History, I learned, is never written at the moment things break. It's written decades later, by people who survived the blast radius and decided which parts were safe to remember.
The Detestation did not end the world.
That's the first lie people tell children.
It ended certainty.
Before it, the continent was fractured, yes, but comprehensible. Kingdoms rose and fell. Borders shifted. Wars were fought for land, faith, or bloodlines. Magic was rare, but understood. Dangerous, but contained.
Then the capital of Eldoria burned.
Not in flame, not truly. In something worse. A grief so dense it crystallized reality itself. Where the palace once stood, stone turned to ashglass. Where streets ran, sorrow pooled and never evaporated. And at the center of it all stood the Petrified King, locked forever in a moment of failure so profound it warped the laws of the world around him.
The Detestation wasn't just a disaster.
It was proof.
Proof that human will, when amplified by relics older than gods, could rival divinity itself.
And that terrified everyone.
In the chaos that followed, faith collapsed first. Not because the gods died, but because they did nothing. No intervention. No correction. No mercy. The clergy fractured, doctrines split, and entire orders vanished overnight when their prayers went unanswered.
Nations followed.
Some tried to claim the ruins. They failed. Others tried to seal them away. They failed louder. Eventually, the land around Eldoria was abandoned entirely, written off as cursed, forbidden, or simply not worth the cost.
That vacuum is where the Virellian Empire was born.
Not from conquest. From consolidation.
Virellia did not proclaim itself righteous. It proclaimed itself necessary. A coalition at first: surviving states, merchant leagues, military remnants, scholars who understood that chaos favored no one. They absorbed, standardized, regulated.
Where old kingdoms ruled by lineage, Virellia ruled by system.
Merit over blood. Stability over glory. Knowledge over myth.
At least on paper.
The empire's greatest fear was not rebellion.
It was repetition.
The Detestation proved that history could fracture reality itself. That one grieving man, given the wrong tools and no restraint, could create a god-shaped wound in the world.
So Virellia built walls. Not just of stone, but of policy.
Magic was categorized, licensed, monitored. Relics were seized or buried. Ancient texts were archived, restricted, or quietly edited. Not destroyed. Never destroyed. The empire learned early that erasing knowledge only made it more dangerous when rediscovered.
Instead, they curated it.
And beneath that curated history sat one undeniable truth:
The Crimson Catalyst still existed.
It pulsed, dormant but alive, beneath layers of stone, sorrow, and denial. Its presence warped ecosystems. Twisted ley lines. Changed the behavior of magic itself across the continent. Entire regions became unstable not because of politics, but because reality itself leaned toward decay near its influence.
Other powers noticed.
They always do.
To the north, the theocratic states preached that the Catalyst was divine punishment, a test meant to separate the faithful from the unworthy. To the east, fractured city-states dreamed of harnessing it as an energy source, something to fuel an age beyond scarcity. To the south, warlords whispered of forging gods of their own, if the first had been born from grief.
Everyone wanted the same thing.
Control.
But Virellia wanted something subtler.
Understanding.
Not to worship it. Not to wield it openly. But to ensure that no one ever created another Detestation. Or worse, finished the first.
Thus began the Quiet Race.
No banners. No declarations. Just expeditions that vanished. Scholars who never returned. Maps that contradicted each other. Funding routed through academic grants, trade missions, and "infrastructure projects."
The empire did not seek heroes.
Heroes attract witnesses.
It sought minds. Analysts. Strategists. Observers who could model outcomes without emotional attachment. People who could look at a god-shaped catastrophe and ask not why, but how.
How it began.
How it spread.
How it could happen again.
And how to be ready when it did.
The mountain was never named in public records. It didn't need to be. Everyone involved knew what it meant. A place where history bent inward. Where the world remembered pain better than joy.
Some believed the Catalyst was dying.
Others believed it was waiting.
The empire's official stance was simple: Containment above all. But unofficially, there was a deeper fear, one never spoken aloud in council chambers.
What if godhood was not an anomaly?
What if it was a process?
The continent felt it. Even those far from the ruins sensed a shift. Magic behaving inconsistently. Relics awakening without clear cause. Children born with sensitivities no bloodline could explain.
Desire sharpened.
Empires don't just fear losing power. They fear losing relevance. If godhood was possible, then the age of nations was temporary. Whoever understood the Catalyst first would not just rule the continent.
They would define the next era of existence.
And so Virellia watches.
Plans.
Prepares.
Not to ascend.
But to ensure that if someone does…
…it happens on their terms.