Five years is a negligible fraction of time for an immortal god. For a mortal, however, it is enough time to fundamentally reshape the world.
Year Twenty of the Golden Age saw the Warlord's Council evolve from a coalition of terrifying prodigies into a fully matured, flawless governing body.
Orion, at seventeen, now stood eye-to-eye with the towering Vanguard. He moved with the quiet, heavy grace of a veteran soldier, his broad shoulders resting effortlessly beneath his leather armor. His golden eyes no longer flickered with erratic solar flares; they burned with absolute, contained perfection. The cauterizing obsidian broadsword, the Solar Anvil, rested silently across his back.
Elara, also seventeen, had become the Capital's most terrifying diplomatic myth. The Void Lord had refined her domain to such a degree that she could stand in the center of a crowded room at high noon and remain completely invisible unless she wished to be perceived.
