The academy slept.
Not in silence—never truly in silence—but in that deep, breathing stillness where even power learned to rest. Lanterns burned low along the walkways. The wards hummed gently, their resonance steady after the chaos of recent days. Above it all, the moon hung wide and pale, its light washing over stone, towers, and the distant mountains like a quiet witness.
Eryndor Nasarik sat alone on the balcony.
He hadn't brought a cloak. He didn't need one. The night air brushed against his skin, cool and honest, carrying the faint scent of scorched stone and rain. His elbows rested on his knees, hands loosely clasped, gaze lifted toward the sky.
For a long moment, he simply breathed.
Then he closed his eyes.
And stepped inward.
The Astral Sky received him first.
Familiar, vast, endless—an infinite firmament of flowing arcane currents, drifting platforms of light, and time stretched thin like silk. This was the realm where years could pass in the span of a breath outside. Where he had trained, bled, broken, and rebuilt himself again and again.
But something was different.
To his right, the Astral Sky shone as it always had—constellations formed of pure energy, elemental winds drifting like clouds, the faint echo of combat forms repeating themselves as memory and instinct.
To his left—
Darkness.
Not absence. Not emptiness.
Presence.
A sky without stars, yet heavy with weight. A sun hung high in that darkness—but it did not shine. It did not burn.
It simply was.
The Black Sun.
Between the two realms stretched a narrow path, like a shoreline between two oceans. Arcane light brushed one side. Ether-dark pressure breathed from the other.
Eryndor stood at the border.
And smiled faintly.
"So this is it…"
He didn't rush. He walked.
Step by step, he paced the boundary, letting both realms press against his senses. Arcane energy felt familiar—responsive, flexible, shaped by will and imagination. Ether was different. It did not ask what he wanted. It asked what he was.
After a time—how long, he didn't know—he turned left.
And crossed fully into the Black Sun's Domain.
The ground beneath his feet was dark stone, smooth as glass yet warm, as if it remembered heat long gone. Above him, the Black Sun loomed—vast, silent, pulling at everything without moving.
As he walked deeper, memories surfaced.
Not of Nohr.
Of Earth.
Of a boy who didn't speak much—not because he couldn't, but because he didn't need to. A boy who sat on rooftops, on hills, on cracked concrete playgrounds, staring at the sky long after others looked away.
He remembered it clearly now.
The sun on Earth.
At first, it burned orange-yellow. Bright. Painful. But if he stared long enough—ignored the sting, ignored the warnings—something changed. The color faded. The glare softened.
And beneath it…
Black.
Not gone. Not dead.
Just hidden.
Back then, he hadn't known why that comforted him. Why the idea that light wasn't everything felt right.
Now he did.
The Black Sun was never darkness for destruction's sake.
It was pressure.
Gravity.
Judgment.
The original storm before sound.
Eryndor sat cross-legged beneath it.
And listened.
Time lost meaning.
The Black Sun did not speak with words. It showed him truths through sensation, memory, and vision.
He saw the First Beginning—energies colliding before elements had names. Arcane energy spreading, wild and creative. Ether condensing, heavy and absolute.
Where arcane shaped, ether decided.
Where arcane adapted, ether enforced.
And where the two met…
Storm.
Not lightning alone. Not wind alone.
Storm as law.
He saw blue lightning form for the first time—not bright, but deep, layered, threaded with shadow. It was lightning that did not just strike bodies, but concepts. It tore through regeneration. Through divine protection. Through lies.
The Black Sun did not create lightning.
Lightning was what happened when its judgment moved.
Eryndor understood then why his storm had always been different.
Why Vorathrax fell.
Why Asmodeus could not heal.
Why gods watched him more closely than they admitted.
He meditated.
Not forcing.
Not grasping.
Simply allowing.
One day.
Then another.
Then a third.
Three consecutive days in a realm where a year could pass in an hour—yet he did not rush. He completed the domain not by overwhelming it, but by aligning with it.
When the third day reached its end, the visions changed.
He saw the First End.
Not destruction.
Decision.
A world judged not by hatred, but by balance. A sun that did not burn civilizations away, but asked whether they deserved to continue.
He saw the prophecy in full.
The child.
The shadow.
The choice.
And he understood.
Eryndor rose.
The Astral Sky shimmered on one side. The Black Sun's Domain pressed on the other.
Arcane realm.
Ether realm.
Incompatible for almost everyone.
But not for him.
He stepped to the center and extended both hands.
Pain came instantly.
Arcane resisted the weight. Ether rejected flexibility. His mind strained, his body trembled, his soul burned—not with heat, but with responsibility.
This was not meant for mortals.
But he was no longer one.
He pushed.
Slowly.
Carefully.
The realms folded—not collapsing, not consuming—but weaving.
Light dimmed.
Darkness gained structure.
Stars appeared in the night sky, constellations forming from elemental clouds. Wind drifted. Lightning threaded between the heavens. And above it all—
A massive Black Sun, hanging silent and watchful.
The ground remained dark. Light did not reach it fully. And beneath the surface, souls stirred—echoes of the dead, bound not in torment, but in waiting.
The realm stabilized.
Complete.
Eryndor stood at its center.
And the title settled onto him like a seal.
Far beyond Nohr, in a place where time bent inward, a presence smiled.
The original God of the Black Sun—neither alive nor dead—watched as his successor took the seat.
Not stolen.
Earned.
The god did not vanish in anger. He did not fade in regret.
He rested.
Eternal rest.
Because the Black Sun had found someone who would not misuse it.
Eryndor Nasarik became what the system of the universe recognized as a low deity.
Bound.
Suppressed by the laws of Nohr.
But divine all the same.
Darius felt it instantly.
In the academy, in the battlefield remnants, in the shadow of walls—darkness answered him differently. Not as a tool, but as a command.
He was no longer merely a shadow wielder.
He was the Warden.
The Black Sun's shadow.
Its blade.
Its guardian.
And he now had access to the completed domain.
Eryndor opened his eyes.
Night.
The moon still hung above him, unchanged. Stars shimmered faintly. Three days had passed.
He rose to his feet and looked at his hands.
Closed them.
Opened them.
Power did not surge wildly. It settled. Heavy. Controlled.
Abilities answered him naturally:
Black Eclipse — Manifesting his domain over reality, blotting out the sun for a limited time. A battlefield of judgment. Powerful—but dangerous if overused.
Dark Hands — Shadows betraying their owners, binding targets from any angle, even from beneath their own feet.
Blue Lightning — Storm-strikes threaded with Black Sun judgment, capable of covering cities… even continents. Defense, regeneration, divine protection—irrelevant.
Judgment Spark — A single, towering lightning spear wrapped in compressed wind, thrown to impale both body and defense. Multipliable.
Regeneration — High-level recovery, sustained by ether.
Eightfold Flow: Transcendent Form — His grandfather's martial art, completed at last. Seamless fusion of movement, instinct, and power.
Flight & Aerial Step Black Sun Transformation — Embodying judgment itself.
Advanced Gale Burst — Movement at the speed of light.
Adaptive Combat — Techniques experienced once would never fully work on him again.
He clenched his fist.
Then relaxed it.
Eryndor lifted his gaze to the sky and smiled.
Not arrogantly.
Not cruelly.
But with certainty.
That smile carried upward—past the clouds, past Nohr, past the watching eyes of the Upper Realms.
A warning.
The storm was no longer forming.
It had chosen its sun.