The Beginning After The End Chapter 528: A Wisp of Aether

INTERLUDE

Weight. Limitation. Mastery.

Accumulating, rising, and intensifying...

Suddenly... liberation. It is not a violent blast or a chaotic eruption, but rather a fading of the forced constraint. It feels rhythmic and calm. A soft transition back toward the chaotic flow of the natural world. A soothing drift through the currents of time. Erosion. Entropy. Growth.

The intensity wanes, then surges, then recedes once more. The aperture is incredibly narrow, and as the wisp nears it, the tension reaches its peak.

A fragment of violet specks escapes from the Everburn Fountain, seeking out lore and identities within the vast world. Initially, it is seized by a powerful suction like a tide, pulled upward through the Relictombs Spire. There is an abundance of aether here as well—a surging river of thick particles flowing steadily from the emptiness back into the material realm, fueled by the constant operation of the Relictombs' systems.

However, the fragment swerves around and evades the ravenous, absorbing gears. It spins, carves path, and glides like a leaf atop a racing stream, though this current is surging upward through the endless miles of the tower. The Spire feels recognizable yet unsettling, akin to the lingering trace of a nightmare once one has woken.

The fragment traverses aethereal realms where physics are warped and gravity is ignored—places where the impossible takes physical shape. Vitality pulses within the tower; the fragment senses the resonances of ancient malice and the disorientation of fresh existence. Massive forests, bottomless seas, and sweeping drifts of ice and sand. Realm after realm. Part after part.

The fragment glides through a massive white pavilion, brushing past Shadow Claws and Ghost Bears—beings of the Relictombs, manifested outside of physical law and stained by the compressed turmoil of the void. It pauses briefly over an elderly, white-furred woman. She laboriously climbs jagged stairs from her frozen wasteland toward a different realm that she is unable to comprehend.

The fragment exits the Spire's highest portal and enters a domain of soaring peaks. It drifts over jagged stone ridges, past elevated nests teeming with iridescent birds, through the rose-colored foliage of trees clinging to the summits, and over a bridge of jewels that shimmers with the colors of a rainbow. The corridors and vaults it traverses on the far side are vacant and silent. A majestic fortress, straining toward the very limits of the world's atmosphere, now stands as desolate as a grave.

From nearby, a summons echoes. A silent request for the aether to manifest. Driven by curiosity, the fragment flits through a window and hitches a ride on a descending current, diving back down the slopes toward the source of the attraction. All around it, other clusters of aether are answering the same call.

The fragment slips into a mountain fissure, gliding like a breeze into the heart of the heavy rock. Geolus is stirring, awakening—or perhaps merely tossing in its sleep—deep within the earth. The closer it gets, the more powerful the pull of the pleading soul becomes.

A cavern reveals itself, illuminated by the azure radiance of a pool designed to sustain life. The water possesses its own gravitational pull, tugging at the fragment, but the summons is more compelling. A woman—a dragon, the queen of dragons, Myre Indrath—is kneeling before the water, radiant with aether. Her voice and her intent are weaving a spell upon the pool. Or rather, upon its contents. Life after life... death. Those who have passed.

The fragment draws nearer, circling first around Myre and then around... Kezess Indrath. Yet it is not him. It is a corpse. Flesh and bone and rot.

The fragment pays heed. Equal parts prayer and direction, the enchantment is one of... dissolution. Freedom. A homecoming. It feels appropriate and virtuous, and so the fragment complies, merging with the surrounding aether and sinking into the restorative waters, which shift to a glowing purple. Disturbed, ripples dance across the surface, washing over the decaying remains. The body begins to break down, its essence nourishing and revitalizing the vivum essence of the pool.

"Peace, dear husband, and rest, at long last. For too long you were asked to hold the weight of a world on your conscience. I have tried to share your burden, but what we did to protect our people..."

Myre Indrath brushes her fingers through the glowing blue water, tears glinting on her face.

