Chapter 1: Chapter 0: Eventide

Avatars are gifted individuals, chosen from birth and blessed with the divine essence of the goddess Eirene. This sacred elixir, Arkhaios energy, allows them to awaken Signatures—unique abilities tied to their Soul’s Core.

A Signature is shaped by two key aspects: the Soul Core’s Polarity—what the soul fundamentally desires—and its Path—how the soul seeks to fulfill that desire. Together, they form the Avatar's power, shaping abilities as personal as they are potent.

Among Avatars, a rarer, more extraordinary class exists: the Tarots. Unlike ordinary Avatars, Tarots were not born but crafted by Eirene herself. Forged from divine will, not mortal lineage, each Tarot was a singular being, distinct in purpose and power. They did not choose their fates—they were their fates, designed to fulfill a divine task, regardless of the cost.

Only 22 Tarots were ever created.

But Deimos, Tarot of the Sun, was one of the last remaining.

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The air smelled of burning salt as Deimos stood on the precipice of Grehtia—the highest layer of Enmida—where the sky was not sky but a gaping wound, a swirling bruise of violet and black.

Below him, the world tree Irelya stretched into the abyss, its colossal roots piercing through the eight layers of civilization.

Deimos extended his hand.

A spiral of white light twisted around his palm before solidifying into digital lines. A sharp chime rang out, and a floating text interface flickered to life.

A synthetic, feminine voice echoed softly from the interface:

[NOTICE: Soul Core Diagnostic v4.5 – BETA]

"Deimos, I’ve made some final adjustments to your Soul Core Interface. If you're receiving this update under a Beta Notice, it means I couldn’t finish it in time. I’m sorry."

"It’s been an honor working with you. Without your help, the Soul Core Diagnostic Project wouldn’t have reached this scale. I only wish I could’ve seen it through."

"Your mission is too critical, and there’s no time to slow down. Stop your brother, Deimos. You’re the only one who can."

"Wishing you strength—"

"—Dr. Birgitta Ilvarra"

The message faded.

Deimos stared at the empty space where her words had hung, his fingers curling into a slow fist.

“Your death won’t be in vain, Birgitta,” he murmured. “May Eirene’s light find you.”

The screen shimmered again, revealing the diagnostic itself.

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Name: Deimos

Core Type: Divine-Core

Core Stability: 97%

Soul Polarity: Preservation

Path Alignment: Grace

Signature Classification: Adversity-Class

Signature Weapon: Divine Lance

Depth Rating: [Ⅴ / Ⅴ]

Friction: Negligible

Divine Role: ☼ Sun Tarot

[Divine Task]: Protect the Princess (This task is soul-bound.)

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Deimos exhaled slowly, his gaze lingering on the final line. The glowing red letters burned just a little too deeply into his mind:

Protect the Princess.

“Ten years…” he muttered, lost in thought.

Ten years since Eirene had abandoned them.

And ten years was all it took for the goddess of discord, Eris, to spread her monstrous creations across all layers of Enmida, leaving destruction in their wake.

Now, Deimos’ brother Remus, the Moon Tarot, had betrayed his divine purpose. He had stolen the one thing they were both created to protect: Princess Lirael—the slumbering human vessel of Eirene and the Tarot of the World.

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The wind howled, carrying the distant screams of battle.

The war was here. Not just against Eris’ abominations, but between those who still clung to order and those who had embraced desperation.

And Remus had chosen the latter.

Deimos hovered in the air, his white cloak rippling behind him like a banner. Below, the cathedral loomed—a jagged monument of shattered stained glass and fractured spires.

Its once-holy halls were now home to heretics, rogue Avatars, mercenaries, and humans united under the name Eclipse.

A foolish group, determined to awaken the Princess by force.

Deimos' grip tightened on his divine lance, Helios, its segmented body humming with latent energy.

He descended, landing just outside the cathedral’s entrance. The doors were shattered, broken wide open. Splinters of wood and twisted metal lay scattered on the stone steps.

The air was thick with the sharp scent of blood.

