"…What are you trying to ensure?"
Cyrus grabbed an orb off his desk and tapped it against his chin.
"Wouldn't you like to know~?"
"…Yes."
"Too bad. That's a secret."
Malik didn't press further.
Didn't show any anger.
He only accepted it.
"..."
"..."
There was a pause, though not for long.
Cyrus squinted at him curiously and asked:
"Before we continue... Do you know what year it is?"
Malik blinked, and for the first ti since they t, he looked…
"Ohhhhhh."
...unsure.
"Great."
Cyrus's smile widened.
"That's perfect."
He leaned forward, resting his chin on steepled fingers.
"Your guardian forgot to teach you this now, did he?"
Malik shook his head slowly and answered:
"…Seventy? Seventy-one?"
Cyrus chuckled.
"Correct! It's year seventy-one ADS."
"..."
Malik turned toward the window, watching snow fall in dreamlike spirals.
Seventy-one years since when?
What was the event that they counted the years after?
ADS? Should he know what that was? Was it common knowledge?
He didn't ask, only wondered, knowing that this bastard would never answer.
"Ahhhh~..."
Cyrus leaned back with a humored look.
"You really want to know, don't you?"
"..."
Malik didn't give him the satisfaction of a reply.
Cyrus touched one of the rings on his finger, and a Scroll was spat out.
"Let help you out."
***
{Outside The Projection}
FLASH.
Suddenly, everything froze.
Malik, Cyrus, the room, and the orb were all stuck mid-fra like a bug in amber.
The projection darkened a shade, a pulse rippling through the air.
It was a heartbeat too big for this world.
And then, slowly, a glowing ssage carved itself into the sky above them:
{Sensitive content is being played. For your own sanity, this Ten Commandnt will pause until all is safe.}
"—HUH?!"
The crowd exploded.
"You WHAT?"
"No, no, no—play it back, play it back!"
"They were just getting to the part where he explains!!"
"You can't just pause like that! What kind of sick, fucking—AAAAH!"
"What's so damn sensitive?! Goddammit! Play the scene!"
"Oh, now it cares about our sanity?"
A rchant slapped his hands on his head, eyes wild.
"Do you know how long I've waited to find out what A.D.S. stands for?!"
"Seventy-one years since what?! The last dance?! The last swordfight?! The last sandwich?!"
Soone else scread:
"WHAT YEAR IS ITTTT?!"
Even the elders, who ford a little group, usually stoic, were muttering in annoyance.
One of them even threw a sandal at the projection, probably the sa one who threw it at Noor not so long ago.
Whoosh!
It went through the floating image, dealing no harm, and now the old man stood barefoot with nothing to show for it... But he should've known that'd happen, right? Well, much like the old troll, he didn't seem to mind. He only wanted to let out his frustration.
Huda tried to be the sa, uncaring, but she couldn't stop herself from lashing out:
"Uncle never told this! Never ntioned any of this! What does A.D.S. an?! I trained every day—and he didn't think to even ntion the date system?! And he kept antagonizing him! It's so obvious he wanted Big Brother to attack him... Dammit!"
A small voice behind her tried to reason:
"...Maybe the Forr Sultan forgot?"
Huda spun around, eyes blazing.
"He never forgets."
They all quieted again... until the silver-bearded man clapped dramatically.
"Ten gold says it's 'After Depravity's Starts' or sothing like that."
The scarred woman chuckled.
"Pff, please. It's probably 'After Divine Silence.' Scholars love ominous acronyms."
"Oh, shut up."
While they went back and forth, the rest of the crowd could only scream this question:
"WHAT IS IT PROTECTING OUR SANITY FROM?"
Indeed, they could not see the obvious.
And that was the flaw of the ignorant.
***
{Inside The Projection}
Cyrus held up a finger like a schoolteacher.
"EIC. Epoch of Interplanetary Colonization. That's the current root calendar. Base ten, base six, sotis base seven, depending on which moon you're standing on."
He put the scroll down on the table and tapped it.
A floating tiline erged from thin air—lines, spirals, nodes of light—and it shimred with each word that followed.
Cyrus gestured to the start, a tiny blue-green dot.
"This, my boy, is Earth."
He practically sang the word.
"The grand old rock! The big blue ball! Where the human race kicked and scread its way into existence. Where they crawled out of the sand, looked up at the stars, and said, 'Hey, let's go ruin all of that, too!'"
He gave Malik a wide grin, eyes alight.
"Ah, Earth, Earth, Earth. Where it all began. Ho sweet ho, or so they like to say. ? Never been. Don't care to. Heard it's mostly rubble now. But oh, the nostalgia—it's sticky, you know? Can't get it off your fingers. Anyway!"
He snapped his fingers.
"That, my boy, is also where the Order began. It's sothing of a faction—but not just your average, run-of-the-mill faction with swords and banners and cute little oaths, no-no-no, it's more like… a galactic-scale problem. Imagine the worst empire, the worst rchant caravan, the worst religion, the worst in-laws—mash them together, light them on fire, and throw them into space. Boom. That's the Order."
