The Sparkling Kingdom was dying.
Not by famine, nor by plague—but by betrayal.
Storms once summoned in celebration now screamed with anguish. Lightning, once playful in its arcs across the floating towers of Voltagrad, now lashed the skies like whips of grief. Thunder crawled endlessly across the heavens, echoing the silent dread that had settled over the capital.
The people of the kingdom knew.
They felt it in their bones.
The end had come.
Temples overflowed with praying voices, the aged and the innocent clutching skycrystals in their trembling hands. The great energy bridges that once pulsed with vitality flickered now like dying stars. Above them, the radiant towers of crystalsteel—once symbols of pride—trembled in the wind, as if mourning their own inevitable fall.
Within the highest structure of Voltagrad—the Spire of Conduction—twelve figures stood in a solemn circle, thunderlight reflecting off their armor. They were the kingdom's mightiest defenders, legends given form: the Twelve Bolts of Lightning. Each bore scars and symbols of countless victories. But none of them had ever stood against what now approached.
And at their center, towering above them in divine stillness, stood the Lightning Master himself.
Thandros.
The Divine Master of Lightning.
His form was cloaked in robes of shifting white and blue, though no cloth could ever contain the raw current that pulsed within him. His face was ageless, carved in the image of starlight and thunderclouds, his eyes radiant and unknowable. The air around him crackled in reverence, as if the storm itself bent knee in his presence.
The Bolts stood still, their expressions hard—yet behind every furrowed brow, there was grief.
"We are surrounded on three fronts," spoke one of them, a tall woman clad in rippling current. "The eastern towers fell an hour ago. We've lost the Arc Vault."
Another voice followed, this one deep and gravel-edged. "The Shaded King does not come in war. He sends his Grandmasters like knives in the dark."
Thandros said nothing for a long while. He simply stared into the arcane circle pulsing at his feet. Then he raised his hand, and the center of the room split open. From it rose a pedestal bearing a strange, radiant object.
A Saint Treasure—ancient and humming with impossible power. Its form was three-pronged, shaped like a broken trident, yet alive with movement.
"The Vanguard," Thandros said, his voice like controlled thunder. "Forged during the Time of Law. One use remains."
The chamber dimmed as even the lightning in the walls bowed before it.
"Who will wield it?" one Bolt asked.
"No one," Thandros replied. "It is not a weapon for war. It is a door—for a single child."
A murmur swept through the Twelve. But they did not object.
"You've seen him," Thandros said quietly. "He bears a brand not of my making. Lightning chose him... but something older watches him. A presence even I do not understand."
He paused.
"We cannot save the kingdom. But we can send forward our legacy."
Silence.
Then the Twelve stepped forward, one by one. Each placed a hand upon the Vanguard. Each whispered words of blessing—some of power, some of memory, some of sorrow. Lightning curled around the artifact, brighter with every mark, every vow. A storm of purpose was gathering.
And far below, the walls of Voltagrad began to fall.
---
High above, on the peak of the citadel's crown, Thandros stood alone.
Lightning whirled around him in silence. Not a single bolt dared strike him. The sky waited, aching for his command.
A pulse of warmth rippled through the air.
Then came another presence—one not of storm, but of steel and blood.
He did not descend. He arrived—as if the battlefield itself had taken form.
Valcrion.
The Divine Master of War.
His armor was layered in crimson runeplate, etched with victories long buried. His frame was vast, forged in the image of conquest, and his eyes burned with a fury that made mountains tremble. And yet—his voice, when it came, was not rage. It was sorrow. Heavy, but sweet.
"Thandros," he said.
The Lightning Master did not turn.
Valcrion stepped closer. "You do not ask for war. You do not call your brothers. You prepare a child's escape."
"It is not escape," Thandros said, voice quiet but immovable. "It is survival."
The wind howled through the towers. Not even lightning dared speak.
"This is not war," Valcrion growled. "This is slaughter. The Shaded King soils the art of battle. He sends death where challenge once stood. He does not conquer—he erases."
Still, Thandros did not look at him. His fingers folded behind his back, unreadable as always.
Valcrion's voice dropped low.
"Do you not hate this?"
The lightning pulsed once, flaring and fading.
"I do," Thandros said.
Valcrion's breath trembled in his chest. "Then fight."
"No."
"Then break the law."
"No."
Valcrion took a step closer, anger barely contained. "Then why do you stand here, Thandros? What is the point of all your silence, if you will not strike even now?"
Thandros finally turned.
His gaze did not burn. It did not waver.
It simply saw.
"I stand," he said, "so that he may walk forward."
And in that moment, the heavens cracked—and war began.
---
Far below the citadel crown, deep within the Chamber of Radiance, the world changed.
The air thrummed with silence. Sacred silence. The kind that came just before a thunderclap.
A circle of elder attendants surrounded a glowing cradle of energy, their robes fluttering as pulses of static rippled outward from the center. Within the cradle, a woman lay weakly, wrapped in stormwoven linens. Her face was pale with effort, but her eyes were radiant as she held the newborn in her arms.
