Again, the force that had consumed over millions of worlds crashed down the small dome of blue energy. Again, the dome held, unbroken against the force that sought to unmake all of creation. Again, the enemy screamed and its wails fractured the fragile moorings of reality.

Inside of the dome, a soldier, haggard and weak, knelt before a golden Throne. The Throne was a treasure beyond any measure, a relic of the first Transcendent that defined the structure of all things. Since the beginning of time, it sat empty within the city of Zoharim waiting for its maker to return.

Yet, the Maker never came.

Instead, gods, demons, men, and more waged war over the Throne’s power. They sought to claim the Throne for themselves or their nations or their masters. None succeeded. How could they? They all lacked one quality.

They weren’t worthy.

The soldier fought against them, any who came, any arrogant enough to attempt to seize the reigns of cosmic order. And like wheat against a scythe’s blade, they fell. He had lost count of the challengers as much as he had the passing ages.

It all blurred together. That is, it did until his true enemy issued his challenge against the fabric of creation.

For the first time in eons, the soldier and the others who preserved creation lost a prime world. The loss shook their morale like nothing else before, but they rallied in response. The lines held for a time, and victory looked to be within their grasp.

Then, the first of their numbers fell to the enemy’s corruption. Ancient secrets became weapons for the enemy’s legions to penetrate even the mightiest of their citadels. The cycle repeated over and over despite their best efforts until the enemy broke the gates of Zoharim.

The city fell, and soon after, the citadel that housed the Throne followed. The soldier’s strength failed, his hope died, and then, only his duty remained. Still, he endured. He was not the most powerful nor the wisest nor most cunning, but he was the only one left.

He waited for the next attack. Time stretched for what must have been years. He laughed at the irony of the unexpected respite. It was an ugly sound filled with madness and disdain. In the early days, he would’ve done anything for such a long rest to give his allies time for recovery. Now though, he hardly cared. A lack of hostility didn’t mean he could drop his barrier or ease the strain on his overtaxed soul. His duty called for ever-present alertness and a willingness to fight at any moment. No, this peace merely prolonged the inevitable.

Eventually, he would fail. He knew this, but he endured because it was his duty. He would fight until he had nothing left.

“My love, why not rest?” a woman’s voice whispered. He saw her, as real as the day she died. Her visage had faded from his weary mind long ago, yet the idea of her beauty remained. Her phantom touch sent a shiver down his spine as her fingers brushed his face. Something stirred within, the ashes of a fire long-forgotten. “This is a cruel fate. You have served well for a master whom we have never known, but no more! It is torturous to watch you die such a slow death. Join us in oblivion, join me!”

“I cannot,” he grumbled, his words barely audible.

The woman faded, blurred but not gone. Another phantom appeared, this one a tall man with a wiry frame. He had gentle eyes.

“I see you’re fighting as always, my friend,” he said. The sound of the man warmed the ashes in the soldier’s soul. For a moment, he almost smiled, almost. The man analyzed the barrier with expert eyes, no doubt finding the tiniest of imperfections in the craftsmanship of the transcendent array. “This barrier will collapse soon. What will you do when there is nothing left?”

“I will fight until I can no longer,” responded the soldier, his words coming stronger than before.

“Saros efin sol, ys moros el, my friend.” The man smiled and placed a hand on the soldier’s shoulder. “Even in death, a star sheds light.”

Like a spark on dry kindling, his words lit a flame within the ashes. It wasn’t large nor did it burn with much intensity, but it was alive. The phantom faded like the first had and the soldier released a heavy breath laden with pent-up tension. He felt lighter and more focused despite his exhaustion and impending doom.

“I wish I could fight with you,” another phantom said. Her features hid beneath a tangle of disheveled hair. He briefly caught a glimpse of her eyes, once radiant orbs of power dimmed by death’s veil. She knelt in front of him placing her hands over his gauntleted fists. She squeezed and in response, the gauntlets shone like fading stars. “I never could keep pace with you though, could I? Even with all my power and speed, you always managed to stay one step ahead. I always admired that about you.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his words clear but pained. The phantom’s kindness hurt more than any wound could. It was a brutal reminder of his multitude of failures. All his skills, experience, and preparations had amounted to nothing against the enemy’s advance.

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“Brother.”

“No…,” the soldier said turning his eyes away from the newest phantom. The voice might as well have driven a stake through his heart. “Begone, spirit! Do not torment me!”

“It wasn’t your fault, brother.”

Unlike the other phantoms, the figure before him showed no hint of death’s embrace. If the soldier hadn’t known better, he might’ve mistaken the man’s appearance for the miracle of resurrection as opposed to the hallucination that it was. The figure shone with golden light marking his outline in contrast to the blue light of his barrier and the void outside of it. Seeing the glow’s similarity to the radiance of the Throne, the soldier’s heart ached.

