The skies above the Arcanis Region bled a dull crimson.
Once a land rich with spires of arcane brilliance, where towers of floating citadels glimred under mana-fueled constellations, Arcanis now lay in ruin. Mana storms howled across the broken skyline, their colorless lightning tearing through what was once the pinnacle of magical civilization. Where the prestigious Dawning of Magic Academy once stood—a crown jewel of the Human Territory—there was only a void, an obliterated scar on the land.
Amidst it all, a tall, robed figure drifted forward in silence, his body untouched by the chaotic winds.
Endless.
His form seed both real and unreal—more silhouette than substance, more darkness than flesh. His robe trailed across the shattered cobblestone as if even gravity feared to bind him. Behind him floated a pale orb: a miniature eclipse that devoured the light around it. It pulsed with each step he took, synchronized with the breathing of the dying land.
Below his floating form, the last archmage of the Dawning Council scread, his soul being siphoned upward into Endless’s palm, condensed into raw, pulsing essence.
"You wielded knowledge... but never understanding," Endless murmured, more to himself than to his prey. "And you called it wisdom."
With a flick of his fingers, the essence shattered like glass, joining the other drifting motes above him—thousands of them, each a mory erased, each a legacy undone.
Standing a few paces behind him was a man in black velvet robes, with crimson runes etched across his cheeks—Alen, the Dark Magi. His boots crushed the bloodied sigils that had once powered the Academy’s arcane wards. He smiled, satisfied.
"The last bastion of magical might... gone in a day," Alen chuckled darkly. "Even the Elder Fla couldn’t resist. It’s all yours now, my Lord."
Endless did not respond. His empty eyes stared skyward, toward the invisible web of ley lines that had once powered Arcanis. They were fractured now—veins severed, mana drained.
He raised a hand, and the last of the region’s mana core was drawn into his shadow, a billion threads of magic pulled in like breath.
"The veins are hollow," he whispered. "Their rhythm silenced."
The land moaned under his presence. Mountains in the distance cracked and caved, as if bowing to his power. Trees rotted mid-sway. Rivers boiled into vapor. What remained of the Arcanis Region was no longer fertile—it was hollowed, a carcass.
"Shall we move to Eldoria?" Alen asked. "So great Lords still stands there, and the Pacesetters Academy holds the next greatest density of mages."
Endless was silent. Then suddenly... he froze.
Sothing ancient tugged at the strands of his awareness. A thread, fragile and frayed, brushed against his eternal consciousness—a telepathic signal, faint and desperate.
A shrill, soundless voice echoed across ti and distance:
"Creator... Master... your child... your Leech... is dying..."
Endless’s hollow eyes widened a fraction. The air around him dimd.
"The Leech?" he murmured, the word almost foreign to him. "It still lives?"
The signal pulsed again—fragnted mories flooding into him from across the world. A cave drenched in white light. A group of young warriors—a boy with blue hair and a broken sword, and another with black hair whose heart pulsed with chaos. Pain. Sealing. Fire. Frost. Blades. The Sacred Armor. The Pandora.
It clicked.
"The Pandora," he whispered. "It is not lost."
Alen furrowed his brow. "My Lord?"
Endless raised a hand, silencing him.
"The Leech found the Pandora," Endless said quietly, his voice laced with sothing darker than rage—reverence.
Then, he turned—slowly—away from the shattered remains of Arcanis.
"We go not to Eldoria... but to the Deadroot Forest. The Leech’s final cry ca from there. And with it... the ones who slayed it."
He paused again, a small, curious smile curving his ageless lips.
"Kaelen... and Kelvin. Two lights burning far too brightly for mortals. Let us see how long they last when true darkness greets them."
Alen hesitated. "And the Elven Lands? They’re between here and Deadroot—"
"Let them watch," Endless interrupted coldly. "Let their stars tremble. I shall pass through their sacred groves untouched, and if they resist... I shall drain their lifetrees of mana and leave their erald paradise a dust bowl."
The skies above them rumbled.
"Gather the Heralds," Endless said at last, his form beginning to fade into a spiral of collapsing space. "We march now. The Crucible awaits. But first—"
He turned his gaze toward the west, where the distant fog of Deadroot lood like a dying breath.
"I will answer the cry of my creation. And I will retrieve what is mine."
And with that, Endless vanished in a ripple of voidlight, leaving behind only silence—and the funeral winds of the once-great Arcanis Region.
"Cough! Cough!"
But not long after, a silhouette erged from the rumble of one of the destroyed buildings that belonged to the Dawning of Magic academy. This person is none other than Aether, but right now, he looks like he is at the very brink of death.
"I... hope I did.... the right thing" Aether muttered in an odd grief before he fell weakly to the ground.
–––––
anwhile....