Deimos stepped inside. His irises glowed with white light, and his Soul’s Core pulsed steadily within him, the active Path of Grace sharpening his focus and steadying his breath.

A voice echoed from across the room.

“You’re finally here.”

Remus stood at the far end of the nave, framed by the shattered remnants of a stained-glass mural of the goddess. The fractured light painted him in bleeding colors—crimson, cobalt, gold—but his eyes remained the same color as his hair: pitch black.

Behind him, Midnight—Remus’ Signature, a Legendary Wolf Spirit of Shadow—paced in the darkness, growling low, its every movement thick with menace.

Atop the altar, Princess Lirael lay, as she had for centuries—pale hair spilling across the stone like spilled silk, her chest rising and falling in slow rhythm as she slumbered eternally.

But now, wires and tubes snaked from her body, attached to a grotesque machine—an Extractor, its needle buried deep in her wrist.

Among them stood the Eclipse generals, their faces masks of intent. Their leader, the Locust, stood at the altar beside the Princess, watching Deimos with silence as the Sun confronted the Moon.

“Remus!” Deimos shouted, voice sharp. “This isn’t right. You can’t do this!”

Remus tilted his head. “What’s ‘right’ is defined by perspective. You’re just one viewpoint, Deimos. You don’t speak for the world.”

“Neither do you,” Deimos shot back.

“I don’t need to,” Remus said, running his fingers through Midnight’s fur. “I’ll act instead.”

Deimos’ jaw clenched. “Your flaw is thinking the fate of the world rests in our hands. The goddess made us to protect her vessel. Nothing more.”

“There won’t be a Princess to protect if Enmida falls!” Remus’ voice cracked.

“So to prevent that, you’d turn her into a weapon?” Deimos retorted, fury building. “Can’t you hear yourself?”

Remus smirked.

“If salvation demands a weapon, I’ll forge it myself.”

Silence.

Then—

Deimos’ eyes ignited.

White fire erupted from his body. Helios chimed as it activated, extending with a mechanical hiss, the tip of the lance glowing like a dying star.

“I won’t let anyone’s belief jeopardize the safety of the Princess.” His voice was a furnace.

“Not even yours, brother.”

Remus sighed. “So be it.”

Midnight’s form suddenly swelled, growing to an impossible size—the great wolf let out a guttural heave, choking and coughing until it vomited up a massive, crude greatsword wrapped in writhing shadows. The weapon struck the stone floor with a metallic clang, steam hissing off it.

This was the divine greatsword, Selene.

Remus picked the blade up, Midnight’s power now fully infused into its core.

Deimos crouched low, white flames sparking at his feet.

Then he moved—vanishing in a burst of speed.

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A streak of white light scorched across the cathedral floor, the air crackling behind him. His lance shot forward, aimed straight for Remus’s head—

—only to be intercepted at the last second.

Steel rang out as Helios struck the flat of Selene’s blade, sparks exploding between them.

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Deimos didn’t pause.

He leapt high, spinning midair, and lunged again. But this time, his Signature’s true capabilities were activated.

The white flames trailing his body twisted around him, distorting his form—splitting it.

Three, then five, then seven flickering versions of Deimos formed, superpositioned across reality itself, surrounding Remus in an instant. Afterimages—real, but not.

Remus gritted his teeth as the strikes landed in rapid succession, blows coming faster than he could counter from different angles.

He let out a roar, lifting Selene overhead and slamming it down toward the closest version of his brother.

But the blade passed clean through—only for the image to burst into white flame.

The real Deimos had ducked beneath the swing. He swapped into one of his afterimages mid-movement and came up from below.

His lance cut forward in a flash of light.

“Tch—damn it!”

Remus twisted away at the last second, but not fast enough.

The tip of Helios grazed his cheek, carving a deep cut across his face.

Blood dripped onto the floor.

Remus’s eyes narrowed, then, a golden glow bled into his irises.

Deimos distorted, teleporting between projections, weaving through possible paths—each shift warping space around him as he jumped from one potential self to another.

