The light within Kael's world had begun to tremble.
At first, it was subtle — the rhythm of creation itself skipping a single beat. The rivers of mana that flowed through the floating continents dimmed for a breath, then flared again brighter than before, as if startled awake.
Kael stood upon the edge of the Worldseed's core — a crystalline plain suspended above a sea of radiant clouds. From this vantage, every realm he'd shaped unfurled beneath him like threads of living silk. Mountains drifted across the air. Forests of glass and dream stretched to horizons beyond sense.
And yet… there was noise in the silence.
He could feel it — faint, discordant tones beneath the hum of his creation. The resonance of something that did not belong here.
Kael closed his eyes and reached into the pulse of the world. Every star, every life, every echo answered him — until one vibration did not.
A sound too deep to hear.
A whisper older than this universe.
Do you think you were first, little Seed?
The voice rippled through his mind like thunder whispered underwater. Kael's body tensed. The air shimmered; the color drained from the clouds as his power surged instinctively outward.
"Who speaks?"
The void before him split into threads of faint violet light, swirling into form. Not a creature. Not a god. Something between both. A shadow given intellect — and patience.
We were cast beyond the border when your Seed took root.
But the soil remembers us.
Kael's jaw clenched. "You're remnants of the Old Realms."
No, the voice replied, we are the roots beneath them.
The plain shook. Across the distance, the lights of his floating continents flickered one by one — not fading, but answering. The echo reached through his creation like the toll of an ancient bell.
Kael extended a hand, and the Seed's power flared around him. The crystal beneath his feet pulsed with living light. His voice became both thought and thunder.
"You have no place in this world."
The entity's form rippled, half laughter, half static.
You build your cage and call it divine. But every seed, no matter how bright, blooms from the corpse of another.
The world convulsed. For a moment, Kael's vision filled with other skies — universes burning, gods devouring each other, infinite Seeds scattering through the void like sparks from a dying sun. Each carried worlds of their own. Each hungry.
He saw flashes —
A Seed of Storms spiraling over a realm of endless lightning.
A Seed of Flame feeding on the bones of its suns.
A Seed of Void whispering to the dead stars.
We are the Unborn Gods, the shadow intoned. And you, Kael, are our reminder that creation is never pure.
Kael's breath came shallow. His heart thundered. He could feel the Worldseed within him react — not with fear, but with recognition.
He stepped forward, and the air itself warped. "Then let them come. If they seek me, I will show them what creation becomes when it learns to fight back."
The shadows rippled again, and the voice softened.
Then prepare, traveler. The veil between seeds weakens. The worlds are beginning to hear each other's screams.
And with that, the light shattered.
Kael opened his eyes and found himself standing in his sanctum once more, the heartbeat of his creation echoing around him. The Worldseed pulsed at the center of the chamber — and for the first time, its glow was not steady.
Half of it burned white.
The other half flickered violet.
He exhaled slowly, a chill creeping down his spine. "So it begins," he whispered.
And far across the living worlds he had birthed, Lyraen raised her head — her eyes glowing faintly with the same strange light.