"Forgive me for saying so, my love, but I am glad to finally lay down this burden. If the sharp eyes of predators do turn on our people, they will know the price of your sacrifice. I can only hope that the generation you have left behind will be able to protect them."

Inside the pool, the aether congregates around the woman's hand, but the fragment now wavers. This is different. This is not dissolution, but annihilation. It recoils, fleeing the water, even as more aether arrives, lured by the earlier summons. There is fury within it. Malice. The destruction beckons to it. Thus, the fragment catches a gust of air and rides it out of the cavern, soaring high into the sky until it can overlook the vast, curving horizon of the world below.

Geolus trembles. The fortress—Indrath Castle—shatters as if it were made of sand, tumbling into the chasm between the two summits in a thick cloud of debris. A tall spire smashes through the rainbow bridge. Within moments, the palace has vanished.

The fragment latches onto a glint of reflected sunlight and is swept across the width of the ring. It dances among the aether forming the atmospheric shield around the ring, then slips through, falling miles down toward the next level.

A fierce wind sweeps across tall, teal grass toward a modest but expansive settlement. The fragment is blown into the heart of the village, twisting and turning through the air until it circles a row of pillars that grow progressively thinner and taller at the center of the town. Battle's End.

Two individuals are atop the pillars, while a dozen others observe subtly from the ground. One is a lithe, powerful asura—pantheon, mentor, brother, Kordri Thyestes—and the other is a young human woman. Eleanor Leywin.

The fragment spirals around them, hidden within a mist of aether that neither can perceive.

They both hold a perfect stance, balancing on the tips of their left toes atop the narrow posts, left knees bent, right ankles resting above them, spines straight. The pantheon balances a wooden beam over his shoulders with his arms extended, while the human girl holds a bar of silver light-metal. She shakes from the effort but remains balanced.

"Yes, I sensed it on my journey to the surface," Kordri was saying, his speech doing nothing to disrupt his exacting posture.

"I guess I...hadn't noticed," Ellie answers, straining to maintain her position.

"I expect you to pay closer attention to your surroundings, Eleanor," Kordri scolds gently. "When you return to the surface, take time to feel the movement of the mana. It is shifting dramatically. Thinning. If it has something to do with the Relictombs Spire or Epheotus, your brother should know."

"Well, I can ask," Ellie says, her tone pitching up. Kordri answers with a heavy stare, and she winces, the tightening of her muscles making her wobble on her post. "I mean, I will pay attention, Master Kordri, and will of course speak to my brother."

The fragment swoops in, brushing against the girl's hands and the silver metal, before being swept away once more. It crosses the edge of the second ring and descends in slow, wide arcs toward the third and lowest level. It skims the crests of the waves hitting the beach of another village. Children splash in the surf, and the fragment swirls past them before darting away.

The Spire—the Relictombs—looms again, and the aether is pulled back inside. Thousands of vessels are drawing in aether, and other clusters of motes respond with excitement, flying into crystals and runes to provide power. But the fragment is pulled past them, continuing down the Spire's length, past realm after realm, feeling both familiar and strange.

Near the Spire's foundation, the realms transition into inhabited structures. People. Thousands of them. The fragment drifts through hair and whispers past ears, causing skin to prickle. It halts near a small cluster of life sparks, one of which exerts a draw. A girl with cropped blonde hair, an ascender. Ada Granbehl.

Her teammates look at her with doubt. All are young. All are terrified. "Are you sure, Ada? We don't have to—"

"If you're scared to ascend, you're in the wrong place." Her words cut off her companion's. They leave her tongue like sparks from a fire. "He took everything from me. I won't let him take the Relictombs, too. I'm going."

"We're with you, of course," another says, and then they are moving. Rising.

A gravitational pull drags the fragment away from them, toward the Spire's core, where a crystal structure surrounded by spinning, runed stones weaves a network through the entire Relictombs. Strands of aether link the floating consciousness within to every part of the tower. Ji-ae. Djinn. The guardian. She reaches for the fragment, but it dodges away. Other aether responds instead, being sucked into her mechanisms.

