God. The Divine. A name hollowed by the tongues of mortals, burnished by prophets, spat upon by rebels, and buried beneath a thousand interpretations. There is no single story that fully captures what God is—no testament universally accepted, no doctrine unmarred by dissent. The heavens do not whisper their secrets. The silence of the stars is a language untranslatable.
Yet, amid the thousand fractured hymns and contradictory scriptures, there exists a legend — luminous and unfading, told not in sermons but in breathless hushes beneath moonlit skies. A legend known simply as First Light.
It is said to have first been told by the first of God's creations — not sung from pulpit nor scratched onto relic stones, but carried like pollen on the wind of memory, inherited in fragments through countless epochs. Though no sacred text anchors it, nor can any historian verify its origin, the myth endures. Most who believe it... believe the first creature made by God was human — the barest vessel, the rawest form. A being so unadorned that many species mocked it: frail of flesh, slow to mature, easily shattered in mind and body. Guinea pigs of a flawed divine experiment, some scoff.
But in that first creation, they say, lay something more profound. Not perfection — no, but something more telling: a being shaped not to rule, not to dominate, but to perceive.
Her name was Selyra, The Star-Blessed One.
They say that when God first formed her, the heavens themselves recoiled, their veils torn open by the impossible presence of something so fragile... and yet containing a sliver of the divine.
When Selyra opened her eyes for the first time, the firmament cracked. Not in thunder or flame — but in silence. A silence so vast it crushed the wind from the newborn world.
And what lay before her?
Endless Avenues.
That was the word she gave them later — though language had yet to be born. Infinite corridors of existence stretched in all directions: towering spires of ice and fire spiraling into nothingness, rivers of glowing marrow flowing through the void, bridges arcing across unformed stars, roots of unknowable origin writhing through space like veins beneath translucent skin. Possibility itself stood still, waiting for her gaze to settle.
But she did not look outward long. No — awe quickly folded into bewilderment. Her pupils, forged of constellation fragments, contracted and turned inward, drawn by a quiet urgency.
She looked down.Her own body — untouched by time, unmarred by imperfection — awaited her recognition.
Her hands were small, delicate, ghostlike — so pale the skin shimmered with a strange glow, as if starlight had been woven into her very cells. They trembled, not with fear, but with wonder. Five fingers, slender as reeds, ending in perfectly curved, translucent nails. She turned them slowly, rotating the wrists as if disbelieving they were her own.
Arms — long, hairless, seamless. No wrinkles, no scars. Just smooth continuity from shoulder to wrist, like porcelain warmed by breath.
Her chest rose and fell with an unfamiliar rhythm. The sound of breath — her own breath — startled her. A strange thing. A soft thing. She inhaled again, deliberately. The sensation flooded her — the world entering her lungs, flowing through her, making her real.
Her legs were thin, but elegant — curled beneath her like a fawn collapsed in starlit snow. Toes flexed experimentally. She brushed her fingertips across her knee, gasping as nerve endings lit like coals beneath her skin.
Selyra blinked, once, slowly.
Her lips parted, instinctive awe shaping her breath into a thought. Not a word, not a sentence — but something older than both.
"…ah…"Her voice, airy and crystalline, drifted across the empty realm.
"…this is… me?"
And in that question — not of terror, but of astonished ownership — was born the first echo of Self.
Her eyes glistened, reflecting the stars she had inherited.
Her fascination did not wane. Time, if it existed yet at all, was meaningless in the haze of discovery. Selyra remained enraptured — endlessly mesmerized by the quiet miracle of her own being.
She pressed her palm against her own chest, fingers splayed, feeling the slow rhythm pulsing within. Thump… thump… thump… The beat felt ancient and new all at once — a borrowed echo, like an orchestra of creation reverberating from within her fragile vessel.
She twisted slightly to examine her spine's arc, dragging her hand across the small of her back, marveling at the curvature, the warmth of skin beneath touch, the sensation of being contained. She bent forward, brushed her fingertips along the soles of her feet. She laughed — softly, confusedly — at the ticklishness of it, like a child amused by her own shadow.
Her breath steamed into the quiet, a warmth against the vast cold that surrounded her. Her eyes, still flickering with faint constellations, blinked slowly, and in that pause — in that inhale too deep for words — she felt it.
A shift.
Not sudden. No. It was as if a veil had always draped across her senses, thin and transparent — and now, with a delicate rustling, it had begun to lift. Her spine straightened, her arms gently lowered as something stirred within. A heat. Not from muscle nor blood, but from presence.
