Deep within a vast golden hall, voices clashed in low, tense arguments.
Eight figures occupied the heavy chairs around a circular table, each wrapped in a distinctively colored cloak. Above them, the hall opened up into a dizzying expanse, its massive golden pillars climbing upward until they were lost to the shadows of the high ceiling. Across the walls, ancient runes throbbed with a faint, rhythmic glow, casting a solemn, almost funerary light over the assembly.
"It has started."
The blue-cloaked figure spoke first, cutting through the fading murmurs as the room finally settled.
"Indeed," the green-cloaked figure replied, his voice entirely too calm for the gravity of the declaration. "I never anticipated it would unfold like this. Nor that the end would arrive so swiftly."
Across the table, the black-cloaked figure shifted, turning his attention away from his peers and toward the far end of the chamber.
"Your Highness, why bar the Sovereign Manifest cultivators from the field? Had they intervened, we could have salvaged a far better outcome."
At the head of the hall sat a massive golden throne, occupied by a silhouette draped entirely in stark white robes.
A heavy silence stretched through the chamber. No one dared interrupt her contemplation. When she finally spoke, her voice lacked any forced authority or volume, yet its quiet weight commanded absolute focus.
"You witnessed the Primarchs yourselves." She paused, letting the memory hang over them. "If our Sovereign Manifest cultivators had set foot on that battlefield, the destruction of the island would have been the least of our concerns."
She leaned back slightly against the gold crest of her throne.
"Vexer understood that long before the first blow was struck. The brat sealed every single Sovereign Manifest elder within his own clan lines, hiding them away in a pocket of space even my eyes cannot easily pierce."
The red-cloaked figure let out a dry, rumbling chuckle.
"Prudent of him."
The amusement vanished from his voice just as quickly as it came.
"And terribly cunning. It makes one wonder if he knew from the very beginning that his clan was doomed to ash."
"Of course he knew." The white-cloaked woman answered instantly, without a shred of doubt. "Why else do you think I invited him into our circle?"
The table fell utterly still.
"To speak plainly," she continued, her gaze sweeping over the cloaked assembly, "not a single one of you would hold a candle to his brilliance had he accepted my offer."
No one rose to protest. It wasn't a silence born of fear or deference to her crown, but rather the bitter weight of an undeniable truth. They knew she was right.
With a soft, weary sigh, the golden-cloaked figure broke the tension.
"It remains a tragedy. Rejecting an invitation to your table only to chase ascension... what a pointless waste of potential."
"It is," she agreed.
For a fleeting moment, a rare shadow of regret colored her tone.
"But never underestimate a man like him."
Her fingers began a slow, rhythmic tap against her armrest.
"Twelve years ago, something broke."
The atmosphere in the room tightened instantly. Every eye locked onto her.
"I cannot tell you what transpired," she said quietly, "but from that exact night onward, Vexer's fate vanished from my sight."
The reaction was immediate. A collective shock shattered the hall's decorum, fracturing into a chorus of disbelief.
"What?"
"Impossible."
"How can anyone slip past your eyes?"
Their panic was justified. This woman saw the threads of the world; the deep secrets of empires lay bare before her gaze. To hear that a mortal man had stepped out of her vision was a terrifying prospect.
"There is no need to spiral into panic," the white-cloaked woman said, rising slowly from her throne. The sweeping fabric of her robes hissed against the polished floor. "I suspect the anomaly is tied to their final heir."
The orange-cloaked figure wrinkled his brow.
"The unawakened boy? How could a child possibly disrupt Vexer's thread, let alone blindfold your majesty?"
"I don't know," she admitted, a confession that caught them entirely off guard. "But I intend to find out."
Stepping clear of the dais, she stopped in the open center of the hall.
"I am going to step forward and see what the future holds."
The brown-cloaked figure stood up so fast his chair scraped loudly.
"Your Highness..."
Before he could finish, the air groaned.
The woman raised a single, slender finger and pressed it against the empty air.
The entire golden hall shuddered. Where her fingernail met nothingness, a dark, violent vortex tore itself open, spinning like oil in water. From deep within the rift came the muffled, thunderous roar of crashing waves, and for a split second, the shimmering, timeless current of an ancient River flashed in the dark.
The brown-cloaked man slowly bowed his head, accepting her resolve.
"Please... exercise caution."
The others quickly murmured their agreement, bowing in turn.
The white-cloaked woman offered them a faint, enigmatic smile as she looked into the heart of the anomaly.
"Do not worry," she said softly, stepping toward the tearing void. "It is merely the future."
