anguish as the world they had once built was gradually destroyed, yet they were powerless to intervene. Since the War of Wrath, they had been forbidden from interfering too directly in Arda's affairs. They could only observe helplessly as the world drifted toward its twilight.
Unable to bear the sight any longer, the Valar withdrew their remaining spheres of influence from Arda entirely, allowing the world to develop on its own. They ceased to involve themselves.
Manwë had once prayed to Eru Ilúvatar for guidance, both regarding Morgoth's theft of the Flame Imperishable and the trajectory of humanity. But the result was silence. Ilúvatar offered no response. This disappointed and troubled the Valar deeply.
During these long years, Sylas's study of the Law of the Soul had progressed steadily, if slowly.
In the cosmic era, humanity numbered more than the stars, yet due to ceaseless warfare, the daily death toll was beyond counting. All those souls converged in the Halls of Mandos, passing through judgment and then through the Gate of Sorrow, departing Arda for whatever lay beyond.
Mandos was therefore extraordinarily busy. He and his wife Vairë, the Weaver, took up permanent residence in the Halls, and the repaired Gate of Sorrow was relocated inside to manage the overwhelming flow of departed souls.
Sylas, seeking to deepen his understanding of the soul's laws, assisted Mandos in this work, studying the nature of human souls as they passed through. His progress in comprehending the Law of the Soul was modest but real.
After an unknown number of additional years, humanity grew even more reckless.
They set their sights on the depths of the earth's core, intending to harness the primordial fire buried there and search for ancient treasures hidden within. They dug deeper and deeper, excavating through the very foundations of the world, driving toward the deepest places that had existed since Arda's creation.
But just as humanity breached the earth's core and began to celebrate their achievement, they unearthed something they had never anticipated: a dark cavern, vast and ancient, concealed in the deepest stratum of the world.
And within it, something stirred.
They had awakened a nameless creature that had been slumbering since before the world began.
Sylas recognized it at once.
It was the same nameless horror that he and Gandalf had sensed long ago, deep in the tunnels of Moria, during their battle with a Balrog. They had never seen it then, only felt its presence. The Balrog itself, a corrupted Maia of terrible power, had fled in abject terror at the mere sensation of this creature's aura. Gandalf had not dared linger.
This nameless thing originated from the primordial chaos that had existed before the shaping of Arda. It was a creature older than the world itself, a being of primordial darkness, a devourer that was prophesied to consume the earth at the end of all things.
Even the Valar knew almost nothing about it, yet they feared it profoundly. The only consolation had been that the creature possessed little intelligence, surviving by devouring rock and expanding underground caverns. It preferred the deepest, darkest places, shunning light and the surface, and so it had always remained far below, never emerging.
But humanity's insatiable greed in excavating the earth had finally disturbed its slumber.
It was a serpent of unimaginable scale, its body so vast it could encircle an entire continent. Its voice was like the eruption of a volcano, and from its maw it spewed and swallowed dark mist that transformed into a sky of black clouds, rapidly engulfing the whole of Middle-earth.
/
The entire continent was shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Not a ray of sunlight or moonlight could pierce the black clouds that the nameless creature had spewed across the sky.
Humanity had never imagined such a horror lurking beneath their feet. They immediately deployed their most devastating weapons, directing everything in their arsenal at the nameless being.
It accomplished nothing. Worse, it enraged the creature.
The nameless thing erupted from the tunnels humanity had so proudly excavated, leveling millions of miles of land. Mountains crumbled. Hills were flattened. Cities were ground to dust. The death toll was beyond counting, entire civilizations annihilated in moments.
Humanity plunged into fear and despair. They hurled every weapon they possessed at the creature. Even the most powerful human warriors, individuals whose strength rivaled the Maiar themselves, threw themselves against it. But it was like grasshoppers trying to overturn a cart. The nameless creature was a being of primordial chaos. Not only did it possess defense beyond comprehension, it absorbed every energy attack directed at it, growing stronger with each assault.
The most powerful human combatants were swallowed whole, dying instantly.
And what filled the survivors with the deepest despair was this: the nameless creature never stopped feeding. It gnawed ceaselessly at rock and mountain, its body growing without limit, seemingly without end. The longer it remained on the surface, the more catastrophically vast it became.
Faced with annihilation, humanity could only despair and pray for deliverance.
But fate was crueler still.
A colossal black dragon appeared in the burning sky, so enormous its wingspan blotted out the heavens. It spewed rivers of flame across the earth, transforming the landscape into a sea of fire.
It was Ancalagon the Black.
The mightiest dragon ever to exist, Ancalagon had once been Morgoth's supreme general during the War of Wrath. In that ancient war, Eärendil himself, sailing Vingilótë through the heavens and bearing the Silmaril, had slain the great wyrm, and Ancalagon's falling body had destroyed the peaks of Thangorodrim.
Now, Ancalagon had been resurrected, more powerful than before.
Morgoth had used the Flame Imperishable to restore the dead dragon to life, granting it strength that surpassed its former glory. This was creation-level power at work: not merely reanimating a corpse, but reforging a soul and returning it to the world whole and terrible.
And Ancalagon was not alone.
Countless colossal dragons poured from the fissures in the abyss, forming a vast army of evil wyrms. They brought with them thunder, lightning, and fiery storms that engulfed the world of Arda.
From the depths of the earth, Balrogs surged upward, emerging once more upon the surface of the world. Leading them was the most fearsome of their kind: Gothmog, the Lord of Balrogs, the mightiest of all the Maiar whom Morgoth had corrupted. His strength stood at the absolute pinnacle of the Balrog host.