The sky, once blue and serene, had long been swallowed by dark clouds, like frozen whirlwinds. From beneath the earth rose beings that even the oldest of scribes could not name. Three kingdoms had fallen in a single year. Magic, once a blessing, had become unstable, a double-edged sword that killed its users.
In an isolated corner of the world, in the Shadow Mountains, a secret order of mages had gathered in the ruins of an ancient temple. It was their last hope: a ritual forgotten by the gods, known only through stolen whispers from forbidden books.
The supreme mage, Yrden, old and nearly blind, stood in the center of a circle drawn with the blood of seven magical creatures. Each line pulsed faintly, emanating a violet light that seemed to burn the air. Around him, twelve mages, arranged in triangles, chanted in dead languages.
"Begin!" Yrden shouted. Fate will not forgive our hesitation!
A sharp wind whipped through the temple, though not a cloud moved in the sky. As the verses rose, the runes on the floor began to light up, like stars fallen in perfect order. The entire structure trembled, and the ancient stones cracked under the pressure of the energy.
A column of black light burst from the center of the circle. Space was torn. This was no teleportation, no ordinary summoning—it was a rupture in reality itself.
A figure emerged from the cosmic void.
A man. Or perhaps a shadow taking human form. Tall, with a black cloak that seemed untouched by the wind. Eyes—two bottomless abysses. Around him, the ground was receding, and entire runes were erased just from the approach of his footsteps.
One of the mages vomited blood and fell unconscious. Another screamed and ran towards the temple's exit, but he touched an invisible barrier and was burned alive in less than a second.
Yrden trembled, but he maintained his position.
"Are you the one summoned? The one beyond time?"
The being did not answer immediately. Its gaze wandered around the temple, as if it saw not people, but memories of the world. Then it spoke.
"You have broken an eons-old seal. You have summoned an entity that does not belong to this plane. Do you know what you have risked?"
"We know. And we assume. We need you."
"Me?"
The voice was cold. Uncannily calm. One of the young mages began to cry. Another lost his mind and began to laugh hysterically.
"You summon me as a weapon. But what if the weapon refuses to be wielded?"
Yrden took a step forward, and for the first time, the creature seemed to pay him real attention.
"We do not want to wield you. We only want you to choose. Either you help us and become a new star for our world... or you abandon us to the darkness that destroys us."
The being fell silent.
Then, suddenly, the entire energy of the circle was absorbed into its silhouette. The temple was plunged into a void of absolute silence. Then a silent explosion scattered all runes, sigils, and magic.
And the voice was heard again.
"On one condition."
Yrden swallowed hard.
"Say."
"No being in this world is to ever command me."
— We swear.
Then the being stepped outside the circle. A simple step, but one that made the earth crack and the temple walls shake. When he reached the gates, he stopped. He did not turn around.
— I start today. But not for you. But because this world... arouses my interest.
Then he disappeared. Not by magic. Not by teleportation. But simply... he was no longer there.
Yrden fell to his knees. His eyes were crying, but his lips whispered:
— He has come. Now... everything will change.
---
The cold night wind penetrated the ruins of the temple through the cracks in the walls. The few mages left alive looked at each other, weak, dirty, and marked by the incomprehensible power they had just felt. The silence had become unbearable.
Yrden placed his trembling palm on the cold floor, feeling the vibrations of the earth.
"He is not just a summoned being… He is the beginning of a new eon."
"Should we follow him?" a young mage asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"No. Not if we want to live."
At the edge of a forgotten forest, the summoned creature walked leisurely. He walked as if gravity were optional, and the world itself moved aside before him. Every tree he passed shook its leaves, the animals in the area fled or stood still.
He reached a moonlit clearing. He stopped.
"The breath of this world… is old, but not sick," he said softly.
From the shadows of the trees, a figure approached—a woman in light armor, a spear decorated with runestones. Blue eyes, hair like honey. She was breathing controlledly, but her hand was on the hilt of her weapon.
— You… are not of this world.
— Fair observation.
— Are you dangerous?
— To whom?
Silence.
— I am Kaelya, knight-hunter of the Royal Order. I am responsible for the safety of this sacred forest.
— And are you going to try to stop me?
She pointed her spear.
— No, but I want to know what you are doing here.
— I am looking for… something I do not know. Something that only another world can offer me: unpredictability.
Her eyes narrowed.
— I am... one of the Heroes?
— They are something much older than that.
At the same time, deep within a stone castle, a man in royal robes entered a hall illuminated by floating crystals. Around an oval table, seven figures awaited him.
— It has begun, said the king. The summoning was successful.
— Was it him? a low, metallic voice asked.
