“When Alpha-souls play with fate, worlds split at the seams. But who upholds the balance—without which only the void remains?”

  [ Timelessness ]

  Yes, I remember everything—the moment of my birth and what came before it. My true name, given to me by the Origo Absoluta… but that is no concern of yours. To others, I am known as Order-Darkness, or OD for short. To the less enlightened, I have borne countless mortal names across the Realms.

  Yet now, at this very moment, as I observed the lives of mortals in one of these worlds—like fish endlessly circling in an aquarium—a memory that had never existed flickered within me.

  A fragment of the impossible. A shadow. A phantom without assigned function resurfaced in my consciousness. Two girls running down a corridor—an illogical and irrational action. Ahead, a fountain overflows, filled with thick, dark blood.

  A scream.

  One of their bodies silently collapses onto the stone floor. The second, in utter despair, reaches out to her, trying to grasp her hand... An instant later, her own head drops next to it with a dull thud, and then the space soundlessly spirals.

  ...Why do I remember what never was?

  However, I can now conclude that the cause of this disruption was another Alpha-Soul. And now, every time I return to this fragment, I am cast back into the timelessness epoch, to the days when there existed only the Origin Absolute, the formless void, and the Primordials which were fashioned shortly before the creation of the first world—purest Order, absolute Darkness, flawless Light, and untamed Chaos. They were beautiful in their simplicity, yet their conflicts ultimately led to the destruction of the first Petal.

  Seeing the consequences, the Origin Absolute sealed them like dangerous experiments—yet did not isolate them completely. Their energy still nourishes the cosmos and magic, like blood flowing through the veins of the universe. Their realms, known as the Sigmasphere, the Heart of the Void, Clireon, and X’Therium, still exist, motionless, at the edge of creation and the Origin Absolute’s Rose.

  Then the Origin Absolute made us—the children of the Primordials, more perfect, more complex, each with a soul of our own, combining two pairs of primal energies:

  Chaotic Light (CL)—my counterweight, an insane manipulator for whom the desires of mortals are toys—their emotional whims most of all. Creation is her playground, emotions her only pursuit: base, diseased, an obscenity to existence itself.

  Chaotic Darkness (CD)—a slithering creature that corrodes the Petals from within, like rust devouring metal.

  Order-Light (OL)—the sole kindred mind in recognizing balance as essential. Yet he clings to rituals and traditions, a prisoner of endless forms.

  And myself—Order-Darkness (OD)—architectus aequilibrii, the custodian of balance, where imperium outweighs libertas.

  And two others… Strange, absurd creations who evoke in me only mixed feelings—never emotions, for those are of Chaos, transitoria et corrupta; feelings belong to Order:

  Chaotic Order (CO)—a wretched paradox, torn between anarchy and dictatorship, a sentient, schismatic nightmare for the Petal and for all Realms scarred by his experiments.

  Light-Darkness (LD)—a shimmering absurdity where revelation and void dance in a mad tango, switching places from moment to moment, unable to find even a semblance of harmony.

  I despise them for their flawed nature, for their inability to find balance even within themselves. Yet, in the depths of my being, I feel a pang of pity for them—for they are, perhaps, the loneliest of us all.

  Unfortunately, we, like our parents, could not avoid war. We so recklessly repeated their mistakes, squandered our youth so disgracefully, and realized the simple truths bestowed by the Origin Absolute far too late. Through our own clumsy actions, we destroyed the second Petal granted to us. It was foolish and senseless…

  Realizing our sins, like foolish children, we threw ourselves upon the mercy of our Origin Absolute. To our surprise, he forgave us and did not seal us away as he had our parents. However, that meeting is one none of us will ever forget.

  We were no better than our parents; we were still too dangerous for the cosmos. But the Origin Absolute words, seared into our consciousness, changed us forever. We are no longer Primordials; we are Alpha-souls. Unlike our parents, we break Petals with care…

  Many trillions of years have passed since those events. Many universes have been created, the Origin Absolute’s Rose has filled with countless Petals, and a certain balance has been found throughout creation. But in truth, only Order-Light and I watch over it. The others busy themselves with… pursuits I shall not dignify before the Origin Absolute.

  And yet—that memory, that fragment, does not leave me, even now. The games of the other Alpha-Souls have gone too far, for this fragment, again and again, introduces an error into my calculations. This means it is time for me to delve into the causes of what transpired, and it seems this time, I have found the trace of this anomaly.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

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  The Wish That Broke Everything

  While observing yet another series of irrational actions by mortals on one of the Petals, I was not merely analyzing whether intervention in a particular destiny was necessary. I was carefully tracking anomalies and diligently executing my primary function as the architect of equilibrium, intervening in the affairs of mortals despite the ambiguity of my actions in their eyes. It was after resolving yet another minor imbalance that I finally found what I had been searching for: an anomaly of an entirely different scale.

  The Echoes of the Past—the karmic mechanism granted to souls for recognizing their own mistakes—had completely malfunctioned in one of the worlds. I could not call it anything other than a collapse in the very fabric of creation.

  The reasons for this event were immediately clear to me: the “impossible fragment” and the collapse of the karmic mechanism bore the same signature—the unmistakable handiwork of another Alpha-Soul. But even knowing this, the scale of the catastrophe was staggering.