But the fragment darts away, out the entrance and across the settlement now surrounding the Spire's base. The flow of aether here is intense—a tide that swirls through the peaks of the Basilisk Fang mountains, which now form a ring separating Alacrya’s lands from the Spire.

Groups of people travel in perfectly straight lines across the flat ground between the peaks and the Spire, like spokes on a wheel. Their small sparks of life shine brightly, and for a while, the fragment merges with the current flowing through the mountains.

When it continues, it is pulled south by a cold breeze, passing through the city of Cargidan. The city is teeming with life, all converging on a massive library, and the fragment follows. Inside, people—Alacryans, humans with the blood of basilisks—argue and shout and cheer. The fragment is drawn to one person in particular, around whom aether clings as if observing with fascination.

Dark horns circle her head like a crown amidst her navy blue hair. Serious red eyes look around with deep thought. She lacks the summons, but her presence is magnetic. Caera Denoir. Sister, daughter, ally. Saturated with the blood of the Vritra clan of asuras.

"I accept your nomination to support and represent Cargidan City in the new Alacryan Assembly. I appreciate your trust, and am intent on proving myself worthy of it."

The fragment is buffeted by a sudden flurry of other aether motes as they are all struck by a surge of mana. Beams and flashes of light erupt into the sky around the library, and the fragment tumbles out a window and into the heavens, riding the shockwaves of mana.

Growing in size, it streaks away, glowing like a violet spark against the yellow, red, and blue hues of the mana.

A cool wind and the harmony of water and air attribute mana carry it down the river toward the borders of Sehz Clar. It follows the remnants of where the great barrier once stood until it finds a cliff where a large manor is being reconstructed.

All around the property, laborers are busy manipulating mana and using tools. Yet amidst the chaos, one woman stands perfectly still. Except for the faint sound of her clicking her nails together—a rhythmic habit she starts and stops, noticing herself, forcing stillness, then beginning again. The fragment joins the aether lingering near the woman: horned with pearl-colored hair, stern, a figure in the shadows, Scythe Seris Vritra.

Mana ripples through the air like a waterfall, and Seris reaches for a partially rolled scroll. She exhales, then smiles and nods. Writing on the parchment with a quill, she triggers another small ripple of mana, and the fragment chases after it.

Please pass on my congratulations to Representative Denoir, the scroll says. Its words resonate within the mana. I shall take great joy in watching her continued rise in the political circles as I pursue my much-deserved retirement. I have no doubt she will be President of the Assembly very soon.

Circling the rapidly moving mana, the fragment breaks away and instead follows a stray thread of aether flowing east into Etril. It rounds the base of the mountains, passes over the city of Nirmala, and heads toward the coast. The aether descends on the small village of Maerin, where a woman—retainer, the Black Rose of Etril, Mawar Vritra—uses mana like shadows to mend a building.

Many life sparks assist in the repairs where a structure—a mage academy—has partially collapsed. The aether clusters around two young workers, circling them and nudging at their markings—spellforms. They halt their labor, looking at one another. The boy—brother, survivor, Shield, Seth Milview—leans down and touches his sweaty, dirty forehead to the girl's—sister, survivor, Sentry, Mayla Fairweather. She smiles and gives him a brief, hidden kiss before returning to work. The flowing aether surrounds them before moving toward the distant ocean, but the fragment stays behind.

Heavy earth attribute mana clings to the remains of an Epheotan rock that has been cleared from the crater where half the school once stood. It rolls across the ground as the young pair move stones and carry debris.

Soon, the attraction becomes too powerful to resist, and the fragment leaves Maerin Town, following the aether stream over the coast and into the currents of wind and mana that bridge the continents. Transformed leviathans glide through the ocean below, where their ancient dwellings might have once been.

Alacrya fades behind it, and Dicathen appears ahead.

The aetheric currents diverge, some moving east and others south. The fragment follows the coastline eastward, tumbling in the winds of the cliffs, drifting back and forth across the shore along the changing air pressure and competing pockets of atmospheric mana.

