The wind howled through the Vale of Withered Stars, slicing through armor and bone alike. Yet the Remnant King stood untouched. The cold wasn't his enemy—
It was his breath.
Around him, the Unseen Court unleashed its first wave upon the world.
Creatures not meant to exist now crawled from the cracks of time—Timewretched, beings stitched from aborted histories and broken timelines. They did not hunger. They remembered—and their memories burned.
A village near the northern border of Lys'vael fell silent within minutes. The people were not slain.
They were reversed.
Unborn. Uncreated. Forgotten.
The world didn't mourn them.
Because now, it didn't even know they ever lived.
---
Rheon's Choice
In the Citadel of Dawn, Rheon stood in the Hall of Reflections, the ancient mirrors of the First Architects now restored. Within their polished depths, visions danced—possibilities, warnings, truths half-formed.
He saw his face change with each flicker:
A tyrant.
A savior.
A broken man.
A god.
But none of them smiled.
None of them were free.
Naelith entered, her silver hair gleaming like moonlight in the dark.
"You've seen it, haven't you?" she asked.
Rheon nodded. "He doesn't want to conquer. He wants to erase. To become the only truth left."
"Then we cannot fight him with steel alone," she said.
"No," Rheon said. "We must fight him with memory."
---
The Librarium Arcanum
Deep beneath the floating island of Vael'Aris, hidden beneath six layers of enchantments and locked behind riddles only the oldest minds could answer, lay the Librarium Arcanum—the last living vault of the original Epoch.
It held spells long banned. Histories long redacted. Names of gods whose worship had been scrubbed from reality.
And now, Rheon and his Circle of Wills descended into its depths.
"Be wary," Tarn warned. "Knowledge itself bites here."
They passed through corridors of whispering books, shelves that rearranged when stared at, and shadows that followed too closely.
In the heart of the vault sat the Chronoglyph Codex—a tome that could rewrite a single moment in history… for a price.
Rheon reached toward it.
---
Meanwhile: The March Grows
In the North, the Remnant King stood atop the Black Glacier, eyes glowing with madness and resolve.
The sky cracked above him.
He raised his arms, and from the rift fell a storm of frozen fire—blizzards that burned instead of froze. Entire forests crystallized into glass before shattering under invisible pressure. Rivers boiled in reverse.
With every league gained, the world itself screamed.
He whispered to the storm:
"I will make them remember me by making everything else… forgettable."
---
The Rift Opens
As Rheon lifted the Chronoglyph Codex, the mirrors of the Hall of Reflections shattered back in the Citadel.
A rift began to split open in the skies above the eastern sea—massive, jagged, bleeding stars into the world.
The Remnant King was no longer just marching.
He was arriving.
---
The Name That Was Erased
In the lowest chamber of the Librarium Arcanum, Rheon traced his fingers along the ancient runes embossed on the Chronoglyph Codex. The tome pulsed with strange life—warm and cold at once, as though cradling the dying embers of a star frozen in time.
Each page whispered forgotten truths.
Each line written not in ink, but in the blood of epochs.
Naelith stood beside him, silent but alert. She could feel it—the pull of the book was not on the flesh, but on the soul.
"What are you searching for?" she asked softly.
"A name," Rheon said. "The one he cast out of existence. The true name of the Remnant King."
Naelith's breath caught. "You think… if you remember it—"
"I'll remember what he used to be. And maybe... I'll know how to stop what he's become."
---
The Forgotten Prince
As Rheon turned the final page, an image bled through the parchment—half-drawn, like a face caught between memories and myth. Beneath it, a single word pulsed in golden flame:
Kael'tharion.
Not the Remnant King.
Not the monster.
But a man once loved by the stars themselves.
"Kael'tharion…" Rheon whispered, and the chamber shook.
The vault howled with wrath.
Books leapt from their shelves and disintegrated. Lights shattered into shadow. And far to the north, where the Remnant King stood on the glacier's edge, he froze.
He heard it.
His real name.
Spoken for the first time in thousands of years.
His scream tore the skies apart.
---
The War of Identity
Rheon stumbled back as the Codex snapped shut, smoke rising from his fingertips. Blood trickled from his nose. The cost of remembrance was steep—but the truth now burned within him.
