The following night came with rain again.
Alpha II stood beside Vastarael near the edge of the beach, watching the dark shape of a boat slowly emerge through the mist. Lanterns swayed against the rain while figures stood beneath cloaks. Their silhouettes grew clearer the closer they came.
The five Regio leaders had arrived.
The boat scraped against the shore and one by one, the leaders stepped onto Modernia with expressions that looked exhausted rather than prideful. Alpha II immediately noticed something strange.
They looked nervous.
The same elders who had argued endlessly inside the palace now looked hesitant standing before one impossibly calm man. The leader of the String Regio stepped forward first.
"We have come to give our answer."
Vastarael folded his arms.
"I already know your answer."
The elder sighed.
"Of course you do. We accept your proposal."
Alpha II looked at the five leaders. The old pride from the council meeting was gone. The String Regio leader spoke again.
"Since your intervention, no children have died. Every single infected child has stabilized. The fevers have lessened, the body failures have stopped and the physicians have reported something they have never seen before. The Divine Energy imbalance is correcting itself."
The Percussion leader stepped forward.
"We did not want to admit it at first but without your help, our people would have continued dying."
The Woodwind Regio elder sighed heavily.
"We have debated for days. Some wished to reject your offer. Others feared dependency. One elder even suggested that perhaps this was some elaborate trick to enslave us. That elder has since become very quiet."
Alpha II almost laughed. Vastarael looked completely unimpressed.
"So, you finally chose survival."
The String Regio leader nodded.
"Yes."
Vastarael raised his hand. A faint sapphire glow shimmered through the air. When the hourglass appeared, Alpha II immediately recognized it. It was the exact same hourglass he had spent all week working on at night while she slept. The thing looked beautiful even while inactive, framed with sapphire and strange engravings spiraling around it while glowing sand rested inside.
Vastarael handed it to the String Regio leader.
"This is the solution."
The elder carefully accepted it.
"An hourglass?"
"Yes."
"You are aware that we are discussing the survival of an entire race?"
"Yes."
"And your answer is… an hourglass?"
"Yes."
The man looked confused. Vastarael sighed.
"You asked for a solution. I gave you one. You expected something dramatic?"
The leader coughed awkwardly.
"When you say it like that, we sound unreasonable."
"You were unreasonable."
Alpha II looked away. She did not know how he managed to say things so bluntly while sounding completely calm. Vastarael pointed at the artifact.
"At midnight, place it at the center of the boundary shared by the five Regio. Then say the words: Hourglass of Truth."
"What happens afterwards?"
"It will enlarge itself. Then it will begin regulating the Divine Energy of your race."
The council froze.
"That simple?"
"Yes."
"That is impossible."
"No, it's difficult. There is a difference. You will also tell your people that this artifact is a gift from Goddess Melody."
Several elders immediately looked confused.
"Melody?"
"The Melody?"
"The strongest Musica in history?"
"In a way, it is her gift."
The elders exchanged looks.
"Why does that matter?"
"Because belief matters. Divine Energy responds to faith. The more your people trust the hourglass, the more Divine Energy it will generate. The more they believe in Melody's blessing, the stronger the system becomes. Every day, the sand inside will run out and the hourglass will then turn over by itself. The amount of sand restored will depend on the trust and faith your people place into it."
The leaders stared at him silently.
One finally asked, "You are saying our belief literally powers this thing?"
"Yes."
"That sounds absurd."
Vastarael shrugged.
"We're Divine beings discussing energy mechanics. Absurd stopped mattering a long time ago."
Alpha II quietly covered her mouth to stop herself from smiling. He really did talk to everyone the same way. The String Regio leader carefully held the hourglass tighter.
"And this will last?"
"It's a Divine Artifact. It will last for millennia."
The elder looked shocked.
"Millennia?"
"Yes."
"And if something goes wrong?"
"Come to Modernia and call for me."
The five leaders looked at each other before bowing their heads.
"Thank you. We truly mean that. You have saved our people."
Vastarael simply nodded.
"Good. That means we no longer have a problem."
The council looked strangely emotional while leaving. Alpha II stood quietly beside him as the boat eventually disappeared back into the rain.
"Was that the same hourglass?"
"Yes."
She stared at him.
"You made that?"
"Yes."
Her eye twitched slightly.
"You made a race-saving Divine Artifact inside a cave?"
Vastarael looked at her.
