The soft click-click of delicate limbs echoed through the dusty interior of an old workshop cabin, hidden near the engine hold of the skyship. Salti, small, brilliant, and full of endless energy—was perched atop a wide, oil-stained table, her glowing white eyes flickering with delight as she scuttled across its surface with dizzying speed.

  The room around her was a tinkerer’s paradise—or, to anyone else, utter chaos. Rust-specked gears, loose bolts, tiny pistons, copper wiring, and glass tubes lay in scattered piles across open crates and worn-out drawers. Duplicated gadgets, some recent, some aged and warped, sat stacked in uneven towers along the walls, labeled with hasty chalk notes and strange glyphs only Salti could decipher.

  Some of the tools bore unmistakable insignias of other crew members. Things that had most definitely been “borrowed” during the previous night.

  A large bronze compass spun slowly on the wall without a needle. In the far corner, an unfinished mechanical bird twitched occasionally, wings opening and closing like it was dreaming of flight. The room smelled faintly of oil, scorched metal, and faint ozone, charged by Salti’s faint weaving magic.

  An old steampunk radio, shaped like a brass beetle with tiny wing-shaped speakers, floated lazily through the air, suspended by a gentle enchantment. From it drifted a whimsical tune: magical orchestral music, light and curious, with ghostly harps and whispering flutes.

  Soft blue and pink musical notes floated with the melody, dispersing like petals on wind. Salti was in her element.

  She skittered from one corner of the table to the other, dismantling, reassembling, and rebuilding trinkets with her needle-fine claws. A copper bracelet was pulled apart in seconds, its components levitated and rearranged in midair—then bound again with thread-like strands of white light.

  The moment it was whole, silken strands pulsed from her back and wove a duplicate beside it, completely identical down to even the scratch marks. Then she was off again.

  Gears spun. Metal clinked. The air pulsed with quiet focus.

  Across the room, nestled in a shaded corner between the thick steam pipes and the flickering overhead rune-lamps, Kite lay reclined in a hammock woven from Salti’s synthetic threads, strong, flexible, and glittering faintly like spider silk under moonlight. The hammock swayed slightly with the ship’s subtle movements, suspended between two copper support beams.

  Kite hummed softly to the tune of the radio as it floated through the room, his voice low, almost a whisper. The book in his hands glowed faintly with age.

  He glanced up, watching Salti dart from gadget to gadget with mechanical grace and boundless energy. “…You sure work fast,” Kite murmured, smiling faintly.

  Salti didn’t slow. She gave a cheerful click of acknowledgment, her bell-shaped abdomen pulsing with faint white light. She was clearly having the time of her life.

  Kite’s eyes returned to the book in his hands. Its cover felt oddly warm, comforting even, as if it had been sitting in the sun despite the cool cabin air.

  The leather was a soft, faded sky-blue, aged but well-cared for. Silver thread was inlaid along the edges in flowing wind patterns, curling toward a central glowing sun sigil that pulsed faintly with every beat of Kite’s heart.

  The title gleamed in elegant golden script, shifting slightly as it caught the flickering light: “The Breath of Worlds: An Introduction to Qi, Sorcery, and the Soul.”

  Kite traced the golden letters with his fingers, each one warm beneath his touch as if the book remembered every reader who had ever held it. The script shimmered faintly, dancing like sunlight on rippling water. But despite its magical touch, the book felt like it had always belonged In his hands, patiently waiting for him to notice.

  Was it handcrafted by some ancient sage, or had it been conjured into being by the breath of the world itself? The thought stirred something deep in Kite’s chest—a flicker of recognition without memory.

  But the origin didn’t matter, not really. What mattered was the weight of it in his hands, not just physical, but spiritual. It thrummed softly, resonating with something hidden in his bones.

  The book felt alive. It was as though it had a pulse of its own, syncing with his heartbeat. It wasn’t just calling to him—it was inviting him.

  A silent, gentle urging, like the wind coaxing open a long-forgotten door. The pages inside whispered of knowledge and power, of truths veiled in starlight and soul. Kite swallowed, his fingers trembling slightly.

  It wanted him to open it. To learn. To realize. To become.

  Kite took a shaky breath and slowly cracked it open. The moment the cover lifted, a soft blue glow burst from within—like moonlight bottled and released all at once.

  It spread across the room in a slow, pulsing wave that shimmered against every wall. Salti skidded to a halt mid-tinker, her body rising slightly as her back-threads fluttered in alert curiosity. She turned sharply, her wide gaze locking onto the flood of light coming from the book.

