The absence of a watcher did not bring peace.
It brought responsibility.
Without gods, demons, or eternal sentinels to blame, humanity faced itself fully for the first time. Wars still happened. Greed still festered. Fear still whispered.
But something fundamental had changed.
No catastrophe escalated unchecked.
No horror consumed the world whole.
People adapted: not perfectly, not kindly, but together. When imbalance grew too sharp, it was corrected not by miracle, but by collective will.
The dead stayed dead.
Souls passed on quietly.
The world was no longer protected.
It was maintained.