Two figures fled through the snow.
Their footsteps shattered the icy crust, leaving behind crimson stains that bloomed like wounded rubies against the white. Lirian stumbled, his breath coming in ragged bursts, each exhale a cloud of steam and blood. Weeks of flight had reduced even a Legend to flesh and exhaustion.
Ansara lay far to the southeast, the youngest of the Major Territories, born of conquest and faith, its wealth and power unmatched, its warriors feared across the continent. But here, in the desolation between kingdoms, titles and borders meant nothing.
Lirian, barely into his twenties, was the image of defiance on the edge of collapse. His jet-black hair whipped wildly in the storm, his green eyes still burning with unbroken resolve. A deep gash split his shoulder, blood soaking through leather armour reinforced with enchanted metal plates now dulled by grime and ruin. His Qi flickered weakly, stretched thin by battle and pursuit.
Beside him ran Elara.
Her beauty, once the pride of Luztar’s Carolin Clan, was not diminished, but sharpened by desperation. Her crimson hair blazed against the snow like a living flame, though her skin was pale with exhaustion and recent childbirth. In her arms, she clutched a bundle wrapped in heavy furs—a child, Nerion, whimpering softly, sheltered against the cold by his mother’s trembling embrace.
The snow shifted.
From the blizzard emerged shadows—twelve cloaked figures, their grey mantles blending seamlessly with the storm. They moved with trained precision, fanning out, cutting off every path of escape. Bows of pale wood were raised, ice-tipped arrows glistening with lethal intent. Curved swords hummed faintly, infused with the powerful Qi of their wielders.
They closed the circle.
Lirian stopped. His legs shook, but he did not kneel. Pride and Will held him upright when flesh no longer could.
“All this,” he rasped, blood staining his lips, “for two wounded rats?”
The air around him trembled. Even drained, even broken, the presence of a Legendary TAO Warrior was unmistakable. His power had once bent mountains and shattered armies. The cloaked figures hesitated despite themselves.
“If I weren’t half-dead,” Lirian continued, a crooked smile forming, “I’d scatter you across this mountain like ash.”
A figure stepped forward.
The leader lowered his hood, revealing a sallow face marked by sleepless eyes and a long scar across his cheek. Yellow irises gleamed like those of a desert predator. Despite the cruelty etched into his features, there was an undeniable, unsettling handsomeness to him.
On his hand, a silver ring caught the dying light—engraved with a Sigil Elara, and Lirian knew too well.
“Oh, Lirian,” the man said softly, his voice slick with venomous mirth. “The prodigy who thought he could steal from AEON and live. A traitor to the Templo. A stain upon the Balance… At least, that’s what history will say. You should have considered the offer from the Gran Maestre.”
He gestured lazily at Elara and the child.
“Hand over the Genesis Stone,” he continued, “and perhaps I’ll leave your bones for the crows.”
Lirian laughed—a wet, broken sound that spat blood onto the snow.
“You talk too much,” he snarled. “You’ve always been inferior; finally, now that I’m injured, perhaps you’ll have your chance. Come. Test my Will.”
Elara stepped forward, her voice trembling but unbroken.
“Spare our son,” she pleaded. “He is innocent. Take me. Take us both. Let him live under AEON’s balance.”
The leader’s smile widened, cruel and delighted.
“My sweet Elara… no.” His gaze fell upon the bundle in her arms. “Give us the Genesis Stone—or your child will be the first to die.”
The world exploded.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Lirian vanished.
In a blink faster than sight, he appeared behind one of the cloaked figures. His Qi surged, fueled by sheer Will, and his fist struck like thunder.
CRACK!
Bone shattered. The man’s sternum collapsed inward with a sound like a drum split in half, his body folding lifelessly into the snow, being sent flying several meters backwards.
At the same moment, Elara raised her free hand.
Mana surged, warm and radiant even in the killing cold.
“Heed my call, oh Aeonia,” she cried, her voice ringing with ancient authority.
“Let my mana be the TIMBER that fuels the wrath of your flames. Turn them into ashes…
Φ?δι τη? Φωτι??! (Fídi tis Fotiás - Fire Serpent)”
The air ignited.
A serpent of fire erupted into existence, four meters long, its incandescent scales blazing through the storm. It roared through the night, engulfing two cloaked figures in a cyclone of flame and screams. Ash and scorched flesh filled the air.
But there were too many.
Arrows hissed. Blades flashed. Shadows twisted as mages influenced the Will of the World itself. Lirian struck again and again, each blow devastating, yet slower than before. Elara staggered, drained by childbirth and mana alike, barely standing.
The leader watched, his expression tightening.
He made a single quick motion, invisible to even his companions. Only Lirian caught it.
FWISH!
A clean cut destroyed the Fire Serpent’s head.
“Pointless,” he said coldly. “Breaking you would be amusing… but risky.”
