[??? Years Ago]
The Keepers of Order.
They had always existed.
Not as mortals do, bound by flesh, nor as Gods do, bound by faith.
They were beyond such things—beyond comprehension, beyond mortality, beyond even the limitations of divinity itself. They were the first, the forces that shaped existence from the formless void. Their roles were etched into the very foundation of the universe, not by will, not by fate, but by the fundamental necessity of Order.
Each had their purpose, an immutable function woven into the soul of reality.
And among them—
The Architect.
It was he who breathed structure into the endless space, forging the vast picture of creation. Eight realms, each a universe unto itself, each galaxy, each star, each planet—his hands shaped them all. The Architect was not a being of passion, nor of cruelty; he was design incarnate, a force that sculpted reality without indulgence, without hesitation.
Yet, for all his work, his creations were hollow.
Planets orbited their stars in precise, unerring motion, but they were cold, lifeless husks. Galaxies swirled in infinite swirls, yet within them, there was nothing.
A world without life was not a world at all.
And so, the Source of Life was born.
A being unlike The Architect, for where he built, it filled. Where he shaped, it breathed. It was not a God, nor any entity that could be comprehended. It was the very concept of vitality made manifest, an eternal wellspring from which all existence drew its breath.
Together, they worked—not as friends, not as adversaries, but as two halves of a singular law.
The Architect created.
The Source of Life imbued.
And so, the universe came into being.
But life could not thrive in a void.
The Firstborn were crafted, shaped from the very essence of the Source, woven together by the Architect's design.
The Gods.
The Ancestors.
The Dragons.
The Fate Walkers.
Each bore their own nature, their own essence, their own purpose.
And yet, even with all their power, they could not simply exist in the void.
They required a home.
Not all planets were equal.
Though The Architect had shaped countless worlds, only a few could sustain the divine and the eternal. Planets were nothing more than stone and sky, dust and silence—dead things, absent the warmth of a world truly alive.
But Aethel...
Aethel was different.
Aethel was a miracle, an anomaly among anomalies—a world so rich, so vibrant, so immeasurably teeming with life that it called to them.
First, the Fate Walkers arrived, drawn to the potential of a world whose existence seemed to defy the natural order. Then came the Gods, seeking dominion over its vast lands, carving out their own sanctuaries, their own temples, their own thrones, their own cities. And then—
The Dragons descended.
Aethel was not theirs to take, yet they took it anyway, not out of greed, but because it was their nature. They did not ask, they did not negotiate. They claimed.
Even so, for all its beauty, for all its bounty Aethel was not home to all.
For the Ancestors did not come.
They had no need for planets, no longing for soil beneath their feet or skies above their heads. They were beyond such things.
They did not claim.
They did not fight.
They did not rule.
They simply were.
For their world was Elythia.
-----------------------
[Elythia]
In the heart of this world stood the Eternal City, the sole and undisputed capital of the Ancestors. It was a city that defied the rigid definitions of past and future, neither shackled by old simplicity nor drowned in the excesses of technology. Instead, it was a perfect synthesis of the old and the new.
The Eternal City remained unchanged for eons, for the Ancestors were finite—a race so small that all of them could reside within this one place. There were no lesser towns, no scattered villages—this was their home, their beginning, and their end.
Towering structures of stone and metal stretched high into the sky, bridges of silver and black arched between the tallest buildings, floating seamlessly without the need for supports, held in place by an invisible force.
The streets below were wide and finely paved, not with cobblestones, nor metal, but with a strange glasslike mineral.
Despite the scale of the structures, nothing felt imposing. The architecture was grand, but elegant, built with an almost perfect sense of proportion and balance. No structure was mindlessly tall, no road needlessly winding. Everything served a purpose.
At the city's very center stood the Argent Atrium, a colossal palace-temple hybrid that served as both a gathering hall and an archive. Unlike mortal thrones or royal courts, there was no single ruler here—only an exchange of knowledge.
The Argent Atrium was built from an unidentifiable material—neither metal nor stone—something beyond. It was a massive structure of silver and white. The entrance was marked by an archway so massive that it felt like walking into the mouth of infinity.
It was within this structure the Sanctum of Inquiry was found. A place to bisect knowledge.
