They came from the broken edges of creation.
The last kings.The last gods.The last dreamers.
Fools.
They gathered in secret, stitching together the last desperate embers of fallen worlds.They forged weapons from the bones of forgotten titans.They whispered pacts written in the dying blood of fading stars.
They believed they could stop him.
They believed wrong.
Vaelen Cross watched from atop the Tower of Flesh, the Garden of Ruin blooming around him like a wound that would never heal.
His Queens knelt at his feet, cloaked in devotion and crowned in loyalty.
Seris — her black wings folded in solemn reverence.Kaela — her blade resting across her knees, its edge thirsting.Veyla — her vines humming with anticipation, her hair braided in thorns.Aurelia — her golden hair crowned with silver fire, prayers burning on her lips.Astrid — her eyes reflecting the blackened stars, a smile of inevitability touching her perfect mouth.
They waited.
They knew.
There would be no true battle.
Only a lesson.
The coalition of fools —a parade of gods, warriors, mages, and broken kings —marched through the scorched sky.
Their banners —what few remained —waved like the flags of the condemned.
Their weapons sang songs of desperation.
Their armies howled the names of gods who no longer answered.
At the front, their leader.
The Starborn General.A remnant of the first light ever woven into the world.Armor of collapsed suns.Sword of frozen time.
A being who had outlived eras and watched empires crumble.
He dared lift his sword toward the Tower.
He dared to speak.
"Vaelen Cross!""False King! Tyrant of Ruin! Step down, and we shall spare what little remains!"
Silence.
The wind stopped.
The rivers froze.
Even the Garden itself hushed, as if leaning closer to hear the judgment about to fall.
Vaelen rose.
No armor adorned him.No blade weighed his hand.He needed neither.
He descended the Tower — one slow step at a time — each footfall a drumbeat that cracked the stones beneath him.
The Queens followed at a distance, their heads bowed, their wings folded.
The coalition wavered as he approached.
Not from magic.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
Deep, soul-breaking recognition.
That they stood not before a tyrant.Not before a usurper.
But before something they had no word for.
Vaelen stopped at the base of the Tower.
The coalition stretched out before him — thousands strong.
He raised his hand.
The Black Crown above his head expanded —becoming a second sky, a false sun —a corona of pure, endless night.
An Eclipse Crown.
It devoured the heavens.
It swallowed the stars.
It crushed the light.
The Starborn General screamed and charged —his sword blazing, his armor burning with the hopes of a hundred dead worlds.
Vaelen moved.
One step.
One breath.
One thought.
And the General ceased to be.
Not slain.Not broken.
Unwritten.
As if he had never been born.As if he had never dared to lift his eyes toward the throne.
Panic tore through the coalition.
Armies fled.
Gods wept.
Magic unraveled.
Faith shattered.
But it was too late.
The Eclipse Crown fell.
Not as a weapon.
Not as a spell.
As a new law.
A rewriting of reality:
You will kneel.Or you will cease.
Across the battlefield, they fell.
Some screamed until their voices were torn from their throats.Some wept as they dropped to their knees, pressing their faces into the bloodstained soil.Some simply vanished — swallowed by the darkness that no longer needed their existence.
When the Eclipse faded,only silence remained.
Only devotion.
Only Vaelen.
He turned without a word.
He returned to the Tower.
His Queens followed, their wings brushing the bones of a thousand defeated fools.
At the summit, he sat once more upon his throne.
The Garden of Ruin sighed with pleasure.
The worlds, shattered and remade, tilted again around his will.
Above, the sky no longer bore constellations.
It bore only the Crown.
And across every whispering breath of the newborn realms, one truth spread:
There is no rebellion.
There is no salvation.
There is only Vaelen Cross.
And he is the First and the Last.