Even now, surrounded by elite warriors and mages from across the Territories, Lirian and Elara were terrifying. Although the man had the same Rank as Lirian, he knew himself inferior. A truth he’d never admit to. Nor would he need to.
Lirian met Elara’s gaze.
No words were needed.
With grim resolve, he drove his fingers into his own side. Hot blood poured freely into the snow.
The cloaked figures laughed—until Qi erupted outward.
A translucent force field blossomed around the family, radiant and unyielding, like a newborn sun piercing the storm.
“My Will,” Lirian roared, his voice echoing across the peaks, “is unbreakable!”
“Attack them!” the leader shouted.
Elemental chaos followed. Fireballs detonated. Ice lances shattered against the barrier. Winds screamed, shadows clawed. TAO warriors struck with thunderous blows driven by personal Will, while TIMBER mages bent the world’s power into annihilation.
The field held.
It drank Lirian’s life with every heartbeat.
The leader stepped closer, fury burning through his composure.
“Hand over the stone,” he snarled, his ring flashing. “And the child lives. This is the limit of my mercy.”
Lirian and Elara answered with silence.
Foreheads touching, they whispered through tears and blood.
“Send him to my family,” Elara begged softly. “They won’t mistreat him… not entirely.”
“No,” Lirian murmured. “Some of them are involved. This chase proves it. The Templo is rotten to its core.”
Tears fell like embers.
“He’s close enough,” Lirian whispered. “I’ll feel him through the spell.”
Elara kissed Nerion’s brow, her lips trembling. “Forgive me, my love. I’ve loved you with all that I am.”
Her hands traced burning sigils. Golden runes ignited the snow as Mana surged violently through her body. Her hair greyed, her skin wrinkled, her life burning away. Lirian poured his remaining Qi into her, forging a desperate, forbidden balance.
The leader’s eyes widened.
He transformed.
His flesh dissolved into black mist, his form growing into a towering spectre, over three meters tall, clad in shadow. A massive scythe formed in his grasp.
“My Will,” he thundered, “is death manifested!”
The blade fell.
CRAAAAAAASH!
A kilometre of earth split apart. Snow vaporised into clouds of steam. The mountain screamed.
Yet the barrier held.
The leader had waited too long, fearful of alerting Ansara’s Legendary sentinels. His fury shattered uselessly against sacrifice.
Light erupted.
Nerion and the Genesis Stone—plain, crystalline, warm to the touch—were engulfed in brilliance. The forbidden spell consumed Lirian and Elara as the child vanished from the world.
RAKHNA-AEON.
Silence followed.
The cloaked figures stood frozen.
Lirian and Elara, grey and frail, smiled serenely as the barrier faded. They waited peacefully for death.
The leader trembled, rage twisting his voice.
“Mark my words,” he swore. “I will find him. Even in Aeonia’s deepest abyss. I will kill him with my own hands. And I will erase the memory of your existence from this world!”
Nevertheless, he did not know where the child had gone.
As their bodies dissolved into motes of light, Lirian and Elara shared a final vision: a world drowning in war and death, a cruel figure laughing amidst ruin—
and opposite it, a beacon.
A tall youth with curly hair, bloodied yet determined, wielding a broken sword.
Hope.
“The Creator has not forsaken us,” they whispered.
Their bodies dissolved into motes of light, merging with the snow, denying their foes the joy of their deaths.
Eight hundred kilometres away, in the Radon Woods at the border of Ansara and Rhodar, near the barbarian lands of Murmur, an old man and a young boy with lion-like hair hunted beneath a veiled moon.
A pulse of light trembled across the sky.
Mikael froze.
In a clearing, scorched runes smouldered faintly in the earth. A bundle lay among them.
The boy quickly rushed towards it. “Pops, come quickly, look!”
Mikael came close and knelt.
It was a child. Around the baby’s neck hung a simple stone, warm to the touch.
The Genesis Stone.
“WAAAAH!” The cry of the baby broke the silence of the forest.
And with it, announced the dawn of a new era for Aeonia.
Excerpt From the III Annals of the Ancestral Kingdom of Ansara
Tome III, Epigraph XIV
Compiled in the year 2783 A.D.A. (Anno Domini AEON)
…
And so it was declared in the year 2733 A.D.A
Lirian De Mikaeli was named a traitor to the Templo.
The official reports said that Lirian died next to Elara Ten Carolin, heir to the Luztar Carolin Clan, in the frozen peaks between Murmur and Ansara.
Witnesses to the event refused to talk about the specifics.
However, there was a report in the Frontier of a light that, for less than a second, turned the night into day.
A true hero died that day. Maybe that light was a tear from Aeonia itself.
—Signed,Minister of History
Ancestral Kingdom of Ansara
Author’s Note:
Aeonian Chronicles: Children of the Orphanage. I hope you enjoyed the prologue’s dive into Aeonia’s frozen heart. Pronunciation guide: Lirian (Leer-ee-an), Elara (Eh-lar-ah), Nerion (Neer-ee-on).