Elias stirred awake beneath the glow of a twilight sky, the heat of the red sand beneath him now cooled to a soft warmth. One of the twin suns had dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows over the surreal landscape. The other hung low, bathing everything in gold. A hush had fallen over Aetherion, but the quiet wasn't empty—it was dense with meaning. It felt like the pause before the first word of a story.
He sat up slowly, brushing sand from his arms, and took in the world again with new eyes. The colossal tree in the distance shimmered as though wrapped in silver mist. Wisps of glowing pollen drifted from its branches like floating runes. The air buzzed faintly—not with insects, but with the tension of things waiting to become.
He pressed his fingers to the mark on his palm. The sigil still pulsed faintly, a gentle rhythm that matched his heartbeat but carried something older within it. It was a reminder—he wasn't dreaming. He was no longer in the library, nor on Earth. He was in the space between all mythologies, at their root. Aetherion.
Then, the ground vibrated.
He rose to his feet, instinct telling him not to run, but to watch. The red sands shifted and parted. Shapes began to rise from the ground—not like corpses or soldiers, but like ideas given weight. They came slowly, drawn up by some unseen hand, sculpted from starlight, dust, and soundless thunder.
The first was a woman cloaked in endless dark. Her form moved like liquid shadow, and her eyes shimmered with distant galaxies.
"I am Nyx," she said, voice as quiet and heavy as a moonless night. "The first veil. The stillness before becoming."
Before Elias could speak, a second form rose beside her—a towering being wrapped in pale fire, his skin glowing like the first breath of dawn.
"I am Aether," he boomed. "The upper sky. The breath of the divine."
More followed. A woman whose steps left behind blooms and moss: Gaia, Earth incarnate. A towering form that reeked of depthless cold and gravity: Tartarus, the Pit. And then Erebus, darkness without cruelty, without judgment—just pure, quiet shadow.
Elias felt impossibly small in their presence, yet strangely at peace. There was no malice in these beings—just power, still wild and unshaped.
They studied him. Nyx was the first to step closer, the shadow of her robes touching the sand near his feet without disturbing it.
"You are not one of us," she said. "You came from a world already written."
"I... I'm not sure how I got here," Elias said. "I touched a book. A symbol. And then I fell."
"The Codex of First Breath," Erebus murmured. "It has not been opened in a thousand beginnings."
"You are an anomaly," said Aether. "You are a ripple before the tide. A spark that fell backward into the fire."
Gaia knelt before him—not in reverence, but as a mother inspecting a curious child. "You are made of words, but not our kind. Stories cling to your soul."
The sigil on Elias's palm flashed.
Tartarus growled low. "He bears the Mark of Logos."
Nyx nodded slowly. "A Weaver, then."
Elias blinked. "What does that mean?"
"It means you are potential," Gaia said gently. "You are neither born of this realm, nor bound to it. You are something new—someone who can weave the fates before the threads are spun. A Weaver of Echoes."
The title struck Elias like thunder, yet settled over him like a second skin. His thoughts raced. A student of mythology, now standing face to face with the beings who inspired it—and they were giving him a role? A name?
"I'm just... a scholar," he said. "A man who studied your stories."
"You are more than that now," Aether said. "You stand at the birth of Olympus, at the crossroads of myth and creation. You carry knowledge of the future—and that gives you power."
Elias didn't feel powerful. He felt cracked open. Raw. A vessel filled too quickly. But beneath that overwhelm, he felt something else stirring: recognition.
He looked up at the shimmering sky, then at the gods around him. They weren't gods yet. They were still becoming. Their destinies were not yet carved in stone. And he was here—before any of it happened.
"I've read your myths," he said slowly. "I know what you'll become. I know how your children will rise, how Cronus will devour them, how Zeus will strike him down and ascend."
Nyx's eyes glinted. "Then your voice matters more than you understand."
"But how do I fit into this? I'm not a god."
"You are now," Erebus said. "You are a primordial, though born of another world. That mark binds you to Aetherion. Your presence here means your story will shape others."
Elias swallowed. "So what am I the god of?"
The wind picked up, and the great tree in the distance rustled with laughter—not cruel, but amused. As if the world itself found the question funny.
"You are not yet fixed," Gaia said. "You are the god of what could be. The weaver of stories that have not yet been spoken. Your domain is still forming."
Elias felt it then—deep within. A thread tugging at his core, stretching out in every direction. It wasn't destiny. It wasn't fate.
It was possibility.
"I need to learn," Elias said. "If I'm going to be part of this world—if I'm going to help build it—I need to understand how it works."
Nyx stepped forward, placing her cool hand on his forehead. "Then go to the root of all stories. Seek Logos. The Word that begins creation."
"Follow the breath that shapes meaning," Aether added. "There you will find your first gift."
As the primordial gods turned to fade back into the shifting landscape, Gaia gave him a final glance.
"Speak wisely, Weaver," she said. "The world listens now."
And then they were gone.
Elias stood alone once more—but no longer just a visitor. He was a thread in the tapestry of myth, already woven in.
He turned toward the Tree of Origin.
It was time to find the language that birthed the world.