The world outside the crimson-domed Center Region was like normal everyday. No one out that region knew of the cataclysm in Rosen plus the threat that was about to happen over the world.
In the South Region Capital – Portstadt
The royal mansion in Portstadt was a bastion of Alpine baroque elegance, allsharp gables and leaded windows overlooking the misty southern fjords. Inside his private conference hall, Prince Konrad von Rosenlicht was a storm contained in a crisp military uniform. At twenty-five, he was the spitting image of his father in his prime—sharp-jawed, with the family's white hair cut ruthlessly short, and eyes the colour of glacial ice. Currently, those eyes were fixed on a bank of communication screens, each one a portrait of failure.
"Center Region Command, respond. Palace Guard, channel seven, acknowledge. Rosen Academy, emergency frequency, report." His voice was calm, a practiced baritone that hid the tension coiling in his gut. Every screen returned the same: static, a pulsing "SIGNAL JAMMED" error, or a connection that died with a final, sickening shriek.
He slammed a fist on the polished obsidian table, the sound echoing in the vaulted room. "What in the nine hells is happening?" he growled to the empty air. The strategic mind honed by years as a lieutenant colonel in the Klemdorfstein Royal Guard ran through scenarios—terrorist attack, coup, foreign invasion—but the scale and silence defied them all. The impenetrable energy dome visible on satellite feeds was a variable from a science-fiction thriller, not a military textbook.
A knock at the double doors, too rapid to be ceremonial. "Enter!" Konrad barked.
A young intelligence officer, his face ashen, stepped in and saluted with a tremor in his hand. "Your Highness. We… we have an urgent flash communiqué. Intercepted from a Crown State priority channel before the jamming solidified. It concerns… your parents."
Konrad was on his feet in an instant. "Status. Location. Now."
The officer swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "The communiqué was a mission confirmation, sir. Regarding the… the neutralization of high-value targets on the Grand Austriac Bridge. King Alaric and Queen Elizabeth…" He couldn't finish. He didn't need to.
The glacial ice in Konrad's eyes didn't melt; it deepened, becoming a cold so absolute it seemed to suck the warmth from the room. He didn't stagger, didn't cry out. He simply stood, his knuckles white where they gripped the table's edge. The world didn't shatter; it crystallized into a single, sharp point of purpose.
"Confirmed?" The word was a chip of flint.
"Signal triangulation and code verification are consistent, Highness. It's… it's considered reliable."
"Who issued the order?"
"Unclear, sir. The source was encrypted with a new, unbreakable cipher. But the execution signature was Crown State Delta Force."
Crown State. The scavenger nation from the Western Forest a country which occupied tge whole of north American continent. He'd dismissed them as brutes with outdated tech. A fatal error.
"Your Highness," the officer ventured, "there is more. A visitor. She arrived at the perimeter just after the broadcast. Insists on speaking only to you. Says it's about… the future of the world."
Konrad's gaze, still locked on the frozen image of a static-filled screen, didn't waver. "A name?"
"She wouldn't give one. Dressed… oddly. Like a soldier from a phantom regiment. Has eyes that…" The officer trailed off, unnerved.
"Bring her."
---
In the North-East Region Capital – Lichtstadt
Three hundred miles away, in the gleaming, steel-and-glass research hub of Lichtstadt, Princess Theresa von Rosenlicht was experiencing a different kind of shock. It wasn't delivered by a trembling soldier, but by a weird stranger in her pristine lab.
Theresa, at twenty-seven, was her mother's daughter—rose-gold hair tied in a severe but elegant bun, keen hazel eyes magnified by practical glasses. She was surrounded not by maps of war, but by holographic schematics of quantum-locked prana conductors, her life's work. The news of her parents' death had come via a secure line from Konrad's staff, a cold, clinical report that left her feeling dissociated, hollow.
She turned from the window, where the orderly, sun-drenched tech campus looked obscenely peaceful, to face the man who had walked in moments later. He was an anomaly. His attire was a seamless, impossible fusion: the left side a stark, modern military uniform of black and silver; the right side, the flowing silk and intricate embroidery of a formal Japanese kimono, pure white. Embroidered over his heart was a symbol she'd never seen—a golden circle bisected by two pairs of elegant, stylized wings. His hair was a shock of vibrant crimson, and his skin was a deep umber, his smile disarmingly calm.
