Pure creation.
Pure order.
Pure stability.
Lindarion felt his breath catch. The presence alone dwarfed anything he had ever sensed, not a god, not a titan, something far beyond.
"Is that…?"
"Yes," the echo-being replied. "One half of the original will."
A second presence materialized on the opposite horizon.
Darkness.
Not malevolent—empty.
A void meant not to consume, but to purify.
The Cleanser.
Immense.
Silent.
Necessary.
Lindarion stiffened instinctively.
It felt familiar.
Like a resonance buried in his bones.
The echo-being noticed. Its head tilted slightly.
"You sense it because you carry the echo of its purpose. Its resonance has touched your mana since birth."
Lindarion swallowed. "But I was born normal."
The being's voice dimmed.
"There is nothing normal about being born under the intersection of dusk-stars and dragonfire."
The landscape around them shifted again.
The Guardian extended its luminous hands, and from its touch—
