Valdarin was not a great city.
It had no golden palaces that scraped the heavens, no ancient temples older than empires, and no legendary kings whose names were whispered across the continent. Travelers rarely spoke of Valdarin in stories, and historians rarely bothered to write its name in their books.
Yet the city lived.
And like all living things, it breathed quietly beneath the passing of time.
Valdarin stood near the edge of civilization, where the paved trade roads slowly dissolved into the vast dark forests of the east. Merchants passed through its gates every week, wagons heavy with spices, iron, fabrics, and stories from distant lands. Travelers rested in its inns before daring to cross the wilderness.
Humans filled most of the streets, their voices loud and constant like waves crashing upon stone.
Among them walked the Nightborn, pale aristocrats whose long upward-curving ears and silver eyes made them impossible to mistake. They rarely mingled with the common crowds, preferring the cleaner avenues of the upper districts.
And sometimes—usually at night—figures with sharper senses and heavier footsteps could be seen lurking at the edges of the taverns.
Shapeshifters.
Those who belonged to the forests more than the cities.
Different races, different lives, all breathing beneath the same sky.
Valdarin was not powerful.
But it was alive.
And on that night, none of its fifty thousand inhabitants realized that their city had already begun its final hours.
---
The ninth bell rang from the clock tower.
Its deep metallic sound rolled slowly across the city streets like distant thunder.
The evening market was closing.
Wooden stalls were dismantled piece by piece as merchants packed their goods into wagons and crates. Lanterns flickered in the growing darkness, throwing long wavering shadows across the cobbled ground.
Near the southern market gate, a massive man stepped away from a forge whose dying coals glowed faintly in the darkness.
Darin Holf, the blacksmith of Valdarin.
His shoulders were wide, his arms thick with muscle earned from years of hammering molten iron into shape. His beard was dark with soot, and the skin of his hands had hardened into something closer to leather than flesh.
He exhaled heavily.
"Finally."
The forge behind him crackled quietly as the last flames faded.
Darin wiped sweat from his forehead with a cloth and stepped outside his workshop.
The night air was cold.
Colder than usual.
But winter was approaching, and cold winds were common this time of year.
He stretched his back and glanced upward.
The sky was almost entirely hidden behind thick clouds, dark and heavy as if they carried a storm that had forgotten to fall.
For a moment, something strange caught his eye.
A line.
Thin.
Black.
Running across the sky like a wound.
Darin frowned.
He blinked.
The line vanished.
He stared for another moment before shaking his head.
"Too much work," he muttered to himself.
Then he locked the door of his forge and began walking toward home, unaware that he had just glimpsed something no one in Valdarin was meant to see.
---
High above the city streets, inside the tall stone tower belonging to Valdarin Academy, another man stared at the sky.
But unlike Darin, Elon Varik did not dismiss what he saw.
Because Elon had been watching the sky for hours.
The room around him was filled with instruments that most ordinary people would not understand.
Brass rings engraved with glowing runes hovered above wooden tables. Glass cylinders held liquids that shimmered faintly with magical energy. Parchments and notebooks covered every surface.
At the center of the room stood a large brass device the size of a standing man.
It resembled a clock.
But where numbers should have been, ancient runes were carved instead.
At the center of the circular face was a long silver needle.
This machine measured something invisible.
Aether.
The energy that flowed through the entire world.
For centuries, the needle had moved slowly and predictably, recording the natural rhythm of reality itself.
Tonight…
It stopped.
Elon leaned forward slowly.
The needle trembled.
Then began moving again.
But not upward.
Downward.
Very slowly.
Very slightly.
But unmistakably.
Elon's heartbeat quickened.
"No…"
He adjusted one of the brass rings.
The needle continued descending.
He replaced the crystal powering the instrument.
Nothing changed.
The needle dropped another fraction.
Aether was weakening.
And that should have been impossible.
Aether was not a fuel that could be consumed.
It was the foundation of existence itself.
If Aether was decreasing…
Then something had begun feeding on the world.
Elon's gaze slowly rose toward the tall window of the tower.
Outside, Valdarin glowed with hundreds of lantern lights.
The city looked peaceful.
Unaware.
But beyond the clouds…
He saw it.
The line.
A thin black fracture stretching across the sky.
A wound in reality.
---
Meanwhile, in a warehouse near the harbor district, someone screamed.
It was the scream of a man who had finally understood that no one was coming to save him.
The room was small and damp, lit only by a single trembling candle.
A man hung from rusted chains attached to a wooden beam above him.
His wrists were tied high over his head.
Blood dripped slowly from his arms onto the stone floor.
Three figures stood before him.
They wore no uniforms.
But their tools spoke clearly.
A long narrow knife.
Iron pliers.
A small brass bowl.
The man holding the knife spoke calmly.
"We'll ask one last time."
The prisoner coughed weakly.
"I already told you… I don't know anything!"
The interrogator sighed.
He had heard those words countless times before.
He gestured toward his companion.
The iron pliers closed slowly around the prisoner's fingers.
The screaming returned.
But the interrogator barely listened.
His attention was fixed on the table beside him.
A small crystal rested upon the wood.
Normal Aether crystals glowed blue.
This one…
Was black.
Not dull black like stone.
But a deep unnatural darkness that seemed to swallow the candlelight around it.
The interrogator picked it up carefully.
"Where did you find this?"
The prisoner sobbed.
"In the forest! I swear I just found it there!"
The interrogator stared at the crystal.
Then whispered quietly.
"No."
"The forest doesn't make things like this."
The moment his fingers tightened around the crystal…
The air trembled.
Very faintly.
The candle flickered.
Then died.
Darkness filled the room.
At first, no one spoke.
Then something happened.
The stone wall beside the table cracked.
But it did not crumble.
Instead…
A small portion of reality simply vanished.
Leaving behind a black opening.
A hole that seemed deeper than the darkness around it.
The prisoner began to cry.
"What is that…?"
No one answered.
Because something moved inside the void.
Slowly.
A hand emerged.
Long fingers.
Too many joints.
Skin gray like that of a corpse.
The interrogator stepped back.
For the first time in many years…
Fear touched his face.
Outside the warehouse…
Above the city of Valdarin…
The crack in the sky widened slightly.
Only slightly.
But it was enough.
Because some doors require only the smallest opening.
And once they begin to open…
The world itself cannot close them again.
Somewhere deep within the forest…
Creatures that had never walked this world slowly opened their eyes.
Valdarin slept peacefully beneath the wounded sky.
Unaware that its final night had already begun.