"Who are you?" Theresa's voice was brittle, all academic composure gone. "How can you stand there and speak of what's to come? You are not a god. This is my country, my family—"
"Princess Theresa," he interrupted, his voice a smooth, melodious baritone that held an accent she couldn't place. "Grief is a luxury time has revoked. What is coming will make today's tragedy feel like a prelude. My name is Az. And I am here to collect the one thing that might buy the future a chance: Project Aegis."
Theresa froze. Project Aegis was her magnum opus, a theoretical prana nano machine designed to create a projection of any things even humans by recreating Thier bodies and souls. It can be regarded as a person capable of being reborn exactly the same in another dimension or world. It existed only in data crystals, an almost finished prototype and her mind. Its existence was a state secret of the highest order.
"You… you're the anonymous backer. The 'A. Ion' who funded the phase trials."
"Indeed. Your work on harmonizing exotic matter with prana fields is… inspired. I need the core schema and prototype. Now."
"Why? To weaponize it?"
"To preserve it," Az said, his smile fading into utter seriousness. "The laboratory you stand in, the minds within it, are now the most valuable assets on this continent. You must lock down. Go to total internal quarantine. The world outside this campus is about to become a hunting ground."
"The world outside is fine," Theresa hissed, gesturing to the serene view.
Az walked to the window and tapped the glass. "Look closer."
Theresa did. The people walking between buildings moved with a slight lag, like a video stream buffering. A bird hung in the air a fraction too long. The scene was a perfect, beautiful loop.
"A chrono-static illusion," Az explained. "A bubble of paused time I cast over a two-kilometer radius. A temporary shelter. It will not hold once the Resonance begins in earnest. Stay. Inside. We need you and this lab to save the world Theresa" He picked up the yellow-and-black case containing the Aegis data core and prototype she had unconsciously slid toward him.
As he reached the door, he paused. "Your sister Lina fights in the heart of the storm. Remember that. Fury is a fuel, Princess, but grief is a quicksand. Choose your fuel." And then he was gone, vanishing down the corridor like a ghost.
Theresa stared at the empty doorway, then back at the perfect, silent, fake world outside her window. The hollow feeling was replaced by a cold, electrifying terror. This was no longer a political assassination or a military invasion. This was something else entirely.
---
Back in Portstadt
The woman who entered Konrad's conference hall moved with a silence that was more than stealth; it was an absorption of sound. Her uniform mirrored Az's—the split military-kimono, the winged insignia—but in reversed colours: black kimono, white uniform. A black hood and a featureless onyx mask obscured her face.
Konrad stood behind his desk, a statue of grim authority. "You have three minutes before I decide you're a Crown State spy and have you detained."
The woman stopped in the center of the room. Slowly, deliberately, she reached up and removed her hood, then her mask.
Konrad's breath caught. She was young, perhaps Lina's age, with hair the colour of fresh blood and eyes that were not just gold, but luminous, seeming to hold their own gentle, terrible light. They were eyes that had seen too much.
"Salutations, Prince Konrad," she said, her voice soft but clear, carrying an age that didn't match her face. "My name is Oz. We must speak. The fate of this country, and the fabric of this world, now hangs by the thread of our next words."
"Oz." Konrad rounded the desk, his analytical mind cataloging her: no visible weapons, unnatural eyes, preternatural calm. "Explain. Start with how you got past my security."
"My path is unseen by cameras and unfelt by sensors. It is a minor trick. The major truth is this: the devil you seek to fight has already won the first campaign. His name is Wilhelm von Morgenfels."
The name was a physical blow. Wilhelm. His father's oldest friend. His own former mentor in statecraft and strategy. A man who had bounced a young Konrad on his knee. The betrayal was so profound it felt absurd.
"That's impossible," Konrad stated, but his voice lacked conviction. Wilhelm had signed the aid documents. Wilhelm had access, motive, and a mind brilliant enough to orchestrate this chaos.
Oz's golden eyes seemed to look through him, into a past only she could see. "Eight years ago, at the Sheng-Shou Shaolin Temple in China, Wilhelm bartered his humanity. He signed a contract with an entity from a… parallel stratum of reality. A demon of subjugation. Its power allows him to enslave wills and perceive temporal probabilities. He used it to massacre the temple, murder his wife, Alexia, and steal an artifact called the Golden Flame." She spoke flatly, reciting history as one recites a tragic poem.