His brother had been the greatest of their number and his oldest friend. They faced perils beyond imagining together, coming out on top without fail. Together, they gathered others who defended the cosmic order, giving their efforts structure and achieving more than any of them could’ve alone.

“Wael,” he said, full of regret. His mistake had made his brother vulnerable and the enemy capitalized with ruthless efficiency. That loss, more than any other, sealed their inevitable defeat. “If only I had died in your place…”

“It’s time,” Wael’s phantom said. He extended a hand to the soldier, a smile on his face.

Slowly, he stood, somehow leveraging the aid of the specter from his past. The flame flickering in his soul burned brighter with the fuel of his resolve.

He felt the moment coming before it happened. His exhaustion mounted until he nearly collapsed. The faded phantoms of his past began to flicker like candles in the wind. A presence, familiar and dreaded, pressed against the walls of his mind. Then, the barrier failed, sputtering out with far too little fanfare for one of the most powerful defensive arrays to ever exist.

He barely had the time to raise his gauntleted fists into a block before the lance of anti-creation energy struck him. The flame inside flared to life and his gauntlets shone brighter than they had since the fall of Zoharim. He pushed against the enemy’s attack with everything he had trusting the armor forged in the power of his destiny.

The battling energies hummed with explosive potential, neither winning out over the other. Unfortunately, the soldier behind the gauntlets had limits. He roared and lifted his arms with all the might that he could muster. Like a dark, shooting star, the enemy’s attack sailed into the void. He smiled at the momentary victory, but then, the next attack struck.

The blast ripped through his chest, destroying the shining metal of his breastplate, then the flesh and bone beneath. He stumbled back but kept himself upright through one last act of defiance against the inevitable. His vision began fading as he looked into the void surrounding the Throne. Memories mixed with his thoughts painting the nothingness with vibrant colors, familiar voices, and comforting smells.

The scene, driven by his dying mind, fractured. In the distance, a dark silhouette stepped into his sight like a splotch of black ink on a beautiful work of art. The silhouette took another step and the memories shattered further. The colors faded, the voice became garbled whispers, and the smells drifted into the emptiness.

He tried to fight it. He marshaled every drop of willpower at his disposal and more, but it wasn’t enough. As in all things prior, he was destined to fail, to be defeated by a greater force. Eventually, even the phantoms disappeared until only one remained.

The soldier looked at his fallen brother, the hope of so many extinguished before he could save them all. Emotions buried deep in his psyche erupted filling his mind with the festering sores of pain and regret. He mouthed the beginning of an apology, but all at once, his body gave out. He had nothing left, nothing but cold blood and dying dreams.

He fell forward into the arms of death, or, at least, he would have. Something stopped his fall. He managed to lift his head enough to see his savior. It was a hand, a hand belonging to something.

He looked at the hallucination of his brother whose hand rested on his ruined chest staving off his descent into oblivion. A phantom, a memory, should not have been able to touch him. He could not understand the anomaly with the remnants of his fading mind.

“Gnosis Assessment completed,” said the entity, something else disguised as his brother. “Performance graded within exemplary levels. No further tasks are available. Redesignation commencing…”

The babble had no meaning to the soldier. He tried to lift his arms to push off of the imposter, yet he failed to move a muscle. By chance, he glanced beyond the entity during his feeble struggle. His fall hadn’t been the only thing that halted.

In the distance, the black silhouette was frozen in place. The fractures in the fabric of creation had stopped, some midway through their creation. He closed his eyes and wondered if he had fallen into a dream at the moment of his death.

“Input necessary,” the entity said, causing his eyes to snap back open. “Eternal Soldier, what is your desire?”

“I want,” he said. He wasn’t sure why he bothered answering the imposter, or even how he was doing so with his destroyed lungs. Something about its question spoke to him though as though the inquiry had pulled his deepest desire from the well of his soul. “I want to be enough…”

If he had had the strength, he would have laughed at how pathetic his wish sounded. However, the entity saw no humor in his words. It nodded and something changed about it.

“So be it,” it said.

With a smooth motion, the hand holding him pushed and he fell backward. His eyes met the entity. The moment slipped from time’s grasp stretching into eternity. Eyes that should’ve belonged to his brother instead contained a potence beyond his ability to understand. It watched, appraised, and judged him, again and again, like a machine processing a collection of files.

He had walked with Transcendents, battled gods and demons, and beheld the Vault of the First, but nothing compared to the presence before him. Could an entity of such power truly exist? He needed to know the Truth.

“Who are you?”

For a long time, he worried that no answer would come. But, when time regained its control, the enemy’s enraged scream shattered moorings of creation and the soldier’s fall continued. Finally, as the pieces of the cosmos fell around him, the entity answered simply.

“I am…”

He only heard the two words before his body touched the Throne and what once was ceased to be.