Around him, the village stirred uneasily. The skies had cleared, the unnatural pressure had lifted, but an oppressive weight still lingered—an absence where presence had once been. Like the air itself remembered what had touched it.
The silence that followed was not peace. It was aftermath.
Kael paced nearby, muttering under his breath as faint sparks danced between his fingertips. "We were unprepared for that. I don't even know what we were looking at."
Selene looked shaken, but her voice remained composed. "It wasn't a creature of magic, nor of flesh. It was thought given form. Concept given hunger."
Valerian's voice was low, cold. "The system called it a fragment of the First Cycle."
Kael frowned deeply. "What's that even mean? The beginning of time? The first world?"
"No," Selene said quietly. "Worse. It implies there have been multiple cycles. Multiple endings. And whatever we just saw was something left behind after one of them failed."
