The world cracked.
Not metaphorically.Not magically.Literally.
At the edge of the Verdan Rift—a canyon too deep for light to reach—the earth split open with no warning. The sky twisted. Trees bent away, as if trying to flee. Magic lines in the atmosphere reversed, curdled, and died.
And then...the screaming began.
Not from people.From the world itself.
Lucian stood atop a broken outpost, overlooking the rift. His coat flapped in windless air. Behind him, Lysia tightened her grip on her blade.
"What… is that?" she whispered.
Even from here, they could feel it.A wrongness.Something ancient. Hungry. Familiar in a way Lucian couldn't explain—like remembering a nightmare you never had.
The horizon was warping.
Space itself recoiled.
And from the torn fabric of reality… something stepped out.
No shape.
No shadow.
Just a concept made flesh.
Eyes that weren't eyes.
Limbs that shifted between dimensions.
Its voice wasn't sound—but it tore through language, slithering directly into the mind.
"𝘞̶𝘦̶... 𝘧𝘰̶u̴n̷d̷ y̴o̵u̵."
Lucian didn't blink.
The thing pulsed.
From its body, a dozen timelines ruptured and collapsed. Warriors appeared and died in the same second. Archmages cast barriers, only for their bodies to disintegrate mid-incantation. Paladins prayed—and their gods refused to listen.
One by one, entire platoons vanished, not from violence—But from narrative exclusion.
They simply no longer existed in the story.
Lysia was breathing hard.
"Lucian… we can't fight that."
He didn't answer.
Because deep inside, something was awakening.
Not memory.
Responsibility.
The thing stepped forward. Reality peeled away with each movement.
And then—it stopped.
Its head? face? mass?—turned toward Lucian.
And it knelt.
The distortion of time and death paused for just a breath.
And then, a voice, layered with echoes of ten thousand beings, whispered:
"Father… why did you abandon us?"
Lysia froze.
She looked from the monstrosity to Lucian—and saw something terrifying in his eyes.
Recognition.
Lucian stepped forward slowly.
The thing shuddered.
"…What are you?" he asked, voice quiet.
The thing didn't hesitate.
"𝘠̴o̷u̶ 𝘤̷r̵e̸a̴t̸e̵d̴ 𝘶̷s̴ 𝘰̸n̷ ̷𝘵̵h̶e̵ 𝘍̶𝘪̷𝘳̴𝘴̵𝘵 𝘋̵𝘢̷y̷. 𝘉̴𝘦̶f̶o̸r̴e̸ 𝘛̶𝘪̸m̸𝘦̸. Before Names.""𝘞̶𝘦̷ 𝘸̵e̷r̸e̸ 𝘺̵𝘰̶𝘶𝘳̵ 𝘦̷x̷𝘱̵𝘦̴𝘳̴𝘪̸𝘮̵𝘦̶𝘯̴𝘵̶. 𝘠̷𝘰̷𝘶̷𝘳̷ 𝘢̵𝘵̵𝘰̶𝘯̴𝘦̵𝘮̶𝘦̵𝘯̴𝘵̵.""𝘠̵𝘰̶𝘶̶ 𝘭̷𝘦̴f̶𝘵̷ 𝘶̴𝘴̴. 𝘕̶𝘢̷𝘮̴e̴𝘭̶𝘦̶𝘴̶𝘴̶. 𝘏̴𝘶̷𝘯̴g̷r̶y̶. 𝘈̷𝘭̷𝘰̶n̸𝘦̷."
Lucian's fists clenched.
He remembered now.
In pieces.
Fragments.
Before he was sealed, before he was betrayed, he had tried to create a being that could clean the errors of gods—something beyond morality, beyond law. A concept that could erase what was broken.
And it worked.
Too well.
The spawn raised what could've been an arm.
And in the air, a word formed.
"RETURN."
The world itself tensed.
Because that wasn't a word.
It was a command.
One that could pull Lucian back into his old throne.
One that could make him God again.
Lysia stepped forward. "Lucian, don't."
He turned slowly.
Her eyes were wide. Her voice cracked.
"I don't know what you were… but if you go back to that, you might not come back."
Lucian looked at the creature.
At what he had made.
At what it had become.
Then he said:
"No."
The creature shuddered.
The air warped.
The ground screamed.
"𝘞̷𝘦̴… 𝘥̷𝘰̸n̷'̶𝘵̸ 𝘶̵n̴𝘥̶𝘦̴𝘳̷𝘴̵𝘵̷𝘢̷n̸𝘥̵. 𝘞̶𝘦̶ 𝘢̷𝘳̸𝘦̵ 𝘺̷𝘰̷𝘶̶𝘳̶ 𝘤̷𝘩̵𝘪̶l̸𝘥̸."
Lucian nodded.
"And like any child born from a mistake… you must be put to rest."
He raised his hand.
A sigil of Conceptual Binding formed mid-air.
Time froze.
The spawn screamed—not in pain, but in confusion. It didn't understand rejection.
It had waited eternity for him.
And now, it was no longer needed.
Lucian's voice was heavy.
Not cruel.
Not angry.
Just… final.
"Sleep. Not because I hate you. But because I do not want the world to fear you more than it already fears me."
The sigil activated.
The spawn unraveled.
Not into death.
But into a sealed dream—a floating sphere of null, spinning slowly in Lucian's palm.
He turned to Lysia.
"I'll carry it," he said. "Until I'm ready to forgive myself."
The skies cleared.
The canyon repaired.
And the world exhaled.
[System Update]
Primordial Spawn Encountered: [Nameless Origin]Status: SealedTrait Gained: [Creator's Guilt] – Increases Lucian's resistance to emotional manipulation; reveals hidden memories during moral dilemmasAuthority Increased: 17%Attention Drawn: [One Who Waits in the Mirror]Emotional Impact: HighSoul Bond Shift: Lysia [+8]
Far beyond the sky, in a realm of glass and shadow, a woman watched the scene unfold.
She had silver eyes and lips that never smiled.
And in her hand, she held a shard of the same dream.
She whispered:
"Lucian… you sealed our child again."
Then she turned—
And walked into the Mirror.