— Yes. The "Infinite Shadow" has been released.
One of the seven, an old man with ashen hair and a mask on his face, stood up.
— He will destroy our world... or rebuild it. Each option is a sword.
— Then what do we do? asked a woman in a purple cloak.
The king looked at the table. His fists clenched. His eyes burned with concern.
— We pray... he chooses correctly.
In the clearing, Kaelya had lowered her spear. The summoned man stood still, looking at the sky.
— Do you have a name?
— No.
— We all have one.
— Yours is given. Mine… I've long forgotten it.
— Then give yourself a new one. A new world… a new beginning.
He turned his head slightly toward her. For a moment, the shadows around him seemed to hesitate, as if her words carried weight.
— Maybe… I'll do it.
After the summoned being left, the ruined temple seemed almost silent. And yet, beneath the rubble, another presence awoke.
A boy no older than sixteen, dressed in apprentice robes, staggered out from between the stones. Blood was dripping from his temple, but his eyes burned with fascination.
— Was it… real?
He looked at the almost-erased magic circle. At the footprints burning lightly on the charred stone. At the runic lines still quivering in the air.
At that moment, a voice crept into her mind.
You... did you see?
The boy turned suddenly. No one was behind him.
— Who's there?
You were a witness, and that makes you more important than you think.
His heart stopped for a moment.
— What... what does this mean?
But the voice did not return.
In the forest, the Shadow's footsteps had stopped again. He had felt something. A resonance. An invisible thread vibrating behind him.
— Someone... survived the ritual and sensed me.
Kaelya noticed his silence and drew a conclusion.
— What happened?
— Something will happen. Not now. But the thread of destiny has just been stretched.
— Can you cut it?
— I can. But maybe I don't want to.
In the Kingdom of Argentos, that same night, an ancient library burned. Ancient pages, sacred scrolls, tomes of forbidden magic – all thrown into the fire. A man in a white cloak looked at the flames with a strange sadness.
— None of these books can explain him anymore. He is beyond the boundaries of thought.
Behind him, a woman with glasses and a short sword said coldly:
— We should have let them perish. The ritual should have remained buried.
— Maybe... but now that he has returned, the world will be rewritten. Our history is just beginning.
Meanwhile, in the depths of a deserted mountain, a being with skin like obsidian, chained by chains of ethereal gold, opened its eyes.
— I felt... his presence.
A deep, muffled roar filled the mountain cavity.
— That chaos was released again.
And the chains began, slowly, to crack.
The shadow stopped on the edge of a cliff, looking down at the valley illuminated by two twin moons.
— Every action of yours brings me closer to a decision.
Kaelya, behind him, seemed to hesitate.
— Decision?
— Whether this world deserves to exist or not.
She clenched her fists.
— And you are the judge?
— I am the one summoned. Not by gods, not by men... but by the karma of a desperate world.
The ritual had been only the beginning. The silence that followed was not calm. It was the deep breath before a storm.
The wind was picking up. From the east, heavy clouds rolled over the mountains, as if the world itself was wary of what was walking through the sacred forests. Kaelya and the Summoned Shadow walked silently, each lost in their own thoughts. She was alert, he... incomprehensible.
"What will you do first?" she asked, after a while.
"To observe. To test. To understand this world, not by what you say... but by what you hide."
She shook her head, intrigued.
"Do you trust people?"
"No."
"But you don't seem to hate them either."
"I don't have to. A river doesn't hate the stones in its bed. It avoids them. It carries them. Or grinds them."
They came to a small inn on the edge of a village called Norweld. The people there lived simply—with the plow, with wood, with ancient superstitions. The presence of the two in strange clothes attracted glances, but no one commented. Only a child approached, curious.
— Sir... what is your name?
The shadow looked at him. His eyes seemed more human for a moment. He did not answer immediately. Then, looking at the double moon in the sky, he whispered:
— Albert.
Kaelya flinched. Up until then, he had not offered a name.
— Is that what you want to be called?
— No. That is what I must be called.
The child smiled and ran away.
Kaelya, looking down, murmured:
— Albert... it seems like an earthly name. Not royal, not mystical. A name with roots. A human choice.
Albert did not answer. But a different light lit up in his eyes for a moment.
That same night, outside the village, a group of masked men were gathering in theThe caravan. Dressed in dark clothes, armed with axes and arrows, their eyes were hungry—not for food, but for control.
— That's it. The Crystal Caravan. The one heading for the capital. If we rob it, we'll be rich for three lifetimes.
— But it has a royal guard, one of them said.
— We have something else. We have someone who knows... shadows.