"I had free time."
"That is not normal!"
"It is for me."
He started walking back toward the cave.
"Making Divine Artifacts is not difficult anymore. With the decades I have spent on Modernia, I had time to perfect my forge skills."
Alpha II stood there for a second and quickly followed him.
"You say strange things too casually."
"I've been told that before."
They walked through the rain for a while before Vastarael suddenly spoke again.
"Training starts tomorrow. You're my servant and I can't have a weak subordinate."
She looked up at him.
"What kind of training?"
"The kind that turns you into the second strongest Musica in history."
Alpha II stopped walking.
"Second strongest? That sounds impossible."
"So did curing an entire race."
She opened her mouth and closed it. That was annoyingly true.
"Sleep early tonight. Tomorrow will be difficult."
She nodded slowly.
"Okay. You're not going to fly super fast again tomorrow, right?"
Vastarael looked thoughtful.
"I can slow down."
Her eyes narrowed immediately.
"That means no. Great."
°°°°°°
The next morning came gently over Modernia, which was unusual enough to make Alpha II notice it immediately. The rain that usually haunted the island had not yet arrived. She sat on the sand with her knees drawn close, letting the warmth settle into her body for once instead of enduring another cold storm. Vastarael approached quietly from behind her and when he stopped nearby she did not even need to look up to know he was watching the horizon too.
After a while, he asked her a question that made her turn.
"Do you know the Spheraphasian tale of Lanthadale, the first human in history?"
Alpha II frowned slightly and shook her head.
"No, I have never heard that name before."
Vastarael settled beside her on the sand.
"Before humans existed, the world had already been filled with races made by greater beings. The World Tree had created the elves, the Ocean Supreme Entities had given rise to the Hydroborn and countless other races had emerged from the hands of beings whose influence stretched across the world. Adapta, the Supreme Entity of Adaptation, watched all of that and decided she wanted to make something of her own as well. She saw the other Supreme Entities shaping life and how the world was being filled with people who belonged to them. She chose to create a race that belonged to her alone."
"So she asked the World Tree for a leaf and the ocean Supreme Entities for a special drop of water. They gave them to her kindly, because despite being a Supreme Entity, she was not cruel. Adapta added a grain of sand to each, then used her powers to shape the first woman, Ermona. Ermona had originally been given the world as her responsibility, meant to wander, live and experience existence freely, but the more she walked through that world, the more she understood that freedom could still feel incomplete when it was carried alone."
"She saw the elves with their beloveds. She saw the Hydroborn with their companions and she realized she had no one standing beside her. So she asked her creator for a male companion, not out of desperation exactly, but because she understood that existence felt different when it was shared."
"Adapta spoke to the World Tree and the ocean Supreme Entities once more and this time they agreed to help her again. Instead of a leaf and a drop of water, they gave her a sphere of light and a rock taken from the depths of the sea. With those materials, Adapta created the first man, Lanthadale."
"He was as handsome as any male the world had ever seen. Ermona loved him at first sight and they lived together for four years. For her, those years were enough to create a lifetime of memory but for him, they were far too short. Lanthadale had not been made from the same sand that shaped Ermona, which meant his lifespan was naturally brief. One night, he died in her arms and when he did, Ermona blamed Adapta for allowing such a beloved to vanish so soon. She cried for weeks and from that grief came the Vitale Ermona, the funeral song that later spread across the world and became associated with loss, mourning, and remembrance. The sadness of that tale reached even the elves and Hydroborn, who shared in her grief because the loss of the first man had somehow become a loss for everyone who loved and understood companionship."
"Ermona realized that she was expecting a child, and with that realization came her first vow to the world: she would never have another beloved. Lanthadale had been enough for her. She kept that vow while giving birth to five children, and those children became the foundation of the subhuman races that followed, spreading the lineage of humanity across the world and leaving behind the story of a woman whose heart had been broken into the shape of a promise."
Alpha II stayed silent for several seconds. Eventually she looked up at Vastarael and asked quietly.
"Why are you telling me this?"
He rested one arm over his knee and watched the sunlight reflecting across the waves before answering.
"Because every world has origin stories that people forget. Every origin story tells you something about how a race thinks, what it fears and what it values. Your people fear extinction but they also fear dependence. That fear is older than your council's arguments. They're acting like children who forgot that all living things were once created from the same need to be seen and held together. Now then, time for training."