The white dwarf pulsed like a tired heart in the vastness of space, its luminous breath the cradle of an ancient race — the Solarii. Born of flame and light, their civilization lived not upon soil but upon stellar winds, in cities suspended within radiant currents. At the core of it all rested the sanctum—a sacred chamber sealed in obsidian crystal and irradiated silence.
Inside, a boy lay dormant.
He was not yet a king, not yet a warrior, not yet even awake. But deep within his still chest stirred the echoes of kings long past. He had no name yet—not truly. The Solarii only called him the Endborne.
His slumber had lasted for centuries, sealed under divine edict. But today, the cosmos held its breath.
Aetherion opened his eyes.
It wasn't light he saw first—it was absence. The void clawed at the edges of his mind, whispering things without tongues. His breath caught in his throat, not out of fear, but memory. There had been fire. There had been blood. And then, silence.
But now the silence broke.
Across the astral chamber, golden conduits sparked awake, bathing the room in solar luminescence. Gears of starlight turned. Symbols etched into the crystal throbbed to life, reciting forgotten rites. The voice of the First Prime, long dead, spoke through time.
> "He awakens. The Final Flame. The True King."
Aetherion sat up.
He did not feel like a king. His body ached like rusted steel; his thoughts, clouded. But the moment he touched the floor, the chamber bent. Space twisted gently beneath his feet as if the cosmos had been holding its form just for him.
From the crystalline wall emerged a figure—tall, adorned in armor that shimmered with starfire. Her face was not human, nor alien, but a fragment of both.
"Welcome back, Aetherion," she said, kneeling. "I am Seraphyne, Keeper of the Dawn. I serve only the Primus."
"…Primus?" he asked, his voice raw.
"You," she replied simply. "Or rather, what you are to become."
Aetherion stood in silence as his memories began to drip back—shattered, incomplete, but undeniable. Flashes of war. Of something dark. Of a crown… broken.
His hand instinctively touched his chest. Etched there was a faint emblem—Ten radial marks forming a spiral seal.
> Ten Seals. Ten Trials. Ten awakenings until the Endborne becomes the Immortal King.
Seraphyne stepped forward and handed him a blade forged of compressed photons—the weapon of a Solarii. "The first seal remains unbroken. You must journey through the Worlds of Trial. Only then will the Beyond yield."
Aetherion narrowed his eyes. "And what lies beyond?"
She did not answer. Instead, she turned toward the edge of the chamber, where a breach in the crystal revealed the infinite starfield beyond.
"It begins," she said.