His hands flew as he spoke.
"They're kind of our enemies—eh, or pests, or existential threats—it's hard to keep track, titles get ssy! But I guess at this point, the whole universe is our enemy, so it's nothing particularly noteworthy."
He waved a hand like shooing away a fly.
"Just another day in paradise, right?"
"..."
Cyrus's pointing finger shot toward the little dot again.
"Now, now, now, here's the fun part! They use Earth's rotation—you know, that little spin it does, once every twenty-four hours or so—to mark ti. Ti! Clocks, calendars, anniversaries—all of it is based on this tired old rock spinning around itself and around a damned Shams."
He leaned in slightly, mischief in his eyes.
"They made sure that the entire universe would use this asurent of ti... even those who were there before them. Funny, right?"
"..."
He gave a short, manic laugh.
"But of course, 'ti,' as we know it, didn't start then."
He tapped a small point near the top.
It pulsed gold.
"The Age of Myths. The first Epoch. The one after the Zeroth, where 'ti' began. That's when Earth received The Warning."
Malik frowned, and Cyrus grinned wider.
"A friend of the True Sultan warned Earth not to awaken the Myths, not to step out of their domain."
He chuckled to himself.
"And of course, what does humanity do when told not to touch the glowing red rune? They hamr it with a rock."
The gold dot dimd, and another lit up, this one a deep green.
"The Age of Koh-I-Noor. Second Epoch. I've got no idea what the Hell happened here. Blank scrolls. A few scattered colonies that attacked our planet ntion it like it were a fever dream. But everyone agrees on one thing…"
He paused.
"Sothing Holy was stolen."
Malik's fingers twitched.
The next point flared up, bright red. Violent. A wound.
"The Age of Endless Chaos. Third Epoch. You definitely would've liked this one."
Cyrus spread his arms wide.
"Ohhh, you should've seen it. Wars that lasted centuries—no, no, not centuries, millennia, Malik! Can you even imagine? Whole generations born and buried under the sa war banner, people forgetting what peace even felt like. And space monsters! Ha! Oh, don't get started on the monsters—giant things, high up on the Cursed Hierarchy. Simurghs, Zahhaks, maybe even Ahrimans! Whole planets were swallowed, stars too. Beautiful. Terrifying. Glorious."
He laughed softly to himself, then snapped back toward Malik.
"And of course, everyone had an opinion. Every faction, every empire, every two-bit warlord with a fleet of half-rusted ships. Even the Ancient Clans—oh, especially the clans. Including ours."
His voice softened, and for a rare mont, his face flickered with sothing almost like sorrow.
"Najim Al-Khulud."
The na rolled reverently off his tongue.
"The Eternal Stars. That's us, the children of the True Sultan. Strongest of the Magi, the only ones born with natural Aether Cores—a gift and a curse, really. Strongest, brightest, the ones who could've led the whole damn universe if we'd wanted to. And maybe that's why…"
He trailed off, eyes growing distant, a slight tremble in his fingers.
"Maybe that's why it all went so wrong."
His laugh ca sudden... short.
"Because, you see, when you shine too bright, when you burn too hot, people start getting nervous. Nine clans—nine, can you believe it? All ca crashing down on them, on us. Said they were 'worried,' ha! Worried about us Falling. Called us 'Black Eyes,' like we were so disease in their pristine little galaxy. Can you imagine? I an, sure, our blood is more prone to... Corrupt, but that's hardly reason to wipe out an entire bloodline, right? Hmm? Right?"
He gave Malik a wide-eyed, almost pleading look, then burst into a grin before the silence could stretch.
"Didn't stand much of a chance, you know. All-out assault, nine-to-one—the math wasn't exactly on our side. But our clan didn't go quietly, oh no. They ran, they scattered, and they survived. Found this place, Fam Iblis, the last quiet corner in the known universe. Rebuilt, regrouped. Sure, sure, we've had our little skirmishes since then, the odd raiding party, a siege or two or ten—but those weren't personal, you see. They weren't after us; they were after the planet. And why, you ask?"
He leaned in close.
"Oh, I think you know why, Malik. You're not a fool. After all, you survived Al-Fawra, didn't you? What a charming little apocalypse that was. So I imagine your guardian filled in a few blanks for you before he, ah… t his untily end."
Cyrus tilted his head, tapping a finger to his temple in mock thought.
"What was his na again? Ah, Mahdi! That's the one. I wonder, I wonder…"
His eyes flashed, his smile stretching wider.
"…How did he die?"
He gave a soft, theatrical sigh.
"Did his so-called son really kill him? Hm? Did he? Or is that just one of those delicious little rumors that warp and twist until nobody rembers the truth anymore? Either way…"
He clapped his hands once.
"It's such good theater, don't you think?"
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