  Instead of ten, or at most twenty, reincarnations, an entire world was mired in hundreds. Two mortal souls reincarnated again and again, dragging the entire petal of Al’aran down with them. Each time, they returned to the same bodies, committed the same mistakes, and learned nothing.

  After a detailed analysis, I concluded that this was neither a rare case of the Echoes of the Past nor a statistical error. This was an anomaly, compounded by the fact that one of the girls—Reina Morgan—was never meant to exist in the world of Illumora at all.

  Tracing the soul’s path through indirect signs, I found that Reina had been born in a Realm called Fermecanima, advanced and technological. Her name there was also Reina, but she was known by the surname Carter. From the fragments of information available to me, I could only conclude that her life had been an unhappy one. Perhaps her fate was twisted by Chaos, birthing in her a desire without function—love for her own sex, sterile and wasteful, for human wanting is decay: unshaped, unmeasured, uncontained. Yet even that explanation is insufficient. If not Chaos, then the fault lay with a fool of a mortal—an author who, through undeserved access, tore fragments from the informational field of the Petal to write his book The Heroine Who Saved the Kingdom, a work Reina Carter was foolishly fond of. The cause itself was irrelevant; the consequence, however—a wish that was simple, destructive, and monstrously sincere—had driven an entire Petal to the brink of collapse. I can still see the imprint of that wish in the traces of her soul:

  “I want to be with Nova Cross, for I love her more than life itself.”

  Chaotic Light—the eternal provocateur, master of chaos and madness—heard her plea. She erased Reina from her native world and cast her into Illumora, leaving her with a full memory of her past life. It was in Illumora, in one of its mortal kingdoms, that Reina was reborn, and there Nova Cross also lived—the only daughter of an ancient line, whose blood was not to be squandered on barren affections, but preserved through the obligations of her station and karmic debt.

  Their perverse connection fractured the Petal’s clockwork, threatening first Illumora, then the entire Petal of Al’aran. Left unchecked, this anomaly—spawned by Chaotic Light—would erode creation’s fabric like acid through paper.

  A plan was formed immediately. I knew exactly what I had to do, but even I, Order-Darkness, could not simply interfere in the affairs of Chaotic Light. She was too unstable, too dangerous. If she somehow sensed my intervention, the consequences would be catastrophic.

  The problem of the Echoes of the Past required delicate work, subtlety, patience, and perhaps, a senseless sacrifice on my part.

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  A New War or a Subtle Game?

  I understood perfectly: if I intervened directly in Chaotic Light’s affairs, it would lead only to war and the further demise of the world. If we went further, the Al’aran Petal would be destroyed and… we could be sealed away. Brute force would fail here. I needed cunning and wisdom, for each of my steps had to be as calculated as the move of a chess piece on a board.

  After a thorough study of the anomaly in Illumora, necessity dictated a single course: incarnation within an organic avatar, with all the consequences it entailed. To reach my targets—Reina and Nova, then studying at the so-called Academy of Duality in Valtheim—I would be forced to assume a female form. The thought filled me with revulsion. In this world, women were shackled: rights curtailed, power denied, their station reduced to weakness. To remain unnoticed, I would have to wear the mask of such a girl—submissive when required, convenient when expected. There was no choice. The mission demanded immediacy, and my intervention had to appear seamless, lest it draw the suspicion of CL or the other Alpha-souls.

  My next objective defined itself when I found the ideal candidates for my parents. They were Alice and Fed Nox—a couple whose destiny seemed to plead for this moment.

  Alice Samuel Nox was the secret high priestess of the Cult of the Silent Star. This cult revered the magic of Order, rare in Illumora, and operated hidden from the eyes of society, fearing it would attract the forces of Chaos. She dreamed of a child who would inherit her gift for Order magic, continue her work, and become a guardian of balance in the world. Her desire was sincere, but limited by her human mind.

  Fed Andrian Nox was a general of the “Ice Guard” of the Tarvarian Empire. He was a master of Darkness magic, a cold and calculating warrior whose decisions were never dictated by emotion. His power was great, but he, like other mortals possessing magic, did not understand its true nature.

  The moment of my incarnation was chosen with mathematical precision—ad punctum. Waiting for the right date, I simply pushed them into each other’s arms after another difficult day. It was then, when all three moons shone in the sky and the ancient event known as the “Night of Desecrated Blades” enveloped Illumora in its grim energy, on the anniversary of the Veytra of Order’s fall, many centuries past. At that exact moment, on the 2nd day of the Veytra of Haora, when the magic of Order was almost completely absent from the world, my mortal body was conceived.

  Thus, after a short time, a sixth child was born into the Nox line—a daughter named Artalis Feda Nox, or Arta, as my mortal parents called me. To them, I appeared a fusion of Fed’s cold calculation and Alice’s devotion to structure. In truth, it was only the mask they were permitted to see. For Arta is myself, and yet not myself: her powers stemmed from my soul, but within this organic avatar resided only 0.01% of my true might. To mortals, such a fraction is unparalleled—the strength of an archmage. Yet before higher beings it is negligible, a deliberate restraint: sufficient for the mission, but subtle enough to pass beneath their gaze, unseen in a world where not only mortals act.

  And so my life in Illumora began. My first move was made—alea iacta est. The choice was binding. Every organic avatar is chained to the Realm that bears it, and so my birth wove into me a karmic debt that will haunt me until it is paid in full.