"Report."
The voice came from one of the golden thrones.
Its back still faced Amon and Val.
Amon let the silence rest for a breath, then released a faint sigh and began.
"The mission was successful. I retrieved the sealed artefact."
He summoned his Inventory, reached into the shifting void-white cube, and drew out the necklace. Before he could fully raise it, a sudden current of wind swept through the realm. The artefact slipped from his hand, lifted by that unseen force, and vanished soundlessly into the mist.
"Is that all?" the being upon the throne asked.
"No," Amon replied immediately. "There is much more to report."
"Go on."
"I encountered several corruptions during my search for the artefact. They were unstable beings, malformed and repulsive to the senses. Some possessed mouths where eyes should have been, some had ears without mouths, others resembled unfinished bodies assembled from broken human ideas. Their forms radiated a disturbing and unnatural aura. While searching further, I found a room on the upper floor marked by signs of ritual activity."
"Describe it."
The throne seemed to thrum faintly in the silence, as if anticipation itself had entered the air.
Amon gathered the image in his mind and spoke with care.
"If I am to be precise, seven skeletons stood around a ritual circle.
The circle itself had been formed from dead flesh and the blood of slain animals. At its centre were three overlapping eyes, layered one within another, each seeming to perceive a different truth. Around and above them was a fused sigil of six wings. The three on the right were angelic, white, and pure. The three on the left were infernal, dark, and severe.
Dots, scars, runes, and markings covered the surface of the circle. Symbols and words beyond comprehension had been carved deep into the ground, dense and deliberate, as though inscribed not merely to be read, but to bind. Three triangles were interlocked there as well, pointing inward and outward at once.
Around the circle lay thick blood, dark red and ancient, heavy with the feeling of sacrifice. It seemed almost to pulse, as though the memory of what it had consumed still lingered within it.
The seven skeletons were partially veiled, their forms indistinct, yet each radiated a separate aspect. Golden crosses hung from their necks. From them I sensed seven colours, seven authorities, seven fragments of divinity.
Above them stood towering cross-like structures, silent and unmoving. Upon each hung another skeleton, broken, withered by time, and fixed there as though nailed by fate itself.
They did not resemble ordinary sacrifices, nor ordinary victims.
They felt older than either category. Stranger. Incomplete.
As though their true purpose had not yet fully revealed itself."
He paused only briefly, then continued.
"My first thought was that it may have been a ritual of calling, or perhaps an attempt to create conditions for the descent of a god. It appears to have failed, though not long ago, when I informed Val of what I found, he mentioned the Endorian Empire."
For a moment, the silence deepened.
Then the being on the throne spoke, and this time its voice carried more weight than before.
"Val, it seems the Endorian Empire has resumed movements in secret. I can only hope the royal families do not involve themselves too quickly, or else we may face another purge, perhaps even war."
Then its attention turned back toward Amon.
"You have brought back valuable information. Continue in this manner."
Amon's expression sharpened almost imperceptibly.
"As a reward for the successful completion of your task, I will tell you what may be told about the Endorian Empire."
The vast realm seemed to still itself around the words.
"Three hundred years ago, during what later histories softened into the name the Great Hardship, there was war.
That is the polite word for it, but politeness has always been history's refuge when it wishes to survive its own shame.
At that time, the world was divided into five great regions: the Southern, Northern, Eastern, and Western Worlds, along with lands so forsaken that even naming them was considered an invitation to misfortune.
Humanity was already starving. Already fractured. Already dimly aware that the Great Convergence was drawing near.
Corruptions were stronger then than they are now, and calamities did not come one by one. They overlapped, fed upon one another, and denied anyone the luxury of recovery.
War between nations should never have come in such an age.
We argued against it. We warned. We pleaded with rulers blinded by ambition and fear, telling them that humanity could not endure another blade turned inward.
They did not listen.
The Philistine state marched against the Israelite state, and from that first strike the Southern World was drawn into open conflict with the Northern World, which had long stood as our common enemy.
On the final day, we believed survival had been secured. Victory seemed fragile, but real.
Then the Endorian Empire turned.
Whether it was betrayal, desperation, foresight, or some truth later buried beneath a simpler accusation, no one can now say with certainty.
The Western World rejected them. They tried to return, but by then it was already too late. They had become too visible, too isolated, too politically useful as an object of collective hatred.
