Talos Continent, Year 995, October 12, 7:15 AM.

A bird’s call cut through the quiet, and drowsiness clung to Medith like mist. She rubbed her foggy eyes, stretched, and let sleep slip off.

She twisted her waist twice, shaking off the last haze. She washed fast, water flashing like silver threads. She donned her white battle dress and threw on her cloak.

The emblem had changed. No more the Queen’s green leaves cradling a Scepter. On her chest and cloak, a black sun now brooded.

Blue vaulted above, clouds drifted like slow caravans. A blazing sun hung mid-sky, veiled by shadow. Only a sliver of Crimson Sun bled through.

That sliver seeped through the dark like ink-light. Fine rays lanced the gloom, dozens of threads breaking skyward, as if ready to tear the shade apart.

Melia finished dressing a moment later. Her charming face carried new steadiness. White cloth hugged her frame. She stood straight. Her black hair fell sleek and bright.

“Commander, training today?” Melia’s voice held calm ripples. Medith shook her head. “The Queen summoned me. Training’s yours today.”

“Alright.” Melia answered and stepped out, footsteps steady, like drums in morning fog.

Medith followed her stride out of the hall. The noble district’s stillness had shattered. Training shouts rolled like surf through marble streets.

Countless Sprites ran, sparred, and drilled formations. Dust swirled under feet. Blades kissed air. Lines bent and snapped like reeds in wind.

Since founding the Dusk Legion a month ago, Medith had poured her heart into training half the city guard. Her call drew Sprites like a tide.

Yet she enrolled only a thousand as members. Heavy troops in one hand invite storms. Trouble comes from peers, from superiors, even from the Queen.

If hearts stay, everything stays. Whether soldiers bear her name doesn’t matter.

“Commander! It’s the Commander!”

“Where? Where?”

“There—she’s as pretty as the Queen!”

“No way. Is she really that small, like the rumors?”

“You lot! Still slacking?!”

“Sorry, Captain Rita!”

Medith watched the girl in a white cloak and felt warmth rise like sun on frost. Cloaks marked captains, given to the women to set them apart.

People had multiplied. Medith couldn’t hold every thread. Tasks piled up like fallen leaves. Sharing captaincies trained them and lightened her load.

“Commander.” Rita called, more sign than salute, then kept the team running. Feet rang like rain on stone.

...

Medith reached the Queen’s dwelling, a palace gleaming like a swan’s wing. The Queen watered flowers in a white dress, dew glittering in petal cups.

“Your Majesty.” Medith stepped forward, voice soft as shade.

“You’re here.” The Queen set the kettle down and sat on a bench, hands folded with graceful ease. “Look at these buildings. Look at your worn watch.”

“That color’s ground down by you. Do you know where all this came from?”

“Western Kingdom, Thanatos?” Medith couldn’t read the Queen’s aim. She thought a breath, then sat beside her, shoulder to shoulder, like two cranes at rest.

“I’ve always wondered. Why’s the West’s tech so high? It’s beyond this era. If so, why don’t they conquer the continent with it?”

“Little Mei, what about you?” The Queen lifted her gaze to the blue, eyes deep like wells. “You’re not of this era either.

“Your level stands beyond the age. So why don’t you conquer the world?”

“...” Silence weighed on Medith like a hand. She felt she’d caught a thread, then it slipped like fish through reeds.

“Your Majesty means the one in the West isn’t enamored with mortal dust?” Her tone held a thin edge. “Then what does he chase? Peace and happiness? World peace?”

“If that’s it, he’s naive. Naive enough to make me laugh.”

“No. I roughly know what he wants to know.” The Queen drew a thick book from her bosom, the heavy volume sliding out like a secret moon.

Medith’s eyes almost popped. “A four-dimensional pocket?”

“Hm?” The Queen didn’t catch it. Medith laughed it off, a wave over a stone. “Anyway…”

“This continent carries a legend. It was chaos in the beginning. Monsters ruled. Brutal beasts and spiteful fiends took the land.”

Humans had no way to fight. Monsters used them like toys, feeding every wild, near-mad desire. Darkness stood tall. Hope lay thin as thread.

Until… that man descended.

He fell like a god to earth, a white-gold dragon-headed Divine Lance in hand. He landed and swept the Eastern lands clean of monsters.

He armed humans and brought a Divine Stone. Its power was wondrous. Anything touched by it cut monsters and magic like fire through silk.

That was the forerunner of Regido. He led a million humans. They fought monsters for months. A million humans died. The monsters died too.

At the end, four Demon Gods joined forces against the Ancestor Master. He killed all four alone. Then his strength failed. He died.

The Divine Lance broke and fell into chaos, lost to shadow. The meteorite was shattered by the Demon Gods, fragments scattered across the continent.

Four humans, by chance and fate, gained the four largest Divine Stones. Three men and one woman.

The woman was Eunomia. Through her work, the Eastern Nation rose.

The three men founded the Southern Kingdom, Alis, the Northern Kingdom, Gylite, and the Western Kingdom, Thanatos.

Order slowly returned under their hands. Countless people found shelter and home. For a while, happiness brimmed like harvest grain.

“However…” Medith breathed the word, a chill through warm air.

The Queen shook her head gently. “Human desire never ends. Once survival is met, the sealed sins spill like oil.

“After the Year of Chaos came a Year of War. People went mad with challenge. Smoke covered the continent. Lives were trampled and torn.”

“The world charred. Living things fell to ash. It was ruin upon ruin, flame upon flame.”

“We of the Elf Clan suffered too. Nearly ten million in great houses, almost wiped out in that time.”

“Our ancestors fought for centuries. They left us a last ember of lineage, a thin flame cupped in wind.”

Medith listened and couldn’t return to herself for a long while. She’d never imagined such a past beneath this land’s calm skin.

The Elf Clan had bled long to reach today’s bloom. Prosperity stood on bones. Silence pressed like snow.

“Ah.” The sigh slipped from her. She finally felt the weight of the Queen’s longing for peace.

She must have lived that era of war. Loss births a hunger to keep. Medith should have been the one to understand her most.

But hot blood had led her wrong. She had blamed the Queen, when peace was the hardest vow to hold.