The silence that followed the War of Eternal Night was not peace — it was mourning.
Eclipsera hung in the void like a fractured jewel, its continents drifting apart, rivers of starlight bleeding into the black sea of reality. The war was over, but so was Kaien Draven. His name had become legend, his power myth, and his sacrifice… a wound the realms could not forget.
Yet, Reina refused to believe he was gone.
---
The winds of Eclipsera's upper reaches howled like whispers of the dead as Reina climbed the ruins of the Hall of Convergence. Her armor was scorched, her silver hair streaked with ash, but her eyes — glowing faintly with the mark Kaien left behind — burned with determination.
Behind her, Azrael followed silently, his once-imposing presence now subdued. "You've searched every realm, every fracture, every shadow," he said. "He's gone, Reina. Even you felt it — when he sealed the Void, his essence—"
Reina turned sharply. "His essence scattered, yes. But not destroyed."
She knelt, placing her palm against the cracked marble floor. Her hand glowed faintly, revealing ancient runes hidden beneath the stone — Kaien's last imprint.
"The Balance Mark," Azrael murmured.
Reina nodded. "He left this for me."
The rune pulsed, expanding into a glowing sigil that projected an image — a memory, frozen in light. Kaien stood within it, his face calm, eyes steady.
"If you see this, then I've become part of the Balance," his echo spoke. "But the Balance is not death — it's transformation. My essence now binds the barrier between existence and nothingness. If you wish to find me, seek the place between realms… the Hollow Axis."
The vision faded.
Azrael's crimson eyes narrowed. "The Hollow Axis is a myth. The space where worlds overlap but don't touch. Even the Void couldn't exist there."
"Exactly," Reina said quietly, rising to her feet. "That's where he is."
---
Days turned to weeks as Reina crossed shattered realms — the remnants of heaven's citadels, the burned deserts of the Abyss, the drifting human colonies of the void sea. Wherever she went, she felt traces of Kaien — faint echoes, whispers of balance left behind in moments of creation and destruction.
Each trace strengthened her connection to him. Each one drew her closer to the Axis.
But she wasn't the only one searching.
The remnants of the Void — the Eclipsed Ones — had survived the war. Fragments of sentient darkness that now hunted Kaien's essence to unseal their master, the Herald.
One night, as Reina rested in a crystalline canyon of broken stars, the shadows stirred.
A whisper brushed her ear. "Sovereign's shadow… you cannot protect what no longer exists."
She leapt up, blade drawn — its edge burning with Kaien's light. From the darkness, a figure emerged — human in form, but its eyes were swirling voids.
An Eclipsed One.
It smiled. "He is not lost to you. He is becoming us."
Reina's eyes flashed. "Not while I breathe."
The battle ignited like a storm. Light clashed against shadow, and every strike echoed with the power of worlds. The Eclipsed lunged, warping through dimensions, but Reina's sword cut through its form with blinding precision.
"Balance," she whispered — and her blade pulsed.
The creature screamed as its essence unraveled into white dust.
When the light faded, a fragment remained — a shard of Kaien's power. She touched it, and a pulse of warmth filled her chest. For a brief moment, she heard his voice.
"Reina…"
Her breath caught. "Kaien? Where are you?"
"The Axis… is fading. Hurry."
And then he was gone again.
---
Reina and Azrael stood at the edge of reality weeks later. Before them stretched a void unlike any they'd seen — not darkness, not light, but both intertwined in stillness.
"The Hollow Axis," Azrael said quietly. "The space between all things."
Reina's eyes glowed faintly. "And he's somewhere inside."
She stepped forward, and immediately her body flickered, half in shadow, half in light. The veil between existence and nonexistence began to pull at her, but she pressed on.
Azrael called after her, voice shaking. "If you go in, you might never come back!"
She turned once, smiling faintly. "He didn't hesitate to save us. I won't hesitate to save him."
Then she vanished into the Axis.
---
Inside the Hollow Axis, reality was fluid — shifting colors, infinite echoes, reflections of worlds that never were. Reina drifted through it, guided by the faint heartbeat of balance that pulsed somewhere deep within.
After what felt like eternity, she found him.
Kaien Draven — suspended in a pillar of light and shadow, his body frozen, his soul half-dispersed across the Axis. His expression was peaceful, but the void tendrils around him pulsed, trying to consume him completely.
Reina ran forward, her tears glimmering in the fractured light. "You said balance has limits, remember?" she whispered. "Then let me be the other side of it."
She placed her hand against his chest. Her aura flared — half silver, half gold. The mark of balance between them ignited.
Light exploded through the Axis, shattering the tendrils and merging their powers.
Kaien's eyes opened slowly — gold and black swirling together. "Reina…"
She smiled through her tears. "Welcome back, Sovereign."
But the Axis began to shake violently. The merging had destabilized it.
Kaien gripped her hand tightly. "You shouldn't have come here."
"Too late," she said softly. "We face eternity together — or not at all."
The Axis collapsed, and the two vanished in a burst of blinding light.
---
In the ruins of Eclipsera, Azrael looked up. The night sky — once shattered — began to heal. Two new stars appeared beside the moon, glowing intertwined.
He bowed his head. "Balance restored… through them both."
The stars pulsed once — as if answering.