The vortex swallowed her white robes whole, collapsing inward into a pinpoint of light before vanishing entirely.
Silence claimed the golden hall once more.
Far beyond the halls of power, out in the limitless expanse of a grey ocean, a lone body drifted among the swells.
The sea was in a state of violent unrest. Heavy walls of black water rose like mountains only to collapse into deep troughs, tossing the unconscious boy wherever the blind currents pulled him. Three floated lifelessly amidst the foam. His grey hair clung to his forehead in wet streaks; his clothes were shredded by rock and wave, and his skin had gone an ash-pale, frightening color. Every breaking crest threatened to pull him down into the freezing deep, yet the sea seemed to keep him aloft by sheer chance, drifting like a splintered piece of wreckage.
The horizon was entirely empty. Nothing but iron-grey sky and endless water.
Then, a streak of violet tore across the clouds.
It appeared from the edge of the world, moving with the terrifying velocity of a falling star before snapping to a sudden, dead stop directly over Three.
A small, dense sphere of violet light hovered in the air, perfectly still.
For a long, tense interval, it simply watched.
Then, it pulsed.
A brilliant wave of violet light exploded outward, dyeing the dark ocean, the heavy sky, and the cresting waves in a deep, neon bruise. The sphere was searching, scanning the depths.
As the seconds ticked by, the wide light began to draw back, condensing around the core as the sphere drifted lower.
It dropped closer until it was suspended mere inches above Three's exposed chest.
It pulsed a second time.
This time, the energy didn't spread; it drove straight down into his flesh.
The sphere went dead quiet, as if calculating or hesitating.
Then, its sharp edges blurred, melting into a fluid light as it began to sink into him.
But before the violet light could breach his skin, golden chains erupted from Three's body.
They manifested in a flash of metallic light, bursting from his chest to bind the sphere in an iron grip. The violet object thrashed violently against the restraint. The air around them warped with a high-pitched hum, and the ocean beneath them boiled into white froth, but the golden links held firm.
The unnatural tug-of-war lasted for several agonizing seconds until the sphere's violent vibrations began to slow. Its resistance withered away, turning static as if it had resigned itself to a lock it could not break.
With a final shudder, the sphere slipped into Three's chest.
A blinding explosion of golden light tore across the sea, illuminating the water for miles around. Instantly, a thick, woven cocoon of scarlet and gold spun itself out of thin air, wrapping around the unconscious boy layer after layer until he was entirely sealed from the elements.
The heavy artifact bobbed quietly in the water.
A sharp crack echoed over the wind.
A hairline fracture split the golden shell, followed by a dozen more that webbed across its surface. With a sound like breaking glass, the cocoon shattered into a thousand shards of scarlet light that rained down onto the waves and dissolved into salt water.
Three was left floating on the surface.
His ragged breathing had smoothed out, the terrifying paleness of his skin replaced by a healthy, warm flush. He remained deeply unconscious, but the cold touch of death had left him.
He was alive.
Then, the fabric of space tore.
A rift materialized a few meters above the water, and a tall man stepped out onto the air. Long, dark-gold hair whipped around his shoulders in the sea wind, framing sharp golden eyes that missed nothing. He possessed the flawless, aristocratic features of a man born to rule, and an aura so heavy it seemed to press down on the water itself.
Morgan looked out over the restless sea. It took only a moment for his sharp gaze to lock onto the drifting boy.
A cold spark of recognition lit his eyes.
"So this is where you hid," he murmured.
Morgan raised a casual hand.
The ocean instantly turned stagnant under his command. The raging waves flattened out, and a smooth current of water gathered beneath Three, lifting him gently and sliding him across the surface until he floated right at Morgan's feet.
The former tyrant looked down at the boy, studying his features with a lingering, calculating look.
A slow, mocking smile touched his lips.
"Indeed," Morgan chuckled, his voice laced with dark amusement. "You really were the last survivor."
For a brief second, his eyes drifted, caught in the memory of an old ghost.
"I wonder what Sigil would think if he knew his precious son had fallen directly into my hands."
Three lay still, oblivious to the man standing over him, unable to hear the threat or offer a response.
Turning back toward the tearing rift, Morgan gave a negligent flick of his fingers. The water dutifully lifted Three's limp form, carrying him behind the tyrant like a shadow.
The captor walked through the tear willingly. The prize followed him in ignorance.
Morgan stepped into the portal. The unconscious boy floated after him.
The ocean immediately reclaimed its violent domain. The waves crashed against one another, and the wind howled through the empty space, erasing every sign of the encounter.