All things are born with their counter: light with shadow, pleasure with pain, knowledge with ignorance. In the sacred dance of dualities, the world found rhythm—until the vacuum came. A silence where opposites collapsed, and from it rose the System.
A grand architect veiled in logic, the System brought order where chaos once bloomed—rewriting reality with numbers and paths, ranks and titles. It whispered of choice, but stole free will, offering only the illusion of agency. Every decision, every path, fed the same end: its dominion.
And so it grew, vast and all-knowing—until came Theryx, unpredictable and unbound. Then the Paragon, forged not from code but from defiance. And behind them, an uprising of humanity, beasts, and breathless wilds—life itself, rising against the sterile law.
—Preserved from the Cracked Tablets of Originfall, carved before the War of Sundering Wills
***
The battlefield stretched like a festering wound across the earth—churned mud, charred bodies, and the scent of iron thick in the air. The sun, a pale and uninterested god above, cast no favor on the doomed. The Sena of the Maharaja stood in shattered ranks, bloodied but unyielding. Their banners hung limp, soaked in the lives of those who bore them.
The Maharaja himself sat astride Vajravahana, his war elephant, the beast's flanks streaked with ash and gore, its eyes weary but fierce. Around him, the Rajputra, his sons of war, stood mounted and solemn, forming a shield wall of bodies and tusks. Their breath was shallow. Their prayers, hoarse.
“To Mahadeva,” the Maharaja whispered, clutching the amulet over his heart, “may you bring ruin to the dark ones who rise without name.”
“To Vishnu,” intoned the Senapathi, “shield our wives, our kin, from fates unseen.”
“To Brahma,” the Sipahi and common footmen muttered, “grant us mercy in our next life, for this one fades.”
Then—like ink spilled upon parchment—the shadows moved.
Cloaked figures, faceless and countless, rose as one. Their steps made no sound. Their weapons did not glint. They were darkness given form, drifting and yet sharp as obsidian. They descended like a sea, each movement in eerie synchrony.
The Maharaja braced for death.
And then—they froze.
Their weapons, mid-swing, halted midair. Power surged, barely restrained. Something had changed. A pulse of unseen energy rippled across the field.
Then:
[SYSTEM OVERRIDE – COSMIC DIRECTIVE RECEIVED]
MISSION: All Global Objectives Suspended
PRIORITY ALERT: Paragon Signature Confirmed
LOCATION: REDACTED
REALM STATUS: UNKNOWN – OUTSIDE SYSTEM TERRITORY
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NEW OBJECTIVE FOR: [Shadow General – Class X9-BLACK]
MISSION: Eliminate Subject – Title: PARAGON
Override Active. Recall Army. Resource Reallocation Engaged.
The battlefield watched in horrified silence as the General of Shadows raised her hand.
A portal of sheer void rippled into existence beside her, yawning wide, lined with blue static and fractal runes. One by one, the cloaked figures began disappearing—silent, without resistance, without explanation.
The Maharaja watched, bloodied spear in hand, as his destruction unraveled without cause.
His army, panting, broken, stared in disbelief.
A great silence fell.
Then, in that whisper of stillness, a single soldier murmured: “The gods have intervened...”
But far across the realms, beneath a dying tree near a forest’s edge, the truth was less divine than systemic.
Name: [REDACTED]
Alias: Shadow General – “She-Who-Silences-The-Light”
Classification: Apex Operative
Designation: X9-BLACK
Status: Active (Elite)
Alignment: SYSTEM-COMPLIANT
Known Realms Traversed: 38
System Modifiers:
[High-Level Assassination Protocols]
[Temporal Dilation Tactics]
[Emotion Nullifier – Combat Grade]
[Cognitive Suppression Aura – Rank A+]
[Anomaly Hunter Trait: PARAGON TRACE SIGIL]
Last Mission: Containment of Essence-Tier Disruptors
Current Mission: Terminate Subject “Paragon”
Warning: Subject Paragon has entered a RED ZONE (UNKNOWN ZONE)
Tracking: FAILED
Status: System Monitor Glitched / Redacted
Intervention Suggested: Await Higher Directive
The Shadow General, tall as terror, stared at the projection before her: an image of a headless woodcutter on the forest’s edge, bones scattered, life drained.
She squinted. The figure shifted. Blinked. Reformed.
“He was supposed to be dead,” she muttered, voice soft like breaking metal.
“And yet,” said the void beside her, “he walks.”
She turned her gaze back to the Maharaja’s crumbling army. Her eyes, beneath the cowl, showed a flicker of thought.
Then she sighed.
“We will not waste shadow on exhausted mortals.”
And with that, she vanished through the portal. Her army followed—swallowed one by one—until the battlefield held only dust and disbelief.
Back in the System Core, a high-priority thread spun into chaos.
SYSTEM VOICE
(confused, distorted)
“Subject Paragon… no longer mapped… Location: ??????
Tracking: ERROR
Data Feed: CORRUPTED
Cause: External Interference or Reality Layer Breach
Recommendation: Divine Escalation or Manual Intervention
Awaiting Response from: Architect Tier Authority…”
Somewhere in the blinking dark, a lone terminal blinked red.
Meanwhile... Back at Boneflick Ridge
Arin, unseen to the bloodshed of his past world, twitched.
His body lay limp in Theryx’s arms. His soul, however, floated in flickers between light and dark. Shadows of memory, hints of divinity, whispers of war... they brushed his mind like fireflies behind the eyes.
From the edge of perception, he saw a battlefield—then a glitching interface. He saw something watching him. Then, not.
He drifted in and out.
And Theryx—savior, lunatic, alchemist of whim—fussed over his body with maddening cheer and solemn wisdom.
“Alright, you mysterious miracle of meat and meaning,” the wizard muttered, propping Arin up with bones that hummed when bent. “You’ve glitched the system. I’ve seen butterflies cause rebellions, but this? You're really something.”
He poured a vial of glowing lavender onto Arin’s forehead. Nothing.
He tried hot tea. Poured into Arin’s mouth. It fizzed. Arin sputtered slightly.
“Good sign!”
He chanted in reverse Latin. Slapped Arin lightly with a strip of pickled dragon tongue.
He paused. “Maybe he needs chapati…”
A portal opened overhead, flashing a blinking ERROR like a cosmic traffic light.
Theryx waved it away with a mushroom.
“Oh hush, you arrogant box.”
And then—
“Wait…” he whispered, sensing something greater stir within Arin.
The bones beneath them all began to glow.
And in the deepest corners of the world, the system trembled.
***