In the inn, Albert raised a hand. The wooden cup stopped in midair, unnoticed. A heavy presence was approaching. Not a strong one. But a dirty one. Infested with intent.
— Something careless is approaching, he said.
— What kind of danger? Kaelya asked.
— A minor one. But one that can entertain me.
She smiled for the first time.
— Are you having fun?
— Sometimes the universe needs corrections... and spectators.
As the caravan left the edge of the village, in the darkness, a single figure stood in the middle of the road. No armor. No weapons. Just a black cloak and a presence that rippled the air.
As the thieves approached, laughing, Albert raised a finger.
"You have made a choice. Now accept the echo."
One of them drew a sword. Then he was pulled upward—by his own shadow, which had come to life. Two others began to run, but the ground beneath them turned liquid for a moment, and their bodies disappeared without a sound.
The rest… ran.
Albert did not follow them. He simply turned to the starry sky and said,
"I learned something tonight. This world… responds well to fear."
In a corner of the inn, Kaelya closed her eyes, feeling the vibration of magic coming from afar.
"You did not change the world," she said. But you warned her.
The night had grown quiet in Norweld, but the quiet was deceptive. The air, if you looked closely, seemed charged with invisible filaments of mana. And these filaments did not float—their gravity was drawn to a single point: Albert.
He was asleep—or so it seemed. Eyes closed, breathing steady. But around him, in a space of only a few meters, reality vibrated. It was a magic so dense, so pure, that the very fabric of the world seemed to expand in his presence.
Kaelya, in the same room, could not sleep. She watched him. Not with fear, but with a consuming curiosity.
"That man… is not an anomaly. He is a complete system of laws… walking among us," she whispered.
Tens of kilometers away, in a hidden underground fortress beneath the Black Mountain, three supreme mages of the Glass Order simultaneously sensed a rupture in the global mana flow.
"Someone has just manipulated all types of magic in one night!" one of them shouted.
"He did more than that… he created a new code, added an unknown letter to the magic alphabet," said the old man, his face white.
Albert woke up at dawn. When he opened his eyes, Kaelya started. She had asked him in her mind: What are you, really? And although she said nothing, she felt the answer within her.
He stepped outside, and the air greeted him. Nature, aware of his presence, seemed calmer. The trees no longer shook their leaves purposelessly. A young dragon, wandering above the valley, suddenly changed direction, sensing an unstoppable force.
Albert raised his hand.
— Primordial mana... still alive in this world. Clean, but soiled by mortal hands.
At that moment, three wind spirits appeared before him. Ethereal beings, who usually obeyed no one.
— You... are not of this world, said the largest of them.
— I am not.
— Then how can you manipulate all forms of magic?
Albert looked at them. He understood their structure. He saw the flow of their essence. He could rewrite them.
— Because where they come from... magic is not a science. It is a truth. And I... am the author of that truth.
With a simple breath, he emitted a magical pulsation. The spirits knelt. Not out of fear. Out of recognition.
At the gates of the city of Regalis, the capital of the empire, a pagan god, hidden among humans, turned his gaze to the south.
— Someone has just reached a level of mana that even I could not fathom. A new existence… or old?
And for the first time in five centuries… the god was afraid.
Back in Norweld, Kaelya approached Albert.
— What have you done?
— I asked the world if they recognized me. And the world answered me.
— The spirits… the dragons… the forests… they all felt you.
— Not just them.
In the cold morning air, an unseen aura spread across the continents. Forgotten names, forgotten gods, hidden monsters, even isolated continents felt the vibration.
Albert was there. Not as a king. Not as a god. But as a living law, silently emerging.
And the world, for the first time in millennia, felt that it was no longer in control.
Just as the morning calm seemed to be restored, a subtle earthquake shook the ground beneath the village of Norweld. It was brief, but not natural. Children cried, dogs barked uneasily, and eagles circled unusually low.
Albert had left the village. He stood on a wooded ridge, looking east. A dark wave was approaching. Not physical—energetic. Corrupted magic pulsed in the distance, like a spreading cancer.
across the fabric of reality.
"Something is coming… something out of this world."
Kaelya, who had joined unbidden, readied her spear.
"Are you sure?"
Albert didn't answer immediately. The earth trembled, but not from underground. But from a parallel plane. Reality softened at a point on the horizon—as if someone were pulling back the curtain of the world.
A black portal opened, letting out a miniature army: eight-armed creatures made of living metal, eyes of ash, and skins of the abyss. Behind them, a huge being with four crystal horns held a spear made of bone.
"They've already sent the Beyonder. That's a declaration of war," Albert said.
"Who?"
"Those who live beyond the edge of the world." An ancient entity that feeds on young lands like this.
