In the Godforsaken Expanse, silence had weight.
It pressed against the void like a suffocating ocean, thick with broken prayers and forgotten divinity.
Within that endless graveyard, Aurelion’s true body finished absorbing the mories of his scattered avatars. The mont the final fragnt settled, his expression twisted into sothing rare.
Uncertainty.
"That man..." Aurelion murmured. "An ancient scholar with power bordering on divinity. And I’ve been sealed away so long that the world has grown unfamiliar."
He lifted his gaze toward the cracks in reality that only gods and monsters could perceive.
"Ti to ask Adrian Crowe."
Using a hidden anchor left behind a millennium ago when his avatars once ford an angelic lineage on the Northern Continent, Aurelion seized the brief flaw in the Godforsaken Expanse’s seal.
Reality folded.
He vanished.
Adrian Crowe resided within the spirit world, drifting through layered dinsions like a quiet shepherd of fate.
When Aurelion erged, Adrian turned calmly, golden eyes reflecting gentle amusent.
"Long ti no see, Aurelion."
Aurelion did not return the smile.
Instead, he produced a projected image.
A portrait of a grown man with dark hair, steady eyes, and an unreadable presence.
Rowan rcer.
"Do you know him?"
Adrian’s pupils shrank.
For the first ti in a very long while, genuine surprise crossed his face.
"He calls himself a naless wanderer. An angel serving the Fool."
Aurelion’s gaze sharpened.
"Where did you encounter him?"
Adrian did not answer imdiately.
Because he had been searching for that man.
For years.
His own grand design hinged on a very specific convergence of history. Nations marching toward war. Ideologies colliding. The age unfolding exactly as he had foreseen.
Once the era reached its destined crest, he would step into the mont and ascend.
Everything was prepared.
Everything—except one final piece.
A supre artifact tied to his path.
An artifact that had once been held by Adrian Crowe.
An artifact stolen by Adrian Crowe.
An artifact that should have ended in his hands...
Until soone else took it.
Soone claiming to be the Fool’s angel.
Soone who vanished without leaving so much as a ripple.
Even with Adrian’s influence woven through countless organizations, churches, and secret societies, he had found nothing.
Not a whisper.
Not a shadow.
And now Aurelion stood before him with proof.
"The Fool’s angel?" Aurelion scoffed. "Impossible."
His ambitions were not small.
He intended to beco the embodint of Error itself, then devour the authority of Door and the Fool.
He kept close watch over those two paths.
Door’s legacy resided with a being trapped on the moon, corroded by an outer horror.
The Fool’s legacy belonged to an ancient entity sealed atop Hornacis Peak.
"Did that sealed god break free?" Aurelion asked.
Adrian shook his head.
"If a new true god had erged, I would know. The collective unconscious would tremble."
Aurelion exhaled slowly.
"Then it doesn’t make sense. That man’s strength rivals divinity. He cannot be anyone’s subordinate."
Aurelion explained what he had witnessed.
Rowan rcer summoning echoes from history itself.
Using impossible projections to drive back the True Creator.
When he finished, Adrian’s face darkened.
"This is no joke," Adrian said quietly.
"If what you say is true, the variables are multiplying."
He looked toward an unseen horizon.
"We need to accelerate."
Aurelion’s fingers tapped once against nothingness.
"I need to know where Elias Voss is."
Adrian answered instantly.
"Tingen City. On the Kingdom of Loen’s eastern coast. He’s hiding inside the body of a Night Watcher. Under the protection of Lady Eleanor."
Aurelion’s expression soured.
"I can’t fight a goddess."
"You won’t have to," Adrian replied.
"Do not kill Elias Voss. Only take what belongs to you. Lady Eleanor will not interfere."
There were reasons.
Complicated ones.
Gods manipulating gods.
Wars being baited into existence.
Everyone playing their part.
"And once you succeed," Adrian continued, "I will help summon the being bound to the Door path. You will replace him during his ascension."
Aurelion smiled.
That was exactly how his path worked.
Stealing a god’s throne at the instant it was forged.
Only then could Adrian hope to challenge Rowan rcer for the artifact he desired.
Because Rowan had already proven himself capable of repelling a god.
And that made him terrifying.
Far from divine conspiracies...
Rowan rcer stood on an empty island in the middle of the open sea.
After achieving a new height in power, he had not returned to the Kingdom of Loen.
He wanted space.
Privacy.
A foundation.
He raised one hand.
"Rise."
The island groaned.
Stone tore free from the ocean’s grip.
Entire cliffs ascended, water cascading down like shattered waterfalls.
Rowan reshaped the terrain with precise, thodical movents.
Runes burned into the bedrock.
Sigils fused with gravity itself.
Within hours, a floating fortress hovered above the waves.
A structure capable of flight.
Shielding.
Annihilation.
Rowan surveyed his work.
"Sky City."
Then he reached into his pouch and scattered handfuls of small beans across the stone.
They struck the ground.
And transford.
Dozens of robed figures erged, each radiating supernatural presence.
Rowan extended threads of pale-blue energy from his fingertips, weaving them into every construct.
The figures stabilized.
Individualized.
Enduring.
They would not fade.
They would not vanish.
They would persist.
An army.
Servants.
Witnesses.
All necessary for what ca next.
Sky City lifted into the clouds.
Rowan guided it toward a remote archipelago.
There, he t with Colin Ilford, the stern leader of the people from the City of Silver.
Rowan spoke calmly.
"The Fool has issued a divine mandate."
"Once you’ve familiarized yourselves with the Northern Continent, you are to travel the world."
"Spread the faith."
"Spread knowledge of Sky City."
He handed Colin a large bundle of specially crafted keys.
Each one capable of opening pathways.
Each one a seed of expansion.
The first banner of a new era had been raised.
And the world did not yet realize it.
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