The descent began at dusk.
Kairos, Veyra, Arius, and Riven stood at the edge of the Scar of Time—a rift in reality pulsing with raw soullight. It was the only known path into the Pre-Cycle Realms. To enter was to abandon memory, identity… and the safety of cause and effect.
Kairos took a breath. "We go in together. No matter what we forget—stay close."
They stepped through.
---
The world changed instantly.
There was no sky. No ground. Only infinite gradients of light and shadow, swirling like rivers of thought. Voices whispered through the ether—half-formed names, emotions never felt, languages from lost futures.
Here, memory unraveled like thread.
Veyra gasped. "My magic—it's turning inside out."
Arius dropped to one knee, gripping his temples. "Time doesn't flow here. It folds."
Riven flickered in and out of view. "I'm being overwritten… by versions of me that never existed."
Kairos alone stood steady.
The Soulforger mark on his hand pulsed with radiant heat, anchoring him in this storm of unbeing.
"I remember who I am," he whispered. "I chose to be this."
He focused—and a path formed beneath their feet. Each step forward cost a piece of something: a forgotten name, a childhood memory, a scent of someone once loved. But still, they moved on.
And finally, they reached it.
---
At the center of the storm stood a colossal gate carved from bone and light.
The First Door.
Its surface shimmered with endless runes—each one a soul that had never been born.
As they approached, a figure appeared: a sentinel formed from dream and iron, ancient and furious.
> "Who dares seek the Source?"
Kairos stepped forward. "We seek the truth of the Crown. We seek the First Life."
The sentinel studied them.
"You carry the Flame of Renewal," it said, nodding toward the Soulforger's mark. "Then you may pass—but know this: the truth cannot be unlearned."
The gate opened.
---
Inside: The Forge of Origins.
It was not a place—it was all places at once. A massive crucible of soulsteel hung in the center, suspended in an endless fall. Around it, echoes of the First Life took shape:
A woman made of galaxies.
A beast born from silence.
A child with a crown of shadows and eyes of gold.
Kairos fell to his knees.
He remembered now.
Before reincarnation, before the cycle—there was only one soul. It fractured itself into countless lives, into fate, time, and death. It birthed the world to forget its loneliness.
And from that wound… came the Eclipsed Crown.
It was not an object. It was a decision. A choice made at the dawn of creation:
> "If I cannot forget, then I shall rule. If I cannot be whole, then I shall be infinite."
And that fragment—the part of the First Life that refused to surrender—was still alive.
Still waiting.
Still calling.
---
Then the Forge shuddered.
From its depths emerged a figure—a version of Kairos unlike any other. Tall. Calm. Crowned.
He wore no armor, but the air around him burned. He looked at Kairos with infinite sadness.
"I am what you could have become," he said. "The Crown's vessel."
Kairos raised his hand, ready to fight.
But the Crowned Kairos only said:
> "You must kill me. Or join me. There is no third path."
And behind him, the Eclipsed Crown floated in the air—glowing with silent authority, waiting for its host.
Riven whispered, "This is it."
Veyra's magic flared, unstable. "Whatever you choose, we follow."
Arius readied his blade. "Make it count."
Kairos stepped forward.
Eyes locked on the Crown.
---