The silence after the cataclysm was so profound that Astrid thought the universe itself had stopped breathing.
Solenne—or what remained of it—was a cemetery of fire and dust. The mountains smoked as if exhaling ashes. The air burned. And she, at the center of it all, stared at what she had done without fully understanding it.
The tears had dried; what remained was a strange stillness, a feeling of having touched something forbidden. Her mind was a storm of overlapping images: Vellhara, Elisa, dimensional fractures, unified universes… and then this new sky, indifferent, alien.
She remembered everything.Everything.
The memories returned like a river.
Every fragment of her former life drove itself into her mind with physical pain. She remembered her journey across the ancient multiverse, the mission to unify it all, the confrontation with Elisa, her defeat, her death.
And now… waking in a universe that was not hers.
For days she wandered through the ruins without direction. She did not speak, did not sleep. She only thought, without any clear purpose.
The idea consumed her:
How am I alive?If I'm alive… then someone brought me back.If all of this exists… someone created it.
And that idea had a name: Elisa.
The realization fell upon her like a sentence.
Had Elisa saved the multiverse? Or had she created a new one? Astrid did not yet know.
She still did not know that everything that had once existed—people, worlds, memories, her own home—had been erased, replaced, remade according to Elisa's decision.
Vellhara was not destroyed.
It had never existed in this new order.
Astrid broke.
The emptiness she felt was not sadness or anger at first, but absolute nothingness. It was as if reality itself had been torn from her hands.
Weeks passed before she could think clearly again.
When she finally did, she understood that she needed answers.
Remembering was not enough.
She had to understand what had happened between her death and her rebirth—and what had truly happened to her and to Elisa.
The brooch was still with her, shining with a calm light, as if patiently waiting for its bearer to decide her next step.
Astrid took a deep breath, gathered what remained of her will, and began a new journey.
Her destination was a planet called Orvellis, known in cosmic records as the World of the Wise. It was a meeting point for scholars, archivists, and philosophers who dedicated their lives to studying the origin of the cosmos.
She arrived there without revealing who she truly was. She introduced herself simply as a traveler seeking to understand the structure of the multiverse.
The air of Orvellis was light and transparent, and its cities seemed to float above lakes that reflected the sky like mirrors. Its inhabitants were beings of condensed light, whose voices sounded like gentle echoes. They knew neither war nor misery; they sought only knowledge.
Astrid wandered through their libraries and read inscriptions that told the story of the creation of the new order. In every mural, the same figure appeared: a woman wrapped in luminous shadows, her mantle merging with the void.
They called her The Goddess of Nonexistence.
"They say it was she who brought existence to life," one of the sages explained—a tall being with eyes like liquid mirrors. "From absolute nothingness she gave birth to worlds and souls. Without her, none of this would exist. That is why she bears that name."
Astrid listened without interrupting him.
"And do we know who she was?" she asked in a neutral tone.
The sage shook faintly, emitting a dim glow.
"No. Her name was lost. Some believe she transcended. Others say she sleeps beyond the limits of reality. All we know is that when she created the cosmos… she disappeared."
"And these beings called Guardians?" she asked, pretending ignorance.
"They were created to watch over her work," the sage replied. "No one has seen them for ages."
Astrid nodded, feigning calm.
But inside, every word was an open wound.
She knew exactly who that goddess was.
She knew exactly what she had done. Elisa, after their battle, had recreated the entire multiverse by becoming the goddess of her object.
And for the first time, Astrid understood everything.
That night, at the top of an observatory, Astrid gazed at the sky of Orvellis. The stars reflected in her eyes like holes in memory.
She thought about Elisa—her face, the voice that had once begged her to abandon her ambition. How she had defeated her… and then replaced everything Astrid had tried to save.
Pain gave way to anger.Anger gave way to indignation.And indignation, finally, to clarity.
She did the same thing as the Guardians.She condemned one existence to create another.She stole my purpose… and the world I wanted to save.
Her hands trembled.
She could not accept that the reality she now knew was merely a copy, an artificial echo of the original.
She could not accept that her sacrifice, her struggle, her death had been erased without leaving a trace.
The multiverse that now existed was a lie.
An illusion created to replace the truth.
From that moment on, something changed in her gaze.
The brooch still shone, but its light had grown colder, sharper.
Astrid no longer used it to heal or create. She studied it in silence, understanding its power more deeply. If the brooch was the manifestation of existence, then it could be used for any purpose… even to reverse it.
While the sages of Orvellis slept, Astrid wandered through the halls of the central temple, where a statue of the goddess stood at its center.
She stared at it for a long time.
In the carved stone, the goddess held a luminous orb—the symbol of creation.
"You destroyed everything," Astrid murmured. "You pretended to save it… but you erased it."
Her voice trembled between fury and sorrow.
"I saw it burn… and you called it redemption. You did the same thing as the Guardians—you created a new world from the ashes of the old one."
The echo faded among the pillars.
For the first time, the brooch answered with a strong pulse, as if it shared her rage.
The following days were a storm of thoughts.
Astrid remembered the sages' words: Without her, nothing would exist.
But in her mind the sentence twisted:
Because of her, what once existed is gone.
That difference—this small shift in perspective—became a fixed idea.
And from that idea, a conviction was born.
If this is not my world… if my Vellhara no longer exists… then this universe is nothing but a shadow.
And every shadow must eventually disappear.
Sadness turned into hatred.Hatred became purpose.Purpose became faith.
A reversed faith: the faith of destruction, not creation.
If Elisa had used the power of nonexistence to create a new reality, Astrid would use the power of existence to annihilate it.
It would be the inverse balance—the correction of what she believed to be a mistake.
Before leaving Orvellis, Astrid returned to the observatory where she had first heard the story of the goddess.
Dawn painted the sky in golden hues. The sages were still asleep.
She lifted her gaze toward the stars—the same stars she had once helped shape—and spoke in a quiet voice, almost like a prayer.
"I will not allow this illusion to endure," she whispered. "I will not allow the cycle to repeat once again. If the Guardians and the goddess erased everything I loved… then I will erase their lie."
The brooch flared with a fierce radiance, responding to her resolve. Blue light mixed with flashes of red—a color it had never shown before.
Astrid smiled, tears long dried upon her cheeks.
She began to raise her power, causing the planet to tremble. The sages awoke in confusion from the thunderous rumbling and demanded to know what she was doing.
Astrid did not answer.
She only continued to increase her strength—until she released an explosion that destroyed the entire planet.
In the immense vacuum of space, among the ruins of what remained, she spoke firmly:
"I will use the power of creation to destroy everything the Goddess of Nonexistence created…"
Her voice faltered, but her gaze hardened.
"I will become the Creator of Calamity."
The echo of those words crossed the firmament, and the universe itself seemed to hold its breath.
Destiny had changed its course.