The Desert of Oblivion stretches to the edge of the world—
vast, voiceless, like the breath of eternity frozen in time.
Its sands glint beneath a leaden, murky sky, like ashes from burned-out worlds.
Here, every step is muffled, every breath laced with the echoes of vanished empires, broken oaths, forgotten names.
At the crest of a dune stands a boy.
A lone silhouette against the abyss.
Behind him—endless wandering, like the echo of millennia.
Ahead—a point that cannot be found by chance.
He is the chosen one.
Led not by logic, but by instinct.
A sacrifice of prophecies older than memory—
remembered only by the Universe itself.
And around him—they gather.
Humans.
And androids.
Thousands. Tens of thousands.
Their faces are hidden beneath hoods, armor, masks, and shadow.
Yet their silence roars—
they are here to witness.
Their hearts beat in one dull rhythm:
expectation.
The boy closes his eyes.
His body rises from the sand, suspended in air, folding into the ancient pose of the lotus.
"Breathe," he whispers to himself.
"Not as a man. As the bridge between eras."
The wind threads through his hair.
Grains of sand rustle like the whispers of the dead.
And suddenly—
everything halts.
"Now..."
His voice no longer belongs to a child.
It is the echo of a thousand voices,
primordial and deep.
"I will show you the story of how gods are born."
No one answers.
No one can.
The world holds its breath.
And then—
reality vanishes.
Thousands of minds are torn from flesh,
hurled beyond the Desert,
beyond the stars.
They are flung into another realm—
stellar, boundless.
Where every sun is not just a star,
but a question hurled at the void.
The boy leads them—
through the fabric of time,
through agony, wonder, terror, and radiance—
to the beginning.
They are no longer humans.
No longer machines.
They are witnesses
to the birth of a new age.
A distant planet.
The heart of the ancient Universe.
A city gleaming like molten metal.
Towers like the pulsing arteries of a colossus.
And among them—Gorgoroth.
As if Power itself had taken form.
He is tall,
draped in a cloak of living fire.
His brow is wide, his eyes burn.
He steps onto the balcony of a tower
as if onto the pedestal of creation.
Before him—
a multitude.
They hunger.
They tremble.
He raises his hand.
"Brothers. Sisters.
We stood at the edge of the abyss.
We looked it in the eye.
They taught us to fear...
But today—
fear dies."
His voice is thunder over a black sea.
The crowd freezes.
A single second—
and destiny shifts.
He approaches a pedestal.
Atop it—a small, black box.
Tiny, contradictory.
He enters the code.
The box opens.
And the world changes.
Inside—
an amulet, no larger than a breath.
It gleams like a stolen shard of a dying star.
Gorgoroth lifts it high above his head.
Time bends toward a singularity.
"In this artifact lies the key.
A channel to Kyros—
the one who holds eternity in his palm.
He will lead us through death...
and beyond."
The crowd erupts.
They shout.
They weep.
They fall to their knees.
They reach to the sky.
And then—
silence.
Gorgoroth puts on the amulet.
His aura flares, radiant as a supernova.
He smiles.
Draws a plasma pistol.
"No..." someone whispers.
"He wouldn't—"
"He can't be—"
He presses the barrel to his temple.
A shot.
The world ignites.
Reality fractures.
His body collapses—
and dissolves
into a blinding column of light.
A moment.
Tomb-silent.
A heartbeat echoes in the skull.
The wind murmurs through the bones.
"He killed himself..."
"But why?"
"What for...?"
Then—light.
From the pillar steps him—
Gorgoroth.
Naked, but invulnerable.
Radiant as Kyros himself.
He lives.
His voice is a bell that tolls across eternity:
"I am here.
I live.
My essence has crossed over.
My consciousness will never die again."
The crowd goes mad.
They cry.
They laugh.
They collapse.
Terror and awe weave together
like fire and breath.
"I have returned through Kyros.
And so can each of you.
Choose an amulet.
Take it.
Death is an illusion.
We will shatter it like glass beneath a hammer!"
A line forms—
no command needed.
Humans.
Androids.
Children.
The old.
Each one reaching out—
to the light.
To eternity.
