"It did not begin. Because beginnings imply a story that was meant to be told."

  Celestara was eternal.

  Or so they believed.

  The gods of light, radiant and absolute, had written its fate in divine stone.The demon lords, bound in the netherworld, raged in an endless cycle of defeat and resurgence.The empires of man, elf, and beastkin forged history in war and triumph, rising and falling like celestial rhythms. And above all, the Prophets of the Great Cycle recorded every turn of fate. Every war had an ending. Every darkness was followed by light.

  It had always been this way.

  And so, when the sky split open, they did not fear. They saw the wound in the heavens—a jagged, bck tear that stretched across the skies of Solmaria. They felt its presence—a silence so deep that it swallowed sound, a shadow that did not move with the wind.

  They watched as their greatest priests and oracles gazed into it... and saw nothing.

  And yet, they did not fear.

  Because nothing like this had ever happened before. And if it was not written in prophecy, if it was not foretold by the gods, if it was not part of the Great Cycle...

  Then it could not be real.

  But then Sorion, Supreme God of Light, ceased to be. There was no great battle. No explosion of divine might. No enemy bde that struck him down.

  He simply... stopped existing.

  And the world did not notice. His temples still stood. His followers still prayed. His statues still bore his image. But no one remembered his name. No one recalled why they worshipped the empty halls of the High Sanctum. No one questioned why the Holy Emperor of Solmaria wore divine robes with no god to serve. No one felt the loss. Because to lose something, you must remember it was there. And Sorion was already gone.

  In the Grand Academy of Fate, the Archprophet Lethrian watched in confusion as the sacred texts began to rewrite themselves. He had spent his entire life recording the future. He had memorized the sequence of all things—wars that had not yet happened, kings yet to be born, the inevitable return of bance.

  But now...

  His prophecies were vanishing. Not burned. Not erased. They were rewriting themselves into silence. He flipped through the pages in panic, watching as the ink dissolved into the parchment, leaving behind only empty paper. The future was disappearing. He turned to his disciples. "Find the oldest prophecy in the archives!" The schors rushed to the forbidden vaults. They emerged moments ter, clutching an ancient tome—the First Prophecy of the Great Cycle, the foundation of Celestara's fate. Lethrian grabbed the book, breath heavy, and opened the sacred pages—And the prophecy was already gone. A single sentence remained, written in ink that bled like an open wound:

  "It was never written."

  And Lethrian screamed.

  Across the realms, the first fractures spread.

  The Elderbeasts of the Verdant Wilds stopped breathing, but did not die.

  The Immortal King of the Abyss aged ten thousand years in a single breath.

  The moons of Celestara turned bck, then turned to stone, then turned into nothing.

  And still, no one knew.

  No one remembered what they had lost.

  Not yet.

  But soon...

  Soon, they would.

  And by then, it would be far too te.

  Because the Thanatarchy had already arrived.