Selene pulsed in Remus’s hand, its massive shadow curling against the marble floor.

As Deimos closed in, Remus spoke as he raised the sword, voice calm and final:

“You’ll all decay.”

With a single horizontal slash, Selene tore through the air—its edge glowing with something deeper than light.

It didn’t just cut through space.

It cut through concept.

Reality warped around the strike as the blade severed the narrative function of Deimos’s Signature.

Every time Deimos tried to manipulate the superposition of his being, the alternate variation that appeared would immediately decay.

One by one, Deimos's other selves perished, their forms unraveling into ash-like flame and vanishing before they hit the ground.

A red notification flared before Deimos’s eyes.

[SOUL CORE DIAGNOSTIC]

⚠️ Notice: Core Stability – 67%External Interference detected.Soul Core Integrity Compromised.

He fell to his knees, his soul rattling with each one that faded, feeling like threads being violently snapped from his Core.

Across the room, Remus stood unmoved, Selene lowered at his side. Blood trailed down his cheek, but his stance was firm, his golden eyes glowing in the dark.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Deimos,” he said quietly as his brother stood, white eyes flickering.

“Neither do I.”

Steam hissed from Deimos’s nostrils. White flames curled violently around his arms and wrists, burning away the last remnants of his cloak and blackening the edges of his armor. His irises flared like twin stars—searing, absolute.

“But I will protect the Princess. No matter what.”

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In a blur, Deimos vanished.

He reappeared in front of Remus, ramming the blunt end of Helios into his brother’s chest and launching him skyward with a thunderous crack.

Before Remus could recover, a second Deimos—an afterimage composed entirely of blazing white flame—materialized above him and slammed him back down with a brutal overhead strike.

The original Deimos caught him mid-fall, pivoted, and drove his foot into Remus’s side, sending him crashing through a stone pillar.

“The goddess has abandoned us!” Remus coughed as debris fell around him, struggling to stand back up.

“Humanity needs light—someone to save them—and the Princess is the only one who can!”

“Why can’t you see that?!” He cried as Midnight roared, lunging from out of the dust, moving like smoke as it hurtled toward Deimos.

Deimos cut through Midnight’s shifting mass. The wolf whirled, snapping at where Deimos had been, but he vanished—reappearing above it, striking down at light speed.

Cracks split Deimos’s skin like porcelain; white flames flaring from them. His Soul’s Core was set ablaze.

“Impossible!” Remus yelled, annoyed. “Your Signature ability is incapacitated. How are you still able to create so many apparitions?!”

Deimos was beside him in an instant, gripping Remus by the hair and yanking him from the ground.

“These,” Deimos said coldly, “aren’t apparitions.”

Helios erupted—segments of its form flaring with the same burning energy—before discharging a single burst that punched a hole clean through Midnight’s body in the blink of an eye.

What? Remus blinked. Then that's just… his speed?

Deimos flickered around Midnight’s faltering form, delivering blow after blow, disintegrating it piece by piece.

Remus ran forward, trying to flank Deimos, Selene raised. Deimos turned, catching his brother’s movement—then the interface appeared in front of his eyes before he could react:

[SOUL CORE DIAGNOSTIC]

⚠️ Warning: Core Stability – 54%

Deimos ignored it, punching through the warning as if it were glass—shattering the interface as his fist slammed into Remus, hurling him to the floor.

Deimos unleashed a flurry of strikes, his limbs blurring faster than human sight—each motion tearing at his Soul Core, deepening the cracks spreading across his burning skin.

“BACK OFF!” Remus roared, slamming his palm into the ground. A shockwave of shadow exploded outward, hurling Deimos backward across the cathedral floor.

The brothers lay there in silence—until Deimos forced himself to his feet.

“As I said before—our duty is to protect the Princess above all else,” he said, stepping toward Remus and leveling his lance at his chin.

“Humanity can crumble, so long as the goddess’s vessel is safe. Through her, they can be restored.”

“Protect… that’s all you say,” Remus spat blood, voice raw.