— Can we run?
Albert looked at her with cold gentleness.
— You have nowhere. But you're lucky... they're already here.
The army of metallic creatures started down the valley. The people of Norweld were coming out of their houses, amazed. Some were shouting, others were praying.
Albert raised a single hand to the sky. He uttered no incantation. The sky darkened. Not from clouds. But from pure magic, gathered in a point above his head.
— Archaic Magic – Model Zero: The Undivided Truth.
An enormous magic circle, impossible to describe in human language, formed under his feet. Spirals, runes and symbols rotated in all directions — but without chaos. It was the symphony of absolute force.
The approaching creatures froze. Not from fear. But because time itself refused them to continue.
Albert opened his eyes and whispered:
— Back to nothingness.
Everything exploded into light. No sound. Just a reversal of reality. In an instant, the army was gone. No trace. The earth was intact. The air—clean.
But in the remaining void, a voice echoed:
— You do not belong to the chain of existence. You are a sacred anomaly... and must be eliminated.
Albert smiled slightly.
— I am the chain.
Kaelya knelt involuntarily. Not out of fear. But because her knees were giving way under what she had just seen. It was not magic. It was not divinity. It was the beginning of something the world could not yet understand.
Albert looked at her.
— I only lifted a stone from the road. The real threats are yet to come.
— And what will we do then?
— Then... I will open the book.
— What book?
Albert turned and spoke in a voice that even the forests remembered:
— The one I write as I walk.
At the edges of the world, in the ruins of a forgotten continent, a colossal clock, over 10,000 years old, began to tick again. For the first time.
And the God in the Core of Silence opened an eye.
— Albert... began to write the law.
In the crystal palace of the Thalandar empire, where no mortal had set foot for centuries, the council of the Three Eternals met for the first time in millennia.
An old elf, with silver skin and eyes that burned blue, stepped into the circle of light:
— I felt a reversal of all magical codes. Someone burned reality with a single spell.
— He is not a god, said a female voice, coming from a body made of only light. Not a demon. Not a spirit.
— He is an author.
Everyone fell silent.
— If he writes rules... then he can erase them.
In the underground city of Darnok, a heavily armed dwarf, the leader of the Runesteel clan, stopped his forge hammer.
— There was a pulse. An impulse so dense, it cracked the heart of the runes on the temple walls. It is not magic. It is pure order.
— What do we do, Lord Brogar? asked one of the craftsmen.
— We are preparing. If they come looking for us... I want them to see that we are not just blacksmiths. We are the last keepers of truth.
Behind the visible world, in the realm of the gods, a circle of lights writhed.
— The entity summoned... cannot be controlled.
— Neither eliminated, said another. And neither defined.
— Then what do we do?
— We follow him. We learn from him. Or become prey for a new world that follows him.
Kaelya followed him in silence. Albert walked as if the earth were opening up before him out of respect, not necessity.
— You really have your own logic. Don't you feel you should… be afraid?
— Fear is a function. I am outside the function.
— And the goal?
— I haven't chosen a goal yet. I am building my way, brick by brick.
In the distance, the fire of a village attacked by bandits rose.
Albert raised an eyebrow.
— He who destroys, shall be rewritten.
He moved instantly—not teleportation, but the elimination of distance. In an instant, he was there.
The bandits froze. Their bows and swords fell. They felt the weight of his pressure—the air had become liquid, time sluggish.
Albert held up two fingers.
— The magic of their own fear: Inner reflection.
Each attacker was confronted with his own sins. They screamed. Not in physical pain. But in the mental mirror image of what they had become.
— I will not kill them, he said. They decide whether to live with what they see… or cleanse themselves.
Kaelya arrived in time to see one of them fall to his knees, begging forgiveness—not to Albert, but to the world.
The villagers watched. Some wanted to approach. Albert did not move.
But a simple thought—and a thin veil of magic formed between him and them.
— They are not ready to understand what I am. For now, let them believe I am an enigma. Mystery is sometimes more useful than the truth.
Night was falling again over the continent. Above the mountains, in an ancient observatory, an old man with parchment skin was frantically writing down his visions.
— The shadow that does not fall… The light that does not burn… His name is Albert… but his real name is written in the bones of the cosmos.
At the same time, in the capital of the Karsen empire, a young oracle stood in the middle of the temple in a trance.
— The Author has arrived. Not the prophet. Not the savior. But the one who writes the future with his thoughts.
In his inn room, Albert opened a blank book. On the first page, he wrote with a gesture:
"Chapter 1 – A Tested World."
He stopped. He laughed lightly.
— Too poetic. But true enough.
And then he said to himself:
— Now we begin.