Chapter 17: The Children Who Witnessed the End
Smoke curled in lazy spirals, wafting from the crater where once stood the front lines of a coalition of nations, Hunters, Nobles, and technological marvels. The earth still groaned in places, as if protesting the wound Chris had opened in reality.
And within that silence… a single sound echoed.
Footsteps.
Click. Click.
A woman in a long white coat walked over shattered stone and scorched metal. Her heels were chipped, coat torn, but her presence — calm.
Her name: Eleanora Vey.
Designation: Amender.
Faction: Chrono-Sanctum.
Clearance: Black Sigil.
"...Still warm," she murmured, kneeling to touch the ashes of what used to be the Grand Marshal's war table.
Behind her, two soldiers hovered, terrified to speak.
One finally asked, "Director... did we lose?"
She looked over her shoulder.
"This isn't a loss," she said. "It's a... declaration."
"From something that was never supposed to exist."
Elsewhere, Beneath the Ruins
A coughing sound echoed through rubble.
A young boy clawed out from beneath twisted steel and broken stone. His face was bloodied, suit torn, but his eyes were still sharp.
Tiel, a cadet from the Unified Magic Academy. Just 15. Thrown into the battlefield to watch, not fight. A witness.
"What the hell was that... what was that guy?"
Memories flooded back — the Eyes, the tendrils, people screaming and laughing, then silence. Tiel remembered a woman beside him, Ravenna, shielding him with her barrier before it shattered.
He stumbled forward, only to trip over a charred insignia.
"That's the crest of a Diamond Hunter... they didn't even survive..."
He clutched his head.
"Why am I alive?"
In the Sky
A satellite long forgotten in low orbit captured fragments of the aftermath. Its ancient systems booted up for the first time in years, just long enough to send one transmission:
[CODE: BLACK–ORIGIN DETECTED]
[RESPONSE REQUESTED: COUNCIL OF ETERNALS]
[SUBJECT: CHRIS // EYE OF ???]
The signal rippled across quantum paths, awakening things that slept in pocket dimensions and sealed vaults.
The Council of Eternals, those who predated even recorded history, looked up from their meditations.
"The Primordial Eyes have awakened," one whispered.
"And a bearer was chosen."
Back at the Epicenter
Chris stood in the center of the chaos.
Or what was left of him.
His body remained — seemingly human, black jacket tattered, pants scorched — but his presence had changed.
He no longer blinked.
Instead, his eyes shimmered faintly like glass, each one housing a swirling galaxy. His veins pulsed not with blood — but with shifting motes of mana that sang an ancient song only the world could hear.
The ground around him was cracked, but not randomly — patterns had formed. Glyphs in languages long dead, spiraling from his feet outward, like the ripple of a stone dropped in creation itself.
Above him, the Eyes still floated — but now, they were fading, retreating beyond mortal perception.
"You've only taken the first step," the largest Eye whispered into his soul.
"The real test is knowing what to do with the truth you now bear."
Chris stood silent for a moment.
Then…
He smiled.
Somewhere, Far Away
In the kingdom of Avlore, a young noble girl, gifted with the Sight of Fate, gasped and dropped her tea.
"The threads are unraveling...! Something — no, someone — is cutting the weave!"
Her maid rushed forward. "Lady Elain?! What's wrong?"
Elain stared at the sky.
"A new god is being born."