Konrad's mind raced, connecting horrific dots. "The Crown States. Their sudden, unified aggression. Their impossible tactics."
"Pawns," Oz confirmed. "Their leadership is puppeted by Wilhelm's neuro-puppetry nanites. The 'Black Matter' from the Sahara meteorite? It is not a power source. It is a catalytic substance. Wilhelm manipulated the European states into a secret pact to seize it,betray the king with a time of 10 hours before catastroph, then used the Crown State as his blunt instrument to destroy Kleindorfstein and hide the truth. The meteorite's power is a side effect. Its true purpose is to resonate with the Golden Flame and rewrite planetary ley lines."
The sheer, galactic scale of the conspiracy unfolded in Konrad's mind. It wasn't a war for territory. It was a ritual for apotheosis. "He's not annexing a country," Konrad whispered, the full horror dawning. "He's preparing a sacrifice. Using my nation, my people, my family as the altar."
Oz nodded. "The crimson pillar in Rosen is the ignition sequence. When it fully synchronizes with the Black Matter now being harvested from the city's ruins, the resonance will trigger a global 'Re-Writing.' He doesn't want to rule this world. He intends to end it and create a new one from the ashes, with himself as the foundational deity."
The clinical, soldierly part of Konrad's brain admired the monstrous ambition. The rest of him recoiled in primal disgust. "And you know all this because of your eyes."
"I see threads of fate, Prince Konrad. I saw your parents' car explode. I saw Wilhelm laughing in his Zurich penthouse. And I see the Resonance completing in approximately fifty-seven minutes. No conventional army can stop it. The dome is impervious. The European allies are compromised or paralyzed."
Konrad finally sat, the weight of it crushing. "Then you come here to tell me we are all simply… dead? To deliver a eulogy before the end?"
For the first time, a flicker of emotion—not hope, but fierce, desperate determination—lit Oz's golden eyes. "No. I come to recruit you for the exodus. My organization, Velgarda, was founded for this moment. We cannot stop the Re-Writing. But we can outmaneuver it."
"Outmaneuver the end of the world?"
"By using it. The Re-Writing will collapse this reality and spawn a new, adjacent one. A blank slate. But certain anchors—powerful souls, unique energies, profound concepts—can be shepherded through the collapse. We call them Singularities. Your sister Theresa's mind is one. My partner Az is one. Your sister Lina, with her unique prana, is a third. You, Prince Konrad, with your strategic will, are a fourth for instance."
Konrad stared at her. It was madness. A suicide pact dressed up as salvation. "You propose we just… let him win? Let everyone die?"
"Everyone in the path of the Resonance will die regardless," Oz said, her voice softening with a pity that was worse than scorn. "Our choice is to let that death be the end, or to make it a door. In the next world, the one Wilhelm creates, there will be a moment of instability. A flaw in the god-engine. I have seen a figure there, standing at the fulcrum between the good and bad endings of that new timeline. Our gathered Singularities, our 'Engulfed Knights of Fate,' will be drawn to that moment. To that man. He will be the key to undoing Wilhelm from within his own paradise."
The plan was insane. It was a bet placed on a precognitive's vision of an ambiguous figure in a world that didn't yet exist. It meant abandoning his country, his duty, to become a ghost in the machine of a tyrant's heaven.
He looked at Oz, this strange girl with the eyes of an oracle who had walked out of a nightmare to offer him a different kind of nightmare. He thought of Lina, fighting in a domed city. Of Theresa, trapped in a bubble of frozen time. Of his parents, betrayed and murdered.
Duty demanded he fight to the last bullet here and now, a glorious, futile death.
Strategy whispered that sometimes, the only way to win a war is to survive to start the next one.
A cold, sharp smile—the first since hearing the news—touched Konrad's lips. It was the smile of a gambler pushing all his chips onto a single, desperate number.
"Alright, Oz," he said, standing once more, his voice reclaiming its command. "This is a wretched plan built on ghosts and guesses. It is also the only plan we have. I'm in. What is our first move?"
Oz's luminous eyes held his. "We gather the others we are 12 in total. Then, we do not wait for the end. We walk into the fire, carrying the seeds of the next world with us. Wilhelm thinks he is writing a genesis. We will ensure he writes his own epitaph instead."