Towering blackstone pillars lined the enormous chamber's edges. Between them, shelves of tomes and scrolls stretched toward the ceiling. The floor, constructed from smooth slabs, was cold beneath one's feet.
An assortment of workbenches cluttered the space, each decorated with instruments, alembics filled with fluids of unknowable composition, and floating crystals suspended in magnetic fields. Strange apparatuses pulsed neither magic nor purely mechanical. The air was dense with scents—aged parchment, burning incense, the sterile tang of alchemical compounds, and something heavier… the musky, scent of a long-dead titan's remains.
And at the very heart of it all lay the Dragon's bones.
A skeleton, perfectly reconstructed, stretched across the largest table in the room, each piece held in place by an invisible force, suspended just above the surface as if the dragon's spirit still clung stubbornly to its remains. Great rib bones, thick as tree trunks, arched high, framing the space. Its skull, elongated and crude, bore cracks from its throes, but its serrated fangs remained intact.
But none of it compared to the Dragon Core.
It rested upon a pedestal, suspended in a glass prison. The sphere was the size of a man's head, its black surface marred by veins of deep red, shifting and pulsing as if still beating like a heart. Every few seconds, faint ripples of energy pulsed outward, distorting the air around it, a phenomenon that sent the stray floating papers across the lab fluttering.
Lyra stood close to it, one hand lightly caressing the surface of the pedestal, her fingers trailing along the surface. Her eyes, alight with intrigue flickered with each pulse of the core, as if she could hear the whispers of the dead creature.
She tilted her head, studying it in reverence, before her voice broke the silence.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" she murmured. "This core... it's unlike any other we've encountered. It doesn't just act as a reservoir—it is a shield, a living defense mechanism. It absorbs anything that strike it, seals the energy away, and stores it indefinitely."
She lifted her hand, fingers spreading as if framing the image of the core before her, her expression one of admiration. "The perfect defensive system."
Aelfric, standing beside her, arms crossed, studied her with an unreadable expression. He exhaled softly, the faintest furrow in his brow betraying his thoughts.
"A perfect system," he echoed, but there was something wary in his voice, something restrained.
Lyra let out a soft sigh, her fingers curling against her palm as she turned toward him.
"Aelfric," she chuckled, turning toward him. "Don't act so detached. I see that look in your eyes—you want to understand it as much as I do."
Aelfric shook his head with a sigh. "Understanding something and using it are not the same thing."
Lyra smirked, shifting her weight onto one hip. "True," she conceded, before running a gloved hand through her long black hair. "But tell me, how much more could we learn if we had a fresher specimen?"
Aelfric's gaze sharpened. "We don't need a fresh corpse to understand the nature of a dragon core."
Lyra shrugged. "You say that as if this husk has told us all its secrets."
She turned back to the massive remains before them, placing a delicate hand upon the skull. The bone was cold beneath her touch, but she could still feel it—the lingering essence, the remnants of something that had once been unimaginably powerful.
Her eyes darkened, her voice dropping.
"Dead things only tell half the story, Aelfric."
She let her fingers trail along the jawline of the dragons remains, a spark of something unsatisfied, flashing across her face. "No... next time, I'd rather tear the knowledge straight from one that still barely breathes."
Though her eyes were also busy studying Aelfric with scrutiny. There was something off about him tonight—something absent.
"But I can tell your mind is barely here," Lyra finally noted, her voice laced with the barest hint of irritation. "You're usually so exhilarated when we get our hands on something new... and this dragon specimen is recent. I thought you'd be more thrilled."
Aelfric's gaze lingered on the faintly glowing core as though he were seeing something far beyond it. His dark hair fell slightly into his eyes. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than usual, yet no less firm.
"Do you not think we waste our time with something like this?"
Lyra's brows furrowed. There it was again—that detachment and that distance. It wasn't like him.
"This research is vital for the betterment of our society," she countered, tilting her head slightly, as if studying him the same way she would a peculiar anomaly in an experiment. She lifted a palm, and within moments, a crimson orb of pure mana swirled above it, illuminating the sharp edges of her face.
