Time flowed like an endless river, and he drifted upon its currents, an unchanging witness to the rise and fall of mankind. Homo sapiens evolved, growing stronger, smarter, and more ruthless. Their crude tools of stone and wood were abandoned for weapons of iron and bronze, their tattered shelters of mud and straw replaced by great fortresses of carved stone. No longer were they simple hunters and gatherers; they had become rulers, builders, conquerors.
At first, their battles were for survival—fighting against nature, against beasts, against the unknown dangers of the world. But soon, they turned their weapons against each other. Tribes split into factions, families became bloodlines of rulers, and the lands were divided by war. The earth that once bore them life was now soaked in the blood of their own kind.
He saw it all.
He wandered through the ruins of the first cities, watched the rise of kings and tyrants, witnessed the endless cycle of destruction and rebirth. War was eternal. Conflict, betrayal, ambition, and hatred became the driving forces of mankind. They forged alliances only to break them, built walls only to tear them down, crowned rulers only to dethrone them in fits of rage and rebellion.
Through it all, he remained unchanged. A silent observer.
He watched as empires rose from the dust, only to crumble back into the ashes of time. He saw the great civilizations of the past, their names now forgotten, their people lost to history. The first cities built with human hands, the first laws written on stone tablets, the first temples raised to gods long since abandoned.
But it was never enough. Mankind was never satisfied.
They invaded, conquered, enslaved, and killed. They spread across the world, leaving destruction in their wake. And in their conquest, they destroyed not just themselves but the world around them.
The creatures of old—the towering mammoths, the great saber-toothed predators, the massive reptiles that once ruled—were vanishing. Extinct. He had once walked among them, seen them roam freely across vast landscapes, untouched by mankind's hunger for dominance.
Now, they were gone.
The lush forests that had stretched endlessly across the horizon were burned to the ground to make way for cities. The rivers that had once run clear and pure were stained with blood and filth. The mountains that had stood for millennia were carved apart, mined for resources to fuel humanity's endless thirst for power.
This was humanity.
A species that created and destroyed in equal measure.
And yet, he did not intervene. He had no place in their world, no side to take, no purpose beyond watching. He was a relic of something far older than the kingdoms that now stood, a being who had lived for a million years yet remained nameless, forgotten by time itself.
But even an eternal witness can feel the weight of time.
One day, as he wandered once more through the ever-changing lands, he came upon a village—a small, quiet settlement far from the warring states. Unlike the great kingdoms that had risen and fallen, this place seemed untouched by the chaos of the world. The people lived simple lives, tending to their fields, raising their livestock, and keeping to themselves.
But beyond that village, towering against the horizon, stood a castle.
A massive, imposing structure of stone and steel.
A kingdom. The Eldian Kingdom.
Something about it called to him. A presence he could not ignore, a force that pulled at him like an unseen thread woven into the fabric of fate. He did not know why, nor did he understand what awaited him beyond those towering walls, but he could not turn away.
For the first time in centuries, he did not simply observe.
He walked forward.