“I’m protecting the Princess from your ignorance!” He shouted, “All the friends we’ve made—none of their deaths matter to you as long as the goddess has the ability to bring them back?”

His eyes locked on Deimos’s.

“But what if she never comes back? What then?”

Deimos stayed silent, mind racing, but forced the words out.

“The Goddess gave each of us a different path to protect humanity. Guarding the Princess is one of them—even if it’s not as direct as you want.”

“We don’t control humanity. Only the vessel does. As long as she lives, as long as the Goddess can reach through her, humanity will fall, rise, and endure. That is preservation. But if you awaken her, she’ll become something else entirely. And whatever that is—how can you be sure it’ll care to do the same thing?”

Behind Remus, Midnight rose—tall, feral, its eyes locked on Deimos, snarling as it bared its fangs.

“I suppose… that’s just the gamble I’m willing to take.”

Deimos readied himself, white flames flaring from his fractured skin.

His muscles coiled, and Midnight growled, low and deep. Both were poised to strike—seconds from colliding.

Until—

“Enough.”

The word was absolute.

And everything stopped.

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Then, suddenly, a surge of Arkhaios energy rushed toward Deimos.

Instinct took over—he pivoted, raising his lance just in time to catch a blazing beam of red light that pushed him backward.

The weapon’s shaft shuddered under the impact, thin fissures creeping along the metal as the beam finally faded, leaving the air humming with residual heat.

My lance, it... cracked?

Deimos was dumbfounded; he quickly turned back to find Remus no longer there, instead was---

The Locust.

A renowned mercenary of Enmida who left behind drought and decay wherever he marched.

Some theorized him to be another Tarot, one that had gone rogue like Remus and abandoned his original purpose, now hiding under a suit of armor to conceal his identity.

“I will be your opponent, Tarot of the Sun,” he said — and before Deimos could respond, the man was already gone.

He moved faster than thought, the Extractor ripped from the princess’s body hummed in his hand as it intercepted Deimos’s lance mid-strike. The weapon’s prongs screeched against divine metal.

Deimos recoiled, twisting Helios in a vicious arc, the lance seared through The Locust’s armor. The blade carved a glowing fissure down the black steel, splattering molten metal onto the cathedral floor.

The Locust rose almost without pause, armor hissing, glowing crimson as a swarm of mechanical locusts erupted from the gash—scuttling across his body, devouring the residual Arkhaios energy. They dissolved back into him like living armor, and then—

He struck.

The punch landed like a cannon blast.

Deimos’s ribs buckled. He crashed through a pillar, stone shattering as he skidded to a halt in the rubble.

His Signature must be kinetic-based, Deimos realized grimly.

The more energy I hit him with, the harder he’ll hit back…

He glanced at Remus—his brother’s expression unreadable. The rest of Eclipse watched in silence, fascinated; it wasn’t every day you saw a Tarot fight.

Brother… what has made you cling so blindly to something so wrong? Deimos wondered.

Or was it really wrong at all?

His eyes dimmed as his Signature flickered.

Because now—something impossible bled through the clarity that defined him.

Doubt.

In everything.

In fighting to keep Princess Lirael—Tarot of the World, symbol of hope and ambition—asleep, while humanity withered in her absence.

What happens if she wakes and no longer needs us?

If she becomes all-powerful, she’ll protect herself.

And if that’s true…

What purpose would I have then?

…

Am I truly fighting for the Princess’s sake… or my own?

Such questions were poison to him.

As the Tarot of the Sun, he was clarity incarnate—Eirene forged his soul from truth and absolute conviction. Doubt was a virus. And as long as it festered in his Core, his Signature would resist him.

His footing faltered. Helios disintegrating in a flash of pale flame.

His power retreated, sealing itself away inside his Core.

The Locust immediately took advantage, charging forward.

Deimos caught him at the last instant—then flickered across the room in a desperate blur of light, using the little energy he had left—

—only for the Locust to match him, shifting like a ghost. He materialized inches from Deimos’s face, visor flaring scarlet.

Deimos tried to dodge, but was far too slow.