The child did not cry. He watched—with eyes that shimmered like pale silver under lightning's reflection. His skin was faintly luminous, his tiny chest marked with a sigil that pulsed slowly in time with the current above. Not a normal birthmark. Not an arcane tattoo.
A Brand.
Divine.
The attendants said nothing. They dared not.
Hovering above the child was the faint silhouette of something unseen. It was not of lightning. It was not of storm. But it watched. It waited. And the lightning did not resist it.
The mother—frail but proud—whispered to the boy, her voice choked with awe and fear.
"Neil..."
Then her arms gave way as the light intensified. The cradle rose.
Above the Chamber, inside the Spire of Conduction, the Vanguard responded. It surged, rising into the air like a spear held aloft by destiny itself. The Twelve Bolts, standing in a circle of power, held their stances as arcs of living lightning connected them one to another, forming a ring of pure elemental will.
Each spoke their blessing in turn.
Alvion, the Spear of Storms, said: "Let him strike with clarity."
Selara, the Flashblade: "Let him move faster than doubt."
Kazren, the Thunderbell: "Let his name echo when hope is needed."
Mireya, the Chainstorm: "Let his enemies be bound by his will."
Astra, the Guiding Ray, laid her fingers to her heart and whispered: "Let him know the storm… and choose when to release it."
And on and on—each Bolt poured a piece of their soul, their legacy, their storm into the relic.
The Vanguard glowed gold-white. Then silver. Then something beyond either.
And from below, Neil rose within a column of light that pierced the Spire's very ceiling.
He did not cry.
He did not flail.
He simply watched—with newborn eyes that saw far too much.
Thandros watched in silence, his arms crossed behind his back. Lightning danced at his shoulders, but not a flicker touched his skin. His expression remained unreadable, though the storm around him threatened to break.
Valcrion looked up at the boy, his jaw locked.
"You send him into a world that will not remember him," the Divine Master of War said. "That may not even deserve him."
"He is not theirs to deserve," Thandros replied. "He is the storm's memory."
Then the Vanguard exploded in light—not destruction, but passage. A slit in space opened, ancient and aching, like a wound in the timeline itself. It hummed with eternity. On the other side, nothing familiar waited—only distance. Silence. Future.
And into it, Neil drifted—wrapped in light, surrounded by legacy.
Gone.
The portal sealed behind him, the tower growing dim in his absence.
No cheer. No celebration.
Only silence.
Far below, the first tower collapsed, screaming its death into the night. Bolts of cursed darkness rained through the streets. Voltagrad fell into chaos as the Grandmasters of the Shaded Kingdom arrived—casting shadows deeper than death.
The Twelve Bolts drew their weapons.
Thandros descended, the storm flaring briefly as he passed.
And above them all, the sky wept lightning.
---
Voltagrad burned.
The eastern towers crumbled first, swallowed in winds that howled not from nature, but from malice. These were not gusts. They were blades. Invisible. Unrelenting.
And at the center of the storm walked a man.
Tall, graceful, clothed in flowing robes that never seemed to touch his skin. His hair billowed like a banner caught in an eternal gale, and around him swirled dust, ash, and the twisted remnants of once-great structures.
He did not raise his hand.
He did not speak.
He was simply there—and that was enough to end everything.
A Wind Caster.
A Grandmaster of the Shaded Kingdom.
Name whispered only in fear: Seirath, the Gale Reaper.
The Twelve Bolts met him in the heart of the city, their weapons drawn, arcs of lightning coiling with legend. Their presence alone had once turned the tide of wars.
Now, they stood united one final time.
Selara moved first, faster than thought. Her blades shimmered as she struck from multiple angles.
Seirath tilted his head—and she was gone.
Not killed.
Scattered.
A scream echoed from above. Drennos dove from the air, his hover-disc spinning wildly as he launched a full surge of storm energy downward.
Seirath looked up. The wind reversed.
Drennos' body hit the spire wall so hard the city shook.
The Bolts roared as one and descended in force—Kazren's gauntlets ringing, Alvion's spear blazing, Mireya's chains igniting the air. For a moment, it was like watching twelve storms colliding with a hurricane.
And then… silence.
The wind inhaled.
The storm shattered.
A single burst of invisible force erupted from Seirath's body—a pulse of cutting wind so precise, so absolute, that it carved through lightning itself.
Armor split. Bodies flung. Cries were stolen mid-sentence.
Twelve lives.
Twelve legends.
Erased.
Seirath walked forward through the ruin they left behind.
He stepped over Astra's fallen body, the light dimming from her eyes. Past Kazren's shattered gauntlets. Past Orlin's charred helm. The final resistance of the Sparkling Kingdom lay at his feet like broken glass caught in a breeze.
He raised his arm.
The air shimmered—and the city of Voltagrad folded into wind and ruin.
---
High above, on the last floating arch of the shattered spire, Thandros watched the gale consume all.
He did not flinch.
He did not look away.
The Divine Master of Lightning remained still, the storm screaming around him, the final lights of his kingdom flickering out beneath the weight of the wind.
Behind him, the skies wept golden threads of static—the final trace of a newborn sent into the unknown.
Neil was gone.
Voltagrad was no more.
And in the silence that followed, only the wind remained.