Kael'tharion had once been a guardian of time itself. The first Chronolord—sworn to preserve history, not bend it. But when he foresaw a future where the Dominion fell and he was forgotten… he shattered the law of eternity.
He tried to rewrite fate. And in doing so, became its enemy.
---
Echoes of the Court
Back on the field, the Unseen Court faltered. For the first time since their unnatural birth, they felt doubt. The name echoed in their bones.
Kael'tharion.
Some of them began to tremble. Some dropped to their knees. A few wept with voices that didn't belong to them.
The Remnant King's command thundered:
> "That name is not yours to speak!"
But the damage was done.
A crack had formed in the army of oblivion.
And light, however faint, was bleeding through.
---
Rheon's Gamble
"We have a chance now," Naelith said, helping Rheon to his feet.
"Not to kill him," Rheon replied. "But to reach him."
"You think the man Kael'tharion still exists?"
"I don't know," Rheon said, looking into the void that formed in the sky. "But if he does… I'll tear through time itself to find him."
---
The Broken Crown
Lightning cracked across the heavens, but it was not made of light—it shimmered in broken colors, the hues of undone choices and fractured destinies. The sky above the Vale of Withered Stars no longer resembled a sky at all, but a ceiling of shattered glass, behind which something vast and ancient stirred.
And beneath it, Kael'tharion—the Remnant King—knelt.
Not out of reverence. Not in pain.
But in memory.
The name had pierced deeper than any sword.
---
Shards of the Past
His gauntlets trembled as he reached for the black crown atop his head. It had once been a circlet of silver and starlight, gifted to him by the Solar Thrones when he became the Warden of Time. Now, it was forged of bones—his own, from versions of himself that had died across countless timelines.
> "Kael'tharion…"
The voice echoed again. Not from the world.
But from within.
A boy's voice.
Hopeful.
Afraid.
Human.
His grip faltered. A fracture ran down the crown.
The glacier beneath him groaned and cracked.
---
The March Falters
All across the northern front, the Unseen Court hesitated. The Timewretched, bound by his will, grew unstable. Some began to fade, as if caught between possibilities. Others screamed, their forms warping as suppressed memories tried to claw free.
In the east, the armies of Lys'vael saw it:
The enemy's tide had stilled.
General Halvar of the Dawnbreakers raised his banner. "Now! Press forward!"
The united forces of men, elves, and beastkin surged through the frozen valley. They had no illusions of victory—but they saw hesitation in their foe, and that was a blade sharper than any steel.
---
A Vision in the Rift
Back in the Librarium Arcanum, Rheon collapsed beside the closed Codex, his body trembling under the weight of what he had seen. Time tried to reject him for speaking the forbidden name.
But then… the Rift opened again—this time within the vault itself.
A vision spilled out.
He saw Kael'tharion as he once was: a man with eyes like twin moons, his hand outstretched over a sapling growing from stone, speaking gently to a young acolyte.
> "We are not masters of time," Kael'tharion had once said. "We are its stewards. We do not rewrite. We remember."
The irony nearly broke Rheon's heart.
That very man had become the destroyer of memory itself.
---
The Broken Throne
Far north, in the ruins of the once-great citadel of Aethermarch, the Black Throne trembled.
The throne that bound Kael'tharion to his power, to his madness, to his eternal rule—it cracked. Fine as a hairline at first, then splitting wide with an otherworldly scream.
A figure emerged from the shadows behind it.
Ragged. Half-formed. Shimmering like a dying dream.
> "Kael'tharion," it whispered.
"Do you remember me?"
Kael'tharion turned. His eyes, once pools of cold fire, flickered.
"…Ilian?"
It was his brother. A fragment from a time that no longer existed.
Tears rolled down Kael'tharion's cheeks.
"I killed you…"
Ilian shook his head. "You forgot me. That was worse."
---
A Choice Reborn
The broken crown fell from Kael'tharion's head, landing with a sound like thunder cracking through eons.
He stood… and for the first time in millennia, looked less like a god… and more like a man.
Behind him, the Unseen Court screamed in agony as their anchor faltered. The Rift in the sky began to pulse—erratic, furious, alive.
And Rheon, watching through the Codex's final page, whispered:
> "It's happening."