The sun hung low on the edge of the world, its dying light spilling molten gold across the trees. The western continent — that heavy, untamed land — seemed to hold its breath.
Azelar stood in the clearing with his back turned, his worn coat resting neatly over a branch. For the first time, Rayon could see the old man's body clearly: lean, carved with lines of muscle hardened by eras, not years. Strange, silver tattoos spiraled from his wrists to his neck — each one faintly pulsing in rhythm with the land itself.
He rolled his shoulders, the air trembling as his joints cracked like shifting stone.
"I haven't sparred in centuries," Azelar said quietly. "Most who tried never left this forest again."
Rayon smirked, hands slipping into his pockets. His hair, longer now, swayed slightly in the slow wind. "You think that's supposed to scare me?"
Azelar turned his head slightly, enough for one golden eye to catch the light. "No. I think it's supposed to remind you — that not all ancient things have withered."
Erethon's voice hummed faintly in Rayon's mind, amused.
"You're about to learn why the world forgot his name, little monarch. Don't hold back."
"When do I ever?" Rayon muttered under his breath.
Azelar's bare feet pressed into the dirt. In that instant, the gravity changed.
The air grew thick — like the entire forest had decided to kneel before him.
He lifted one arm, and the trees around the clearing bent toward it, dragged by an unseen tide.
"So you've mastered my gravity up to a hundredfold," Azelar said. "Then let's see if you can stand against its source."
Rayon's eyes gleamed. "You're saying this land's gravity… is yours?"
A faint smile curved the old man's lips. "The continent itself exists because I willed it to stay here. Otherwise, it would've drifted into the sea long ago."
Then he stepped forward — and the world cracked.
Azelar — The Gravemind of the Ancient Era
Before there were nations, before the Forsakens fractured the heavens, there was Azelar the Gravemind — one of the first beings to discover the Axis Principle.
He had once been mortal — a soldier of a nameless civilization. But after being cast into the core of a collapsing world, he survived by fusing his consciousness with the planet's dying gravity field.
He didn't die. He became mass itself.
When the war of Primordials tore the skies apart, Azelar stood alone on the edge of extinction, drawing falling stars out of orbit with his bare hands to crush armies below. He fought Erethon's generation — fought the madness and divinity alike — and when the age burned out, he withdrew into silence, swearing never to interfere again.
Until now.
Rayon blinked once — then vanished.
He reappeared mid-swing, his fist snapping forward like a thunderclap. The ground fractured into craters behind him, air folding into vacuum.
Azelar's palm caught it. Effortlessly.
For a brief heartbeat, Rayon felt his wrist buckle — not from strength, but from sheer weight.
It was as if his arm had been caught by a planet.
"The Axis you learned," Azelar said calmly, "is a reflection of this."
He twisted his wrist, and Rayon was thrown back — no, flung — like a comet across the clearing. He struck a mountain face and stopped it from collapsing only by anchoring his gravity field beneath his feet.
Dust rolled.
Rayon spat blood and grinned. "Damn. That was thirty percent?"
"Twenty," Azelar replied, his tone flat.
Rayon chuckled darkly. "Then I've got a long way to go."
He slammed his foot into the ground — the soil caved, gravity folding around him. He raised both hands, pulling threads of invisible force into existence — the Axis of Creation — his partial understanding giving form to a gravitational core that warped reality around him.
The sky rippled. Trees uprooted and hovered, suspended in his field.
"If the world bends to will," Rayon said, "then let's see whose will breaks first."
They collided.
Two forces of nature, two gravitational centers colliding in the same space. Every punch detonated like a meteor strike; every step altered the landscape.
Rayon ducked under a sweeping elbow, driving a knee upward — Azelar blocked with his forearm, and the shockwave carved a canyon into the earth behind them.
They moved faster than sight, the fight translating as light bursts and soundless implosions.
At one point, Rayon caught Azelar in a chokehold mid-air, flipping him downward — but Azelar reversed gravity itself, sending Rayon crashing upward instead, slamming him through layers of atmosphere before dragging him back down like a falling star.
When Rayon hit the ground, the continent trembled.
Erethon's voice flickered faintly, but he didn't interfere. Even he seemed invested in watching this one unfold.
Rayon rose, blood on his lip, eyes gleaming with a thrill he couldn't hide.
"That all you got, old man?"
Azelar smirked. "If I used thirty percent, you wouldn't be standing."
"Then use it."
Azelar inhaled. His aura expanded, the air collapsing inward around him. Mountains in the distance tilted — not metaphorically, literally. The entire continent bent around his presence.
When he moved, Rayon didn't see him — he only felt him.
One strike. Just one.
Rayon crossed his arms too late. The blow connected with his chest, a tidal shock blasting through his body. For a split second, he felt his consciousness blink out — bones cracking, organs twisting from sheer force — then darkness.
He opened his eyes moments later, lying in a crater miles wide.
Azelar stood at the edge, hands behind his back, calm as still water.
"That was thirty percent," the old man said. "If I go further, you die."
Rayon's grin returned, slow and feral. "Noted."
He pushed himself up, exhaling hard. "Then… teach me."
Azelar tilted his head. "Teach you?"
"I'm not asking to be your heir," Rayon said, brushing the blood off his chin. "I'm asking as a student. I don't need your throne — I want your knowledge."
For the first time in what might have been thousands of years, Azelar's expression softened. His gaze lingered on Rayon — on the defiance in his eyes, the conviction that could shatter worlds.
He saw himself — the warrior who once refused to die inside a planet's heart.
A low chuckle left his throat. "You remind me of a younger, stupider me."
Rayon shrugged. "Maybe that's why I'll survive longer."
Azelar's laugh rolled through the clearing like thunder. "Very well, boy. I'll teach you — not as an heir, but as a fighter who's earned the right to learn what others died chasing."
He turned, glancing up at the blood-colored sky. "But know this — if you fail the next lesson, gravity won't crush you. I will."
Rayon smiled faintly. "Wouldn't have it any other way."
Far above, the clouds rippled as if the heavens themselves were holding back their breath. Erethon's eyes glimmered in the void, whispering to himself:
"The old Gravemind takes a student again. The world should be afraid."
And beneath them — somewhere, deep under that continent of weight and silence — something stirred.
A pulse.
A heartbeat older than both of them.
The Thirteenth Seal… was waking.