"I believe in Kyros!"
"I choose him!"
"Death is not for me!"
The world sings.
The Desert of Oblivion
no longer remains silent.
It becomes the beginning.
**
He stands among them.
The boy.
The chosen one.
The vessel.
He feels the world melting, reshaping, rebirthing itself.
His heart beats in rhythm with thousands of others.
Everything has changed.
There's no way back.
Now—
it all begins.
They wake from the trance like drowning men breaking the surface.
The guests of the Desert of Forgetting gasp for breath—shallow, ragged, as if they've just torn themselves free from another realm. A place where the air was thicker, the light sharper, and the truth—more real.
Here, everything feels unstable.
Too quiet.
Too delicate.
Their eyes dart like those of the blind suddenly gifted with sight—nothing looks familiar. Their fingers tremble faintly, like those of someone waking after a thousand-year dream that wasn't their own but felt vital all the same.
"Was it real? Or just a dream? And if a dream—why does the heart ache like it's lost something that truly lived?"
On the horizon, the heat shimmers, erasing the line between earth and sky.
Everything ripples.
The sand whispers beneath their feet, as if murmuring secrets from the ones who came before. Each grain feels alive—clinging to skin, lips, eyes like phantom hands of the past, unwilling to let go.
The air is heavy—leaden.
It breathes fire, as if reality itself is melting, one breath away from collapse.
And in the center of this trembling world—
the boy floats, legs folded in a lotus pose, suspended like a statue outside of time, radiating light.
His body is thin, almost translucent.
But within it—
a force utterly alien to flesh.
He isn't part of the desert.
He is its will.
Its gaze.
His face remains still.
Too still.
Half-lowered eyelids quiver slightly.
"He's seen it all. Through time. Through us. Through the very core of being."
He doesn't look down at them.
He looks through them.
Clear.
Patient.
Unyielding.
The silence becomes something physical.
It presses in, swallows sound, snuffs out thought.
Only the faint hiss of sand and the low hum of the desert itself remind them—they are still alive.
For now.
Then he speaks.
"That is enough… for today."
His voice is not loud.
But each word rings inside them, like an ancient bell tolling deep in their bones.
It cuts through them, roots itself in thought, leaves a trace that cannot be erased.
The world seems to blink—contract into a single point—then freeze.
He closes his eyes. Slowly.
And the silence deepens.
Grows heavier. Thicker.
So thick, one word might shatter everything.
And then—
a break.
"No. Wait."
The voice strikes like a sword to glass.
Shattering the stillness.
A slap to the face of gods.
All heads turn.
Nicholas.
He steps forward, barefoot, crushing sand beneath him like he's challenging the desert itself.
His eyes are full of questions—not curiosity, but desperation.
Fear.
The final thread of hope.
If he leaves now—if we never find out—then all of this was for nothing. And I... I won't survive that.
"You can't just walk away!" Nicholas's voice trembles, but the hunger in it burns.
He's breaking, but still he speaks.
"Tell us… where is the Altar of Rebirth?"
He gulps air like poison.
"We need to know. Not for power. Not for glory.
But because… we can't bear not knowing anymore."
The sand stops moving.
The wind dies.
Grains of dust hang in the air—frozen thoughts.
The world has been waiting for this.
And now—
it holds its breath.
The boy doesn't move.
His face—stone.
But… his eyelids twitch. Just slightly.
He heard us. Is he hesitating?
The pause stretches—an eternity carved in silence.
Hearts beat like war drums. Boom. Boom. Boom.
And then—
motion.
He lifts his hand.
Slow. Smooth.
Inhuman.
Fingers unfurl.
And point.
Toward the horizon,
where the heat-haze thickens like a veil between worlds.
Where sandstorms dance as if guarding some forbidden truth.
He showed us the way.
A gesture like a gunshot in fate.
No words. No explanations.
But clearer than any sign.
And there—
in the direction he points—
a path emerges.
Narrow. Unstable. Treacherous.
It leads deep into the sands—
to where the earth is worn,
the shadows heavier,
and, they say,
the dead whisper in dreams.
To where the Altar of Rebirth stands.
To where everything begins—
or ends forever.