The white radiance of Grand Arbiter Vaelen's approach acted as a secondary sun in the sky of the Eternian Empire. It was a cold, surgical light that did not warm the skin but instead seemed to peel back the layers of reality to expose the data beneath.
Aegis stood on the ramparts of the Citadel, his cape fluttering in the conceptual wind of a Tier 19 arrival. He looked at Caelum, whose eyes were fixed on the horizon with a terrifying, stoic resolve.
"I can do this, Papa," Caelum whispered, his voice vibrating with the weight of Chrono-Sovereignty. " I can trap him in a loop. I can make his arrival last a thousand years."
Aegis looked at his son, seeing the strain already etched into the boy's young face. Caelum was a miracle, a Tier 17 prodigy who could move the stars, but he was still a son. The thought of Caelum's soul being subjected to the erasure of a Grand Arbiter made Aegis's Abyssal core churn with a protective fury that transcended the System's logic.
