"Time is not a prison. I have returned. I always return." — El'Shaar, last whisper before the Eternal Veil was sealed.
The sky was cracked.
Golden rifts tore through the firmament like pulsating scars between past and present. The earth trembled with echoes of battles that had never truly occurred — some lost, others won before they even began. It was the height of the Age of Spiraled Blood, and at the center of it all, wrapped in undulating temporal veils, stood El'Shaar, the Devastator of Cycles.
A man with eyes far too ancient to belong to this world, cloaked in robes that shifted color as fragments of time passed through him. His body was neither young nor old. It was... all of them at once.
Before him, the Five Prime Clans — a unity never repeated — trembled, their leaders wielding weapons forged from the energy of extinct eras. Each step El'Shaar took shattered natural laws. There, future and past clashed, and the present was swallowed like sand through desperate fingers.
El'Shaar had already won that war. And lost it. And won it again. He rewrote the outcomes in silence, always seeking a better cycle. But the more he tried, the more the world screamed.
It was Suhara of the Ethereal Bloom, a legendary spiritual cultivator, who took the step no one dared: she fused her awakened soul with the Celestial Core of Oro'Thar, the unbeatable physical warrior. Two paths — spiritual and external — united to seal the impossible.
Together, they created the Eternal Veil, a temporal seal where time obeys no master. And there, with blood, soul, and memory, they imprisoned El'Shaar in a space between cycles, where neither past nor future could reach him.
But before the final act… there were words.
The sky rained temporal fragments. Reality cracked like hot glass.
Suhara, covered in spiritual marks glowing silver-blue, approached Oro'Thar, who bled from his eyes — the excess of condensed cores in his body threatening to tear him apart.
Suhara (whispering, desperate):
— If we hesitate now, this world will cease to exist… He's already devoured eras. Families that never existed are crying in the void…
(she closes her eyes, holding back tears)
— I saw my mother bury me yesterday... and I haven't even been born yet.
Oro'Thar (gasping, with restrained rage):
— That bastard doesn't fight. He manipulates like a coward god.
(swallows hard, staring at El'Shaar in the distance)
— He stole my lineage, my clan… my time.
(voice falters)
— I'm dying in versions of myself I never lived, Suhara.
The earth cracked. Space rippled. The sound of colliding pasts filled the air. El'Shaar appeared — floating, surrounded by echoes and distorted murmurs.
El'Shaar (laughing, in a slow, almost childlike tone):
— You still think this is real? You've killed this day a thousand times... in cycles you've already forgotten.
(his expression flickers between sweetness and madness)
— Oro'Thar, your son was never born because I decided he shouldn't be. Suhara... your spirit begged me in Cycle 87 to erase your pain. And I obeyed. I am the perfect present, shaped by your failures.
Suhara (shouting, almost pleading):
— You're not a cultivator, El'Shaar. You're a hole in destiny.
El'Shaar (suddenly dark, whispering with a doubled voice):
— I am destiny… after regret.
Oro'Thar (staggering forward):
— We seal him... now.
Suhara raised her arms. The lotus on her chest split open, releasing an ancient light. Oro'Thar channeled his cores to the limit. Both merged into a spiral of violet and golden energy. The Eternal Veil opened like a rift outside reality.
El'Shaar (screaming, in a laughing sob):
— I will see you again… in the cycles where you still believe in hope.
The seal closed with a flash. And then the world fell silent.
After the sealing, the temporal ruins were buried in time. The names of the Prime Clans were erased from the Scriptures, as a sign of respect and mourning. Only their symbols remain, carved into the Obelisk of the Last Cycle.
Temporal Cultivation — now called Demon Cultivation — was forbidden across all lands. Its texts destroyed. Its followers hunted. For over one hundred thousand years, no one has dared to speak the name El'Shaar aloud.
But time… time always leaves echoes.