The sky bled.
Not red, not gold—crimson fractured with white flame, like reality itself was ripping apart. The floating continent of Serandor trembled as shockwaves echoed through time, space, and everything in between.
Two figures collided midair, high above shattered mountains and glowing rift-lines. Their power twisted the laws of nature—one a radiant storm cloaked in stardust armor, the other a looming shadow with eyes like eclipses.
"You're the last," the shadow rumbled, voice trailing behind like an echo from the future. "The bloodline ends today."
The defender coughed blood, wiping his lip with a shaking hand. Not yet. He couldn't fall here—not while the legacy of the Eternal Root still breathed through him.
But he was weakening. Bones cracked. Flesh splintered. His aura flickered like a dying star.
He was losing.
Drawing on the last reservoir of his life force, the defender extended his hand. The air bent around him, space twisting into spirals. A pocket dimension—hidden from fate, hidden from gods.
"If I fall... let my legacy scatter… to the outer worlds."
Blood poured from his chest, pulled into the spell. Thousands of drops. Each encoded with memory, power, and lineage.
Across universes, these drops would fall—into oceans, forests, deserts, cities. Into souls.
"When the spiral returns to the core… the final inheritor shall awaken me."
With a final scream, the defender vanished—body sealed in crystal, treasures buried in a dormant plane. The invader reached for him… and found only emptiness.
Somewhere, on a distant blue planet called Earth, a drop of blood found a boy asleep in his room.
And the spiral began again.