Remus’s voice, distant, almost pleading—

“Locust, wait! We don’t have to kill him, we just need—!”

Too late

The Extractor plunged into his eye.

Deimos’ body lost its function almost immediately as silver essence from his Soul’s Core was siphoned into the tool.

The machine whirred as the needle burrowed deeper— his essence, his soul, the very fabric that made him Deimos was being ripped out.

[Warning: Core Stability: 2%

System Error 404: No Active Path Detected]

The system’s voice echoed Deimos’ ears as the extractor ripped free—

Its needle dripping with liquid light, Deimos swayed as The Locust held him in the air by his collar, his left eye socket a gaping void, cracks spiderwebbing across his face.

The Locust dragged him out onto the cathedral’s balcony. Hoisting Deimos over the edge by the throat.

“You fought well. But your battle ends here, divine warrior,” He said, his voice crackling like a broken speaker.

“We will finish the task you no longer could.”

His visor glowed cold red as he stared into Deimos’s remaining eye, all the life had seemingly drained from it.

“It’s time for the Sun to set.”

And with that, he let go.

Deimos’s body vanishing into the shadows below Grehtia—swallowed by darkness, falling beyond sight.

As he plummeted through the rotting sky, the distorted system voice stuttered and crackled in his mind—

[ERROR]... [ERROR]... [ERROR]...

On and on it went, echoing as he fell through the dying world.

Without a word, the Locust turned back inside. He exchanged glances with Remus, who stood frozen, his head lowered.

“The time has come,” the Locust rasped. “The Princess will awaken from her eternal slumber—and with her, the hope and guidance humanity has long needed.”

He lifted the Extractor high, then plunged the needle back into Lirael’s chest.

Deimos’s stolen essence poured into her soul.

Remus paused, caught in the pull of regret and conviction—then, with a breath, he stepped forward, thrusting his hand into Midnight’s gaping maw.

The black wolf convulsed, howling as Remus tore free a fistful of his own swirling, shadowed essence—and embedded it into Lirael’s forehead.

The world held its breath.

Then—

Lirael’s eyes opened.

And everything turned gray.

The color drained from the world.

The air went still. The battle outside fell silent. Avatars and monsters alike were froze mid-motion.

Lirael sat up.

She looked at her hands. At the wires. At the blood.

For a moment, confusion flickered across her face. Then she spoke—

“Oh,” she said, her voice like the last note of a requiem held in eternity. “I see.”

Her gaze lifted—to the Locust, then Remus.

Then—beyond.

Lirael’s vision peeled back the veil of now.

She saw the endless swarms of Eris’ abominations—and the blood humanity had spilled, not just against them, but against each other.

She saw the sickness, the famine, the rot strangling the roots of Irelya.

Humanity was fighting a losing battle on the body of a world that’s already lost.

And the princess knew it.

One of Eclipse’s members—a tall, gaunt woman with hollow, pitch-black eyes—stepped forward.

“Your Royal Highness,” she began.

“Enmida has suffered ten years of unbroken calamity. We want peace. We want what was. Before the Macabre. Before the goddess vanished. We want—”

“Interesting,” Lirael whispered, cutting her off.

“From the moment I awoke, I felt it. Not air. Not breath. But misery—woven into the marrow of everything.”

Tears fell from her eyes.

Though her face did not change.

“How... curious. That a world can fall so quickly when no one is watching.”

Sunlight filtered through the broken ceiling, casting pale threads over her bare skin as she rose.

The altar cracked beneath her as if it were ashamed to bear her grace.

“There is only one cure for an infection this deep,” she said, voice distorting.

“We must return to when the wound was clean. Before the fever. Before the gnawing.”

“Return?” Remus took half a breath, but even that was too late.

Lirael lifted her hand, and his body froze.

The Locust, arrested mid-step.

The rest of Eclipse, suspended along with them.

“We will leave behind,” she cried, tears streaming down her face as her eyes began to glow.

“This world of suffering!”

Then oblivion surged inward as the world itself—

Rewound.