Avaran and Saryan left Suryashan not by expulsion, nor by fear, but by something far more intimate — a silent calling that only humans learn to hear once they mature. Their hearts, shaped by centuries beside Tribal and Alaya, simply asked for another path. And they obeyed.
Tribal and Alaya remained in the great empire for a few more years, wandering through markets, suspended terraces, temples, and narrow streets. They watched in silence what remained of Akasha's legacy — an empire that, though grand, felt increasingly orphaned. The great Arkhamesh no longer appeared. Some said he had withdrawn into seclusion. Others swore he had left the planet forever.
Tribal felt nothing — and that emptiness was the only clue.
When they decided to depart, they did so as always: without farewells. At times, they traveled as beings of flesh. At others, they dissolved into the planet's veil, roaming as pure consciousness. They observed. They learned. They taught. And they, too, were taught.
Time was their most docile companion. Centuries slipped through their fingers like luminous dust.
Within the veil, their forms became currents of energy flowing through the planet's entrails. Their perceptions expanded there. Tribal attuned himself to the world's vibrations; Alaya became almost an organ of the Earth itself. But one day, something different touched Alaya. It was not pain. Nor was it threat. It was… formation. Something gaining weight, texture, intention — long before existing.
She went to Tribal.
"There is something growing," she said. "Something that is not yet… but already presses upon me."
Tribal tried to harmonize himself, but no matter how deeply he searched, he could not perceive what she felt. Yet he sensed something else: a subtle dissonance. A vibration out of tune with the planet, like a string tightened to the wrong pitch.
"We must return," he said. "We need our bodies."
And they began to call their physical forms back.
When they opened their eyes, they were lying at the center of a giant village. The enormous beings — gray-skinned, with circular eyes like small moons — sat around them in silence, waiting for their awakening as one waits for the sun's return after an eclipse.
They recognized Tribal and Alaya. In an instant, the entire village trembled with joy.
Tribal and Alaya loved the giants. Among them, they could remain in their natural forms: six meters tall, immense in body, immeasurable in affection.
They stayed there for months. And for a while, Alaya forgot the strangeness.
Until it returned.
First as discomfort.Then as weight.Then as a silent convulsion of the world.
And then her body began to change.
Alaya was seated beside Tribal under a golden dusk when the planet held its breath. The giant village fell silent. Birds retreated to the trees. Even the light seemed to hesitate in the air.
That was when the pain arrived.
Not a pain born of an organ, but of the planet itself. It rose within her like sharpened roots piercing her chest. Alaya fell to her knees. Then collapsed onto her side, her face pressed against the earth. Her body began to transform: her skin thickened — like ancient, dried bark, cracked and rigid. Her hair fell in dark, heavy clumps, like rotting roots. Her nails stretched uncontrollably, splitting, bleeding dead light.
It was as if the Earth were using her body as armor. As if it needed Alaya to become denser to survive what was coming.
Tribal rushed to her.
"Alaya!" he tried to hold her.
But she could not speak. She only trembled.
And then she saw.
Not with her eyes.But with the core of her being — that breath of Adargas living within her.
She saw the void before the explosion. The exact moment when reality realizes something terrible is about to tear it apart. She felt heat invert. She felt particles go mad. She felt life flee.
When the flash finally appeared on the horizon, Alaya had already been suffering far longer than the light itself had taken to reach them. Even fallen, she witnessed the absolute white — not the white of light, but the white of death.
And then the cloud began to rise.
Enormous.Distorted.Majestic and terrible, like a wounded god.
Alaya felt invisible roots being torn from her chest. The soul of the Earth cried within her. She tried to breathe — the air felt like burning wood. She did not feel fear. She felt mourning — the kind of mourning that exists before tragedy, when the future screams for mercy.
Tribal, desperate, tried to ease her pain. He did not know how. There was no touch, no energy, no chant capable of healing her. Then something passed through his own body — an ancient vibration. Familiar. Monstrous.
He lifted his gaze toward the horizon.
And he saw.
The flash was not born as light.To Tribal, it was born as a scream.
A soundless scream that struck his essence before reaching his eyes. The explosion erased the night. Everything vanished into an impossible white. The Earth forgot who it was. The energy released was neither alive nor dead. It was opposite — a profane imitation of a power no mortal should ever touch.
Tribal felt the planet tremble. He felt every animal panic. He felt every root vibrate with fear.
And he felt the Earth scream.
The mushroom cloud rose, slow, heavy, immense. A titan made of fire and dust. Its base spun like a maddened hurricane. Its crown opened like the coronation of a vengeful god. The sky bled red and black.
Tribal fell to his knees — not from weakness, but from understanding.
"This is not creation. It is its profane echo. The power of mortals trying to touch the territory of the gods. And failing. Destroying everything around them."
Tribal held Alaya in his arms. The world was bleeding through her. And he knew — whatever had begun there would not end so soon.