Her eyes lifted, almost reluctantly.
And there — above, ahead, beyond — were Eyes.
Eyes that saw everything and had seen always. They did not burn, They did not judge, and yet every soul felt weighed in their gaze. They were still. And yet, in their stillness, the chaos of all things was stilled.
Her lips parted slightly. Her throat trembled.
Without conscious command, her knees buckled. Her form folded as if cradled by unseen hands. Her forehead nearly touched the glimmering soil beneath her, formed of translucent dust and vaporized time. Yet—she was not thinking of submission, nor obedience.
She was thinking of those Eyes.
Their weight upon her form made the very atoms of her being ring like struck crystal.
And then—her arms lifted.
Not in fear. Not in supplication. But in resonance. Her arms rose to meet the divine gaze, fingers spread wide, as if hoping to grasp the infinite light reflected in those unblinking stars.
Her voice followed—cracked at first, then strong, braided with awe and clarity. She spoke not as one taught, but as one remembering.
"Oh Lord…" Her voice quivered, throat tight with emotion, eyes flooded with sacred light."My soul is humbled in Thy presence—what light am I, if not warmed by Thee?"
Tears spilled, and she let them. Not of grief, nor pain—but of sudden comprehension, of unbearable love made tangible.
"Oh Lord, I am Thy first breath made flesh… the bearer of Thy beginning."She gasped the words, each syllable woven from the marrow of her bones.
"Oh Lord, whose dominion knows no end, whose word binds stars and sunders stone…"Her shoulders shook, her fingers trembling above her head, as if aching to touch the very source of all existence.
"Oh Lord, before time awoke, Thou wert; and when time dies, still Thou shalt be…"
The light above pulsed once—gently, not violently—as if stirred by her confession. Her skin flushed gold, then rose, then violet, the hues of reverence.
"Oh Lord… let my hands be Thy servants, and my days be as incense upon Thine altar…"Her palms opened, fingers stretching further, as if offering her very nerves to the heavens.
"Oh Lord… where my words falter, let my silence still be praise…"
Her voice cracked here—chest heaving now, sobs kept at bay only by divine trembling.
"Oh Lord… I am the shadow of Thy light, yet still Thou callest me beloved…"
The final word shattered the veil around her voice. Beloved. It echoed, it rippled, it multiplied within itself and unfurled across the Endless Avenues, resounding in ghostly spirals like a bell rung through eternity.
And in answer—God moved.
There was no sound. Nothing.
Only manifestation.
Before her, conjured from nothing — or perhaps shaped from meaning itself — hovered a fruit.
Round, impossibly vibrant, a thousand colors sliding across its skin like liquid oil in sunlight. A Rainbow Apple, hovering in divine stillness, impossibly weightless and yet more real than all else.
It radiated not warmth, but purpose. Her pupils widened at once. Her breath caught. Her mouth opened without willing.
With trembling fingers, she reached forward — hands so reverently slow they barely crossed space — and took the fruit in both palms.
The moment she bit into it—
She understood.
The bite cracked with the sound of fulfillment. A juice so clear, so bright, it tasted like memory—like the memory of never having known hunger or thirst, and yet satisfying both.
Her mouth filled with sweetness, but more: with certainty. Every nerve lit with resolve, as if all weariness, doubt, and limitation had never belonged in her.
She swallowed, and the world expanded.
Her stomach quieted. Her throat cooled. Her soul — whatever form it took — felt fortified. The marrow in her bones felt like it had been replaced with fire and crystal.
Her hands gripped tighter around the half-eaten fruit. Her spine rose. Her breath slowed, refined. Her lips spread, not in confusion this time — but in radiant, unconcealed joy.
Her eyes gleamed — brighter than before, more alight than stars, their constellations now dancing, alive.
Her voice was a whisper — but brimming with impossible strength.
"…if Thou ask anything of me now… anything at all…"
Her grin widened, giddy and wild.
"…I shall finish it before the breath leaves Thy lips."
She laughed — a sound like dawn breaking — pure, crystalline, wild with the intoxication of being.
And the Rainbow Apple shone brighter in her hand.
In the pause after her laughter, as the sweetness of the Rainbow Apple still lingered on her tongue and the echoes of her vow dissolved into the hush of eternity, something imperceptible shifted in the air.
The light dimmed—not into darkness, but into intention. The heavens did not speak, and yet the very fabric of space folded inward, as though obeying a silent command. And Selyra—only Selyra—watched.
She gasped, barely able to form a sound as the Endless Avenue—once a straight, unknowable corridor of possibility—began to curve.