  The glow dulled after a moment—but it didn’t fade. From the open pages, spirit-like creatures rose in silence, drifting into the air like ghostly holograms made of light and memory. Their forms shimmered with ethereal energy, trailing wisps of blue, silver, and pale gold.

  A tiny foxlike creature, its body translucent and speckled with stars, bounded through the air and left a spiral of constellations in its wake. A jellyfish made of wind and mist pulsed upward, its tendrils swirling like ink in water, trailing faint chimes with every movement.

  Two crystalline birds, winged and elegant, soared together in loops around the cabin before bursting into soft motes of light. A long serpent-like creature, woven from floating lanterns, twisted and coiled above Salti’s head, its body humming with silent music.

  Salti’s eyes widened, and she tilted her head in mechanical awe. Kite stared, jaw slightly open, the light from the creatures dancing across his face.

  The creatures circled them once, twice, then one by one faded like embers in the wind, dissolving into soft glimmers that settled in the air like falling snow.

  Kite blinked hard, heart fluttering. It was beautiful. Too beautiful. Like a dream trying to become real.

  “So cool…” he whispered, but his voice cracked slightly, betraying more than awe.

  He turned his gaze back to the book, where the first page now lay open—completely blank. Salti blinked, her curiosity only deepening. With a faint metallic chime, she leapt across the table, then onto the wall, then skittered onto Kite’s shoulder with instinctual ease.

  The two of them stared at the page together in total silence. No writing. No symbols.

  Just empty parchment glowing faintly with residual magic. “…Weird,” Kite murmured.

  Salti tilted her head again, her eight glowing eyes narrowing with silent thought. One of her threads flicked gently, brushing the page as if trying to coax it into revealing more.

  Still—nothing. Just the two of them, side by side in a cabin full of magic, music, and mystery, watching a blank page together, both wondering the same thing: What now?

  Kite blinked, the page before him still unmoving and empty. Salti, perched neatly on his shoulder, tilted her small white head, her soft glowing eyes narrowed in concentration.

  Then—without warning—the parchment shimmered. A faint trail of violet light curled into being across the blank surface, as if the page had inhaled a breath of stars.

  Glowing cosmic embers danced outward from the inkless corners, scattering like fireflies made from distant galaxies. The parchment darkened slightly at the edges, creating a soft vignette as new words began to etch themselves onto the page, letter by glowing letter.

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  Kite’s eyes widened slightly, and Salti emitted a faint electronic chirp of awe. The words burned violet, slow and beautiful: “The Garden of Eden”

  Then, slowly, the parchment bloomed with shape. Like a painter working in silence and divine light, the page sketched itself into a sprawling, radiant portrait—its lines formed not with ink, but with brushed stardust, weaving themselves into existence in delicate layers.

  At the center stood a light-skinned figure in long flowing robes, half white and half black, perfectly balanced, like two truths stitched together. His dark brown curly hair fell loosely over his shoulders, and his expression was that of a man smiling with the weight of fond memories—a mix of serenity, sorrow, and something ancient.

  His eyes were half-lidded and kind, yet unreadable. He was looking not at the viewer, but just past them, as though seeing across time itself.

  He stood barefoot on lush green grass, surrounded by an impossible garden—its trees twisted with flowering vines, glowing fruits of gold and silver hanging like living suns. Bioluminescent butterflies flitted between hanging leaves the size of sails.

  crystalline rivers streamed through the underbrush, reflecting both the morning sun above and the constellations far beyond it. The garden teemed with life—but it was silent. Perfectly still, like a memory preserved in amber.

  The man held the hands of two children, standing beside him. The one on the left was a young boy, dressed in flowing black robes, his eyes downcast but his smile bright, looking like a shadow come to life.

  While the one on the right—was a girl with radiant white robes, her smile wide and full of laughter, looking as if she were made of dawnlight.

  Both were laughing, holding the man’s hands as though this was home, this was joy, this was all they knew.

  Kite stared. Salti’s eyes flicked over every inch, her threads twitching softly with intrigue.

  More violet script shimmered below the image, burning like nebulae: “At the dawn of all things, when the breath of creation stirred the endless void… the True God crafted two children.”

  “One named Muerte.”

  “One named Vida.”

  Kite narrowed his eyes, leaning forward slightly. “…Muerte? Vida?” he muttered aloud. “Do those names… mean something?”

  Before an answer could form, the drawing shifted. The figures began to walk—slowly, peacefully—deeper into the garden. Trees moved aside for them, flowers bowed gently, as if the entire garden recognized their passage. But behind them… the beauty began to wilt.