"Ever since the emergence of that new Goddess, a new force has been woven into our realm—magic." Her voice took on a scholarly tone, as if reciting a fundamental truth. "Our kind seems to have a natural aptitude for it, but even so, we are few in number."
She slowly closed her hand, and the orb collapsed in on itself, dissipating into nothingness, as if it had never existed at all.
"We may not have any enemies now," Lyra continued, her gaze flickering toward the dragon core, "but that can change. That will change. This dragon's core—it holds knowledge, power, a means for us to fortify our defenses. We are eternal in body, but that does not make us untouchable."
Aelfric frowned softly, his posture unreadable. "Even so… will that be enough?"
The way he said it made something in Lyra still.
She knew that tone. She had heard it before. This was not about the research. Not entirely.
"You're still fixated on the Divine Principles," she observed, though her tone made it clear she already knew the answer.
Aelfric's expression did not shift, but there was no hesitation in his reply.
"I am."
Lyra's eyes narrowed slightly.
"They are absolute."
Aelfric's lips pressed together briefly before he finally muttered, "Perhaps. But absolute does not mean unbreakable."
Lyra's jaw tightened. There it was—his obsession, that irksome defiance.
"To tamper with them," she warned, "is to invite the wrath of The Keepers."
She took a step forward, her gaze locking onto his, sharp as a blade.
"And The Keepers do not punish in halves, Aelfric. If they find you guilty, they will not merely make an example of you." Her voice was calm, but beneath that it was sharp. "They will erase you. And not just you—every Ancestor. Every last one of us. That includes Aviva and Calliope."
Aelfric's reaction was subtle—a faint, almost imperceptible flinch. But Lyra caught it. A crack in his composure.
"And what is it you're hoping to uncover?" she pressed, her voice quieter now. "Loopholes? Exceptions? Or something else?"
Aelfric was silent for a moment, his gaze heavy. His fingers curled slightly, tension bleeding into his stance.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and final.
"Death."
Lyra's brows furrowed.
Aelfric's gaze never wavered as he continued, his words spoken slowly.
"I wish to interact with Death."
The absurdity of the statement made her blink. She stared at him, expecting—hoping—he would clarify, perhaps rephrase. But he didn't.
"...What?"
It left her lips before she could stop it, her voice carrying a rare slip of genuine shock.
She shook her head slightly, recovering. "Aelfric, do you even hear yourself? You want to interact with the Bringer of Death? The entity that exists as the very antithesis of all that is living? I see now… the Divine Principles state that neither the Source of Life nor the Bringer of Death can interact with those who reside here. That's why you've been so fixated on them. But why?"
Aelfric's answer was immediate.
"I do not wish to die."
The honesty in his voice sent a chill down Lyra's spine. There was no hesitation. No deflection. Only truth.
His eyes burned, his words carrying an emotion she had never seen in him before—fear.
"I do not want that fate for myself, nor for Aviva and Calliope."
Lyra studied him, this was no mere obsession. This was desperation.
Aelfric—the man who had always carried himself with resolve, the man who never once hesitated in his pursuit of knowledge, the man who dissected the laws of the universe without so much as a flicker of doubt—was afraid.
And it was not fear of pain. Not fear of suffering.
It was fear of ceasing to be.
She exhaled slowly, running a hand through her long black hair.
"We are already eternal, Aelfric," she murmured, her voice softer now. "We do not age. We do not fall ill."
"But we can be killed," Aelfric countered. "We are not untouchable. And I have already heard whispers of tension—between the Dragons, the Gods, the Fate Walkers. The peace we know now is fleeting." He clenched his jaw, his hands tightening at his sides. "I do not know what Death holds. But it irks me. No—it terrifies me. I refuse to allow that fate to touch my wife, my daughter, myself."
Lyra studied his face. He was serious.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The laboratory was filled only with the distant hum of instruments and the pulsing energy of the Dragon Core.
Lyra closed her eyes briefly before exhaling, a slow, resigned breath.
"There will be consequences," she murmured.
She opened her eyes. And then, finally—
"But very well. I shall help where I can."
A ghost of something flickered across Aelfric's face. Relief? Gratitude? It was gone before she could decipher it.
But when he spoke, his voice was genuine.
"You have my gratitude, Lyra."