The royal families were enraged. Fear clothed itself in the language of justice.
Orders were given, never written down, never publicly spoken, yet obeyed all the same.
By the time the dust settled, the Endorian Empire had ceased to exist. Its cities were erased. Its bloodlines were drowned in blood. Its name was reduced to a warning spoken only in lowered voices.
Because of that incident, the war between the Philistines and the Israelites was suspended at once."
The voice fell quieter, though not weaker.
"That is the memory permitted to us. The full truth remains sealed with the dead."
Something like guilt passed through the air.
Then the being continued, its tone lower now, more authoritative, as if speaking not merely as a ruler, but as something that had endured too much to waste words on comfort.
"And yet... I believe you may one day uncover even those truths that were sealed and lost."
Amon's thoughts stirred sharply.
The memory permitted to us.
The phrase lodged itself in his mind like a splinter.
What did that mean?
Had they sworn an oath that prevented them from speaking more? Had some force bound their tongues? If so, why speak even this much now? Did this realm loosen such restraints, or had the ancient bindings of that oath simply weakened with time?
And if the truth was sealed with the dead, were the dead truly silent?
Was the Endorian Empire really gone?
Questions flooded his thoughts with unnerving speed. Others followed in their wake. Who exactly had the Philistines been? Who were the Israelites? Why had they come to war against one another when the world itself had already been dying? Had the Northern World manipulated them from afar? Had someone guided all of it toward that ending?
Amon pressed a hand lightly against his temple.
"Urgh..."
His voice was quiet, little more than a breath.
"This is what happens when a son is raised on fragments of history."
Fatigue settled faintly across his face. There were too many questions, too many fractures in the story, too many sealed doors with no key in sight.
Then, from somewhere within his mind, a faint chime sounded.
A quest notification.
Most likely.
He ignored it.
There were still larger things to think about.
"Well done," the being said at last, and though the praise was measured, it was real. "This was your first task, yet you carried it out exceedingly well."
Then came the final word.
"Dismissed."
The realm dissolved.
The constellations dimmed first, then the clusters of stars, then the mist itself. The thrones became obscured, their forms swallowed by vanishing light. Even the black circular platforms beneath Amon's feet began to lose their shape, dissolving into the void like milk spilled upon black stone and washed away by unseen hands. The entire space softened, blurred, and folded into itself until nothing remained of it at all.
Then he was elsewhere.
| Outside, The Temple |
Amon and Val stood once more in the temple plaza.
It had thinned considerably. Most people had already gone. Ministers and officials had departed first, leaving behind only a scattering of Awakeners and the poor, those who searched still for coin, or lingered in quiet, almost ritual-like patterns of begging and waiting. The air had grown damp and heavy. Evening had already deepened. The sun was sinking, its light thinning into subdued gold as night approached with patient inevitability.
The day was over.
"You have done well today," Val said, and there was a genuine smile on his face now. "Go and rest."
Amon returned a small smile of his own. "Thank you."
Val lifted his hand and snapped his fingers with deliberate precision.
At once, the space around him warped violently, folding inward and consuming its own outline. Then he was gone, swallowed without noise, leaving behind only the faint stir of leaves in the cooling air.
Amon remained standing there alone.
For a while, he did not move.
He simply gazed ahead, toward a future still hidden from him, and waited as the last few Awakeners drifted away and the quiet splendour of night settled more fully over the temple grounds.
At length, he exhaled.
"It is time to go home."
The moment the words left him, a massive white door rose before him.
It emerged as though pulled upward from beneath reality itself, wrapped in pale drifting smoke that seeped from its edges and pooled around its frame. The air bent toward it. Space warped. Fractured. Reassembled into unstable fragments, as though the world had become uncertain in the presence of that gate.
Amon stepped forward.
The door received him whole.
When he emerged again, he stood in an open field.
The hem of his robe brushed softly through the grass, stirring a faint, delicate hum. Here, the sunlight was full and unbroken, bright enough that to stare into it for too long felt almost dangerous, as if the mind itself might be seared by its splendour. Birds whistled somewhere nearby in an easy rhythm, and their song settled a rare calm over the land.
Amon looked ahead.
"Home."
This time, the smile that touched his face was neither faint nor restrained.
It was real.