  Leaves browned. Vines withered. Trees split and crumbled. Rivers dried into dust.

  And then, the sky behind them cracked. Hairline fractures of violet light split the heavens like shattered glass.

  The blue of the sky peeled away, revealing behind it a swirling void—a cosmic expanse where stars blinked out like candle flames, where planets crumbled into rings of debris, then into stardust, and then into nothing.

  Kite’s breath caught—and didn’t return. His chest tightened as the trees wilted, the sky peeled open like flesh.

  New words burned on the page with sudden brightness: “All things must end.”

  “When the breath runs out, and the stars blink their final sigh—there comes an event known only as… the Rewriting.”

  Kite read the final word aloud under his breath. “The Rewriting…?”

  The image shifted again. Now the garden was gone, so were the man and his children.

  Instead, the page filled with visions of countless worlds, glimpses of cities crumbling, oceans vanishing into steam, hoverships tumbling from the air as flames consumed them. Planets cracked in half. Moons shattered like eggshells.

  People, creatures of every species, decayed before his eyes. Their bodies turned to bone, to dust, to light.

  And then—a flash of pure white. Silence. More words emerged like glowing scars across the parchment:

  “At the end of all existence—when every last soul is spent, and all life reduced to echoes—the multiverse is not forgotten.”

  “It is reborn. And the cycle begins again.”

  Kite swallowed. The soft music from the floating radio continued playing, but it felt distant now. Muted beneath the magnitude of what he’d just seen.

  Salti clung a little closer to him now, her small frame still. She blinked slowly, threads barely moving, her eyes fixed on the glowing page.

  Kite glanced at her. Then down at the book. “Um… am I even reading the right book?” he asked aloud, half-joking—but his voice lacked certainty.

  Because deep in his chest, something stirred. A pull.

  A question. A feeling that this was only the first page—and that what lay beyond it would be stranger, heavier, and far more important than anything he’d prepared for.

  Salti slowly reached one of her delicate threads down toward the page again, hesitant this time. The embers still danced in the air.

  The air inside the workshop cabin had become thick with quiet magic, as if the book’s revelations were too heavy for the space around them to hold. Kite and Salti remained still, breathless, watching as the glowing page shimmered again, warping and reforming with starlit ripples. The drawing shifted once more.

  From the ashes of the wilted garden and the crumbling multiverse, a new scene emerged, this one deeper, darker, impossibly vast. It was a sanctuary not of stone or earth—but of space and stars, stretching endlessly across the parchment like a canvas of galaxies.

  Planets shimmered in the distance, spinning slowly, then streaking past like whispers, trails of light and memory. The background bled together into nebulae, the colors rich and shifting: deep violets, supernova golds, the eerie blue of forgotten moons.

  Time and reality blurred, swirling around two central figures locked in violent orbit. At the center floated the True God, his robes fluttering like slow waves in zero gravity, white and black mingling like the folding of day into night. His expression was grim—focused—but with an unmistakable sorrow in his glowing eyes.

  And before him—something terrible. A second figure lunged through the void, wrapped in a black exosuit, its surface fractured with violet pulsing light, as if forged from the very bones of dying stars.

  A tattered black cape snapped behind him like smoke. Chains, thick and heavy, dragged from his wrists, each link pulsing with cosmic energy, reaching through space like anchors to some distant torment.

  And behind that face—framed by shadows—burned a fury that had lived on for countless eons. The figure moved with staggering power. His attacks bent the stars.

  Worlds quaked and vanished in the recoil of each blow. The True God parried without raising a blade—only his presence, only his gaze, holding back this living tempest.

  Kite’s eyes widened, leaning closer in stunned awe. “Whoa…” he whispered. “The one in black looks… scary.”

  Salti chirped in agreement, a light tremble running through her silken threads as she huddled a bit tighter to Kite’s neck. Below the drawing, new words etched themselves in glowing violet, as cosmic embers curled around each letter: “Before the Rewriting… there is always one final war.”

  “The end of every existence is preceded by the event known as—Armageddon.” The word flared brightly, like a flare from a collapsing star.

  Kite squinted, his brow furrowing. “…Armageddon…” he murmured. “Didn’t… Liora mention something like that once?”

  The words continued: “In every Armageddon, two sides rise.”

  “The Empyreans and the Angels—forces of purity, of divine order. Against all remaining life… fractured, imperfect, desperate.”

  “And in every Armageddon