The last remnants of fog still clung to the shattered edges of the Deadroot Forest, curling like dying breath around charred bark and sundered stone. Though the devastation wrought by the battle with the Leech still simred in the air, Kaelen, Kelvin, and the others were no longer there—Naena had taken them further east, deeper into the safe territories of the Nullcarvers.
But the forest was far from silent.
Across the bloodstained ridges, within a ruptured clearing lit only by the pale gleam of dying moonlight, Eirana stood poised, silver blade drawn, its edge slick with vapor. Her aura was calm—cold, even—but her eyes burned with righteous fury.
Opposite her stood Aron and Selene, both Chaos practitioners, both bloodied but smirking. Runes flickered across their skin like living scars. The air around them warped, gravity bending, ti fracturing, light twisting. Their re presence contaminated the laws of nature.
Behind Eirana, six Nullcarver warriors in earthen robes and tattered armor stood shoulder to shoulder. They were manaless—unconnected to the world’s mana veins—but they pulsed with raw, potent Qi. No chants. No spells. Just breathing, stance, focus... and death.
Selene cracked her neck, shadows dancing around her in the shape of jagged serpents.
"Still hiding behind techniques and honor, Eirana?" she sneered, spitting blood. "You’ll die for that sentint."
Eirana didn’t answer. She slid one foot back, right hand tightening over her hilt. Her sword humd with Qi resonance, its edge becoming crystalline with internal breath.
Then she vanished.
A flash of silver—blades scread.
She reappeared mid-air, clashing with Aron, whose body had already shifted halfway into a mist of corrupted ti. He caught her blade with his hand—barehanded—but the Qi in her strike burned through his palm, causing him to roar.
"She’s stronger than before!" Aron snarled.
"We all are," said a calm voice—another Nullcarver appeared behind Selene, palm extended. A compression strike of golden Qi exploded against her back, flinging her into the shattered bark of a dead forest tree.
Chaos magic erupted in retaliation—reality buckled.
The battlefield twisted as Aron summoned dinsional fractures, thin slits of nothing that cut through stone and body alike. Two Nullcarvers dodged expertly, weaving through the chaos with preternatural control of breath and movent, each one wielding techniques honed across decades of harsh cultivation.
The clash turned brutal.
Selene flicked her fingers and summoned a snake of dark liquid ti, lashing it toward Eirana. But Eirana spun, her sword igniting with silver Qi, slicing through the magic with surgical precision.
She landed on one knee, inhaled deeply, and then...
"Third Technique," she whispered, voice like steel. "Ghost of the Vein."
She leapt once more—and the moonlight right above them seed to freeze.
A spiral of Qi burst from her blade as she descended like a falling star. Selene raised a chaotic barrier, runes blaring, but it shattered under the impact. The explosion of wind and Qi cracked the ground open.
Aron cursed and teleported beside her, dragging her bleeding body out of the blast radius.
But they were faltering.
One Nullcarver warrior executed the Second Technique: Hollow of the Puls, his movents becoming almost invisible. Another launched the First Technique: Root of the Earth, disrupting Aron’s footing with every feint.
Blow after blow. Cut after cut. Blood spilled in streaks.
Then—
A horn blew.
Not from the Nullcarvers. Not from Chaos.
From the forest edge.
Elves.
Dozens of them erged from the shadows, dressed in moss-green armor, their presence commanding. Silver bows. Mana-crafted blades. Their leader, a tall elf with hair like spun starlight, stepped into the fractured clearing.
"Enough," he declared in a clear, musical voice. "This battle defiles the sacred groves. Speak—what has happened here?"
The forest seed to pause.
Eirana turned, face wary. Her blade lowered—but not sheathed. She glanced at her kin, their breaths ragged, their clothes torn, but their spirits intact.
Aron’s eyes glead.
Selene smiled despite her bloodied face.
"Perfect timing," she whispered.
With the elves’ arrival, confusion crackled across the clearing. Magic and Qi clashed subtly in the air, like static on water.
Eirana took a step forward.
"These two are enemies of the Nullcarvers. Chaos wielders. They cannot—"
But before she could finish, Aron hurled a glyph into the ground.
A Chaos Gate blood instantly—a swirling vortex of screaming shadows. Selene dragged herself to her feet and grinned mockingly at Eirana.
"Next ti, bring more than honor," she hissed.
Then they vanished.
The elves stepped forward, too late to stop the gate’s collapse. The clearing fell into silence again.
Eirana sheathed her sword, eyes narrowed.
"They escaped," she said bitterly, though her tone remained steady.
The elven commander eyed her, then looked around at the scorched forest, the unnatural rifts in the ground, the lingering scent of Chaos and Qi.
"You owe us answers, Nullcarver," she said. "This land borders the Elven Domain. We will not allow such contamination to spread."
Eirana stared at her coolly.
"And we won’t let Chaos rot our roots while you watch."
There was a pause. Since both ways didn’t seem to want to back down.
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