Small fishing hamlets pass below, alongside the marks of previous conflicts, as a vast, fortified city appears in the distance. The fragment descends into Etistin Bay, spinning on the circular tides and drifting through the sails of cargo ships before being caught in a plume of steam from a large vessel and launched into the air. A powerful pull originates from the palace below, and the fragment flutters down to dance over the sharp towers before blowing like a leaf through an open window.

Aether has congregated around a scarred, elderly dragon. Charon Indrath. He stands silently as five others sit at an oval table, immersed in talk. The fragment is likewise drawn to him, briefly absorbed into the larger flow of aether.

Around the table, others attract aether as well, some more intensely than others.

"Shall we take roll?" asks Lilia Helstea, her expression grave and her eyes shining. The fragment drifts over the pile of documents in front of her. "Kathyln Glayder, representing Etistin."

Kathyln's dark hair frames a pale, resolute face as she lifts a slender hand.

"Kaspian Bladeheart, representing Blackburn."

A lean man with sharp features, a thin mustache, and rimless spectacles raises a hand and an eyebrow at once. The fragment rides a breeze that stirs his dark hair.

"Astera Alderman, Kalberk City."

Madam Astera taps her knuckles on the table. The fragment darts past her, spinning around the wooden leg beneath the table.

Lilia continues her list, and delegates from cities across Sapin continue to identify themselves. The fragment returns to Charon, whose attraction is the most potent.

"And of course, myself, Lilia Helstea, representing Xyrus. Welcome to the third official meeting of the High Council of Sapin," Lilia says, glancing around with a tentative smile. "We have a special guest with us today: Charon of Clan Indrath."

The dragon moves forward, but the fragment dart back out the window, streaking over the city and then south. It zips over Mirror Lake and the city of Carn, but slows as the woods and fields of Sapin turn into rolling dunes, miles of sand, and jagged canyons. Aether collects beneath the desert, trapped by the dense earth attribute mana.

The pull is intense here. Streams of aether gather from across the continent and sink into the tunnels.

The fragment flies through one of these passages and into the inverted hive that is the city of Vildorial. Life sparks are packed together, crowding every street, every balcony, even the rooftops and floating stone rails, all focused on the city's center.

A combat arena has been built in the open space of the cavern. Beams and chains created from mana support it, yet it vibrates with every heavy strike. In the middle of the arena, two dwarves confront each other—Daymor Silvershale, young and dark-haired, possessing spellforms, and Skarn Earthborn, older with a blonde beard and a grimace.

The arena is bright with lava seeping through cracks. Skarn’s legs are encased in stone, and he grips a heavy obsidian axe. He throws it, and it spins through the air toward Daymor, who parries it with a sudden burst of mana and heat before disappearing into a crevice. As Skarn turns to find him, Daymor reappears from a different crack and strikes Skarn’s back with a shining steel hammer. Skarn falls, and Daymor holds the weapon over his head.

"After a brutal but technically fascinating battle, the ninety-third combat of the King’s Trial goes to Daymor of Clan Silvershale, who has defeated his opponent, Skarn of Clan Earthborn!" an announcer’s voice thunders through the cave. "Daymor will move on to the next round, while Skarn has been eliminated."

Shouts erupt in the city, with cheers and angry jeers in equal measure. The fragment lingers, attracted to the heavy aether in the city as several more fights occur below. Then, catching a sudden surge of pressure—a mix of hot air and mana—it rises through a series of fissures back to the surface. Cooler winds seize it, and it is pulled east again, crossing the Grand Mountains south of the Relictombs Spire before descending into the Beast Glades.

A thick forest spreads out, saturated with aether coming from the Spire. Diving beneath the branches of the thick canopy, the fragment follows a pack of forest hounds. The beasts flinch at every slight breeze or sharp sound. Pulling past them, the fragment swirls around the base of a dead tree, joining a group of aetheric motes. Just as the pack of forest hounds reaches the spot, one hound—itself host to...