Fractured Alliances
The night carried the stench of smoke and betrayal. Inside the walls of the Custodian Stronghold, orders shouted, weapons clashed, and somewhere in the chaos, loyalty died quietly.
It began with Captain Serath—once the iron spine of the Balance Faction—leading a small unit to secure the western Gates. Or so everyone thought. Instead, they turned their blades inward, cutting through their own ranks before throwing the gates wide open to a group of shadowed Betrayal fighters waiting outside.
The stronghold erupted into confusion. Who fought for whom no longer mattered. The Custodian System, built on centuries of fragile unity, cracked under the weight of its own distrust.
From the eastern corridors, the father watched soldiers who once stood as brothers turn on each other. For the first time since this war began, he wondered if there was anything left worth protecting.
Wind’s True Intentions
Through the chaos, she appeared again—Wind. Her cloak rippled in the firelight as she cut down a Betrayal fighter lunging toward the father.
But this time, her eyes held no pretense of secrecy.
“You deserve to know the truth,” she said, voice carrying even above the clash of steel. “I didn’t save you to protect the Custodians. I saved you because the world as it is must end.”
The father stared at her, stunned. “End? You mean the Gates… the Singularity—”
“I mean everything,” Wind cut in. “The Gates collapsing, the wars, the Custodians tearing each other apart… none of it matters if we open the Primordial Window. It will reset all realities. It’s the only way to break the cycle before the Singularity devours everything.”
Her words fell like stones into the father’s chest. He remembered the whispers from the Primordial Memory—the seed of beginnings, the map of endings. Was this what they had meant all along?
Shattered Trust
The father wanted to argue, to demand answers, but Serath’s betrayal had already spread like fire through dry grass. The Custodian banners burned along the walls. Balance soldiers clashed with Betrayal traitors while others simply fled, realizing the war had outgrown their loyalties.
“Why tell me this now?” the father asked, voice sharp with disbelief.
Wind’s gaze cut through the smoke. “Because you’re not a bystander in this. You’re the key. The Primordial Window will only answer to you. That’s why every faction hunts you. That’s why I kept you alive.”
Her words felt like chains tightening around his chest. He had spent this entire war running, hiding, fighting simply to survive—never imagining he stood at the center of it all.
Toward the Final Revelation
As the stronghold walls cracked and the last Custodian banners fell, Wind revealed a single fragment taken from the Custodian archives—a map burned into metal, lines spiraling toward a single point in the frozen north.
“The Primordial Window lies here,” she said. “When it opens, the world will return to its first breath… or its last.”
The father stared at the map, the weight of choice pressing down like stone.
Help Wind reset reality?
Or stop her—and defend a crumbling world not worth saving?
Behind them, the Gates groaned as another collapsed, the sound like the world itself breaking apart.
