Time did not flow; it bled. Decades dissolved into centuries, drifting like cosmic dust across the void of my consciousness.
Through the glassy, fractured mirror of my isolation, I bore witness to the grand tapestry of existence: the rise and fall of empires, the quiet grace of peace, the venom of malice, the warmth of love, and the crushing weight of utter futility.
Where am I?I had asked that question a thousand times until the words lost meaning. Now, I simply existed.
Memories surfaced like dying stars, only to be swallowed by the dark. The phantom imagery of a great war still stained my thoughts—an apocalyptic clash between humanity and entities that defied natural geometry. On those battlefields, mortal soldiers wielded volatile, reality-bending forces, their light fracturing the sky. I spectated it all, entombed in my silent, transparent chamber.
Then, the void shifted. The endless reel of silent history suddenly ruptured, and for the first time in millennia, sound pierced the glass."Warrior... is this your final trial?"The voice did not come from a throat. It echoed from the architecture of the cosmos itself, vibrating through the sacred, geometric altar.
Before me stood a man clad in starlight-polished iron armor. He did not speak. He merely marched toward the edge of the precipice. He possessed a terrifying, cold beauty—cascading hair as dark as an abyss, and eyes that held the diamond-sharp radiance of a dying galaxy."My lord, please save the world," the knight pleaded, his voice a desperate friction against the silence. "And grant me eternal blessing."The cosmos offered no reply. No divine rebellion sparked.
Without a flicker of hesitation, the knight drew a short, obsidian blade. With a single, sickening stroke, he severed his own left hand, cutting cleanly through bone and iron alike.
Drip. Drip.
Blood poured, flowing upward in tiny, weightless spheres before gravity claimed them. The knight did not flinch; his jaw remained set like carved marble.
"My lord, I offer you everything. Just save this world and return me to my origin."
The atmosphere curdled. A heavy, multi-dimensional presence collapsed onto the sacred rite, suffocating the air.
"I am no god." The voice was a chorus of scraping tectonic plates."Lord, help us!" the knight begged, his composure cracking. "We are besieged on all fronts. The Gossaphor continent is being torn from its foundations!"
"I am called... the Ancient Gate," the entity resonated. "I cannot intervene in your mortal geometry. But I possess the coordinates of a realm that can. Step through. Embrace your destiny."A tear in reality ripped open.
It was a deep, predatory purple, bleeding an ominous, suffocating hue. Clenching his remaining fist, the knight stepped through the threshold, ignoring the ethereal smoke rising from his severed wrist.
Hovering in the peripheral ether, Skyre watched, the sudden influx of sound vibrating through his non-physical form. Confusion warped his thoughts."Only when I perceive the memory of a soul tethered to my own lineage... do the voices break through,"
Skyre murmured, his internal voice echoing with deep bewilderment. "Enigmatic. Truly enigmatic."As the one-handed knight crossed the threshold, the world dissolved into an oppressive, milk-white mist.
Eerie, luminescent shadows began to shimmer as the fog receded. The knight now stood in a graveyard of reality—a sacred, shattered ground littered with the debris of dead civilizations. Alabaster coffins, carved from unknown minerals, floated inches above the earth. Crumbling, impossible architecture loomed overhead, defying gravity.
The gallant knight bypassed the tombs, descending deeper into the subterranean heart of the ruins. There, he met a barrier: a monolithic door that pierced the clouds, ten times his height, carved from a single slab of star-metal. Two colossal stone sentinels stood guard, their faces blank voids.
The knight pressed his bloody palm against the metal. The blank eyes of the stone sentinels suddenly ignited with a cold, celestial fire. He began to chant.
The language was composed of heavy, clicking phonetics—sounds no human throat should be able to produce. Yet, through some cosmic distortion, the meaning translated directly into my mind:
The Door of All Thresholds.
The Door of the Primordial Horizon.
The Door of Axis.
The Door of Inevitable Destiny.
The heavy, ancient words hung in the air like lead. I braced for the statues to crush him into dust. Instead, a low, tectonic hum vibrated through the earth, and the colossal doors ground open, parting the fabric of the room. I watched, entranced, as if observing a forbidden, cosmic ritual unfolding in high definition before my eyes.
Within the hollow, zero-gravity chamber floated a crystalline tablet. It pulsed with a faint, rhythmic heartbeat.
Etched into its translucent surface were characters written in liquid light. The knight stepped forward, his eyes reflecting the glow as he deciphered the final, cosmic truth:
All dominion demands an equal sacrifice.
Where a beginning is forged, an end is already written.
Where joy blooms, suffering must take root.. . .
The catalyst who claims this power shall unravel the shroud of the world.