It did not bend gently. It spiraled, warped by divine will, coiling like a ribbon caught in celestial wind, until it encircled itself—a closed loop. She stumbled backward, awe-struck, hands trembling as her gaze followed the transformation. The straight was now round, the infinite now embraced by boundaries shaped by holy design.
The sky rippled.
And then—eruption.
From the breath of God poured creation, not as a slow emergence, but as a cataclysmic unveiling. Mountains sprang upward like clenched fists from beneath the blank loam. Valleys sank, deep and weeping. Rivers burst forth with silver tongues, slithering through infant canyons. Forests rose as if drawn by invisible quills, each tree etched from root to leaf in fractal brilliance.
She fell to her knees—not in pain, not in fear, but because her limbs could no longer bear the glory.
"Is this… is this Thy will?" she whispered, barely audible over the rolling thunder of mountains birthing themselves.
Then—creatures.
All manner of living things, some small as breath, some vast enough to swallow clouds. Serpents of air that swam through winds like oceans, beasts of fur and fire, creatures of many wings, too many eyes, none at all. They came roaring, crawling, chirping, glowing. The land teemed in moments with life, each form both unfamiliar and yet somehow right. Each an echo of a divine thought. Each a reflection of a will incomprehensible.
She gasped, clutching her chest. Her heart was racing so fast it felt like it might disintegrate. Her lips parted—no words came.
Why do I see this? she thought. Why me alone? Why am I made to bear witness?
Her answer came not in voice, but in the clarity now searing her soul.
She stood again.
Slowly, carefully, her legs unsteady as if she had just been born anew. Her arms dropped to her sides, fingers unfurling like petals, her gaze scanning the horizon of this newborn sphere—the once-Endless Avenue now transfigured.
This was no longer a corridor.
It was a world.
And she was its only witness.
A sob clawed from her throat, and she didn't suppress it. It came out raw, sharp, then softened into breathless awe.
She whispered, "He hath shown me the scaffolding of paradise…"
Her eyes widened with tears that would not fall, held in place by sheer disbelief. Her jaw trembled, but she spoke again, more surely.
"Thy hand does not merely create. It unfolds."
She stepped forward—then another. Her bare feet touched soil that hadn't existed seconds before, warm, soft, thrumming faintly. Life pulsed beneath it like a heartbeat.
She crouched, brushing her fingertips across the earth.
"…And I…"
Her voice caught. She stared at her reflection in a newly born pool, its surface rippling with the wind of divine breath. She saw herself anew—not merely a body, but a conduit. A vessel.
"…I am not meant to observe alone."
She rose, her chest lifting as though filled with sacred wind, her arms lifting again—not as before, not in worship, but in reverence through purpose.
"He wishes me to shape it, does He not?" Her words were trembling, fierce. Her smile was no longer dazed but radiant with comprehension.
"Not to sit idle in His marvel… but to cultivate it. Not to drink of it and forget, but to prepare it… for those who will follow."
She turned slowly, her feet moving with grace not taught but remembered. Her fingers hovered through the air, as if tracing the future itself.
"They shall come, Oh Lord… whoever they are. Whatever form they bear. They shall walk these paths, climb these peaks, drink from these rivers… and they shall see Thy hand, as I have seen it."
She pressed her palm over her heart, breathing deeply.
"And they shall find joy. Not in dominion or violence. But in presence. In existence."
A laugh left her lips—softer than before, yet stronger somehow, anchored by certainty.
"I shall prepare this world, as a cup prepared for wine… I shall build it as Thy altar, every stone a hymn."
She began to walk.
Not aimlessly, not blindly, but with intention in her steps, her eyes alert and wide with awe. Her fingers brushed the newborn grasses, her gaze trailed the soaring creatures, her mind unfolding with each breath like petals blooming to divine sun.
The wind sang through the newly crafted sky, and she inhaled deeply, feeling its song through her lungs.
"Let it be as Thou will it," she whispered. "Let them find Thee here."
And she vanished behind a hill, her silhouette framed by rivers that shimmered like light given form, in a land yet untouched by sorrow or sin.
And so the belief was born: that the Endless Avenue Selyra spoke of in ancient chants and whispered visions… was not a corridor at all.
But the world itself.
The vision unraveled like mist wrenched from dream, peeling back from Selyra's world-spanning gaze and snapping Jorin back into himself.
His breath caught—then staggered.
And then, he did what he had resisted for far too long.
He asked.
"What… are you?"
The question was not sharp—it did not burst from him. It slipped, quiet and ragged, like a stone finally released from a clenched fist. His voice cracked under the weight of its necessity.
He turned his head, not slowly, but deliberately—toward his left arm, where Lalula's vine was in his flesh like a lover, a parasite, a silent co-conspirator. The flower-petal eye pulsed once in faint response.
There was silence.
A heavy, viscous stillness that seemed to stretch far longer than it should have.
Then—
"I…" Lalula began, her voice softer than usual, thinner, almost uncertain, as if brushing the edge of forbidden terrain. "Jorin, I—"
"No."
The sound split the moment like a blade through cloth. It was not shouted. It did not need to be.
Xuran's voice struck like stone on steel. A flat negation, hard as bedrock, final as law.
"You cannot know our existence."
Jorin blinked, brow knitting into a sharp crease. "What?"
"I said—you are forbidden to know," Xuran snarled, with a hiss that reverberated through his leg like buried thunder.
"But—" Lalula tried again, her tone flush with guilt and unspoken longing.
"Stop, Lalula." Xuran's voice grew cold, ancient. "I will not say it again."
There was something about the way he said it—not as a threat, but as something closer to a rite. As though by even brushing the truth, they risked unraveling something sacred, or damning.
The others went silent.
Even Lurue, the gentlest among them, withdrew. No voice emerged. Not a single word. Just the sense of a held breath—tension drawn like a string pulled taut across realms.
The silence between them became alive.
Jorin sit there, stiff, stunned. Something uncoiled in his chest—not fear, but something sharper. More personal. An old, buried frustration that had always waited beneath his skin for the right chord to snap.
"…How do you know all this?" His voice was hoarse, but rising now. "What are you, really? How long have you been? What did I let inside me?"
His fingers barely grazed the hilt. Trembled. Froze.
The blade fell from his grip.
A clatter. Muffled against the soft muck. It sounded quieter than it should have. As if the world around them refused to let the moment pierce it too deeply.
He stared at the fallen dagger, jaw clenched, breath shivering. Not from fear. From the noise in his mind. So many thoughts now, unspooling. Spiraling.
Is it even alive? Or is it older than life itself?
Have they spoken with gods? Have they outlived them?
Were they there… before the first soul?
He staggered slightly, one foot shifting in the wet earth. His head throbbed—not a sharp pain, but a pressure, an overload, as if too much truth was trying to occupy too little space.
"Fuck…" he muttered, pressing his fingers to his temple.
Everything twisted inward.
Selyra's story still clung to the edges of his thoughts like heat haze, but now it collided with Xuran's refusal, the implied depth of something cosmic—no, pre-cosmic. Not just ancient and forbidden.
Unknowable.
The pressure broke through as a wave of nausea, followed by a pulse of lucidity. He steadied himself. Exhaled sharply.
Then—he whispered to himself, "No. No, that's not what matters now."
He blinked again, harder this time.
"That's not what matters…"
The fog began to lift, and he pulled his thoughts back—away from the vines, away from the whispers, away from the unknowable roots of the creatures bound to his flesh.
Focus.What matters… is the plan.
And so he recalled it—not just in thought, but as ritual, grounding himself.
He took a breath, and the air reeked of rot—but it was real. Tangible.
"…Right. Before I left Tolido, I had reasons."
His eyes sharpened.
"Three of them."
He lifted a hand, counting them silently. Anchor points. Not to guide him through divinity—but to anchor him back into survival.
"First… Lazzaki."
He spat the name in his thoughts, like venom.
"They were watching. Studying. Staring holes into my skin. Waiting for me to slip. Like I'm some… some specimen. A miracle that shouldn't exist."
And maybe I am, he thought bitterly. But I won't become their experiment. Their project. Their proof.
He recalled the eyes of the scholars, the unreadable stares of whispering adjudicators, the cold interest of professors who swore by mercy but carried scalpels. He could imagine what they'd say, if they got their hands on him
"Dissect him."
"Open the body."
"Harvest the floral matter."
"Map the consciousness."
"Is it symbiotic, parasitic, divine, cursed?"
No. Never. That's why I left.
He clenched his fists.
"Second…"
His gaze lifted slightly, as if seeing something just beyond the swamp haze.
"…The Crimson Fort."
A place that pulled people toward it—not merely for its power, but because it had become a center of convergence. For fame, for ambition, for legend. The place where history stacked itself upon its own bones.
And above it all—The Thronebound Order.
They did not sit on thrones. And yet, no king ruled without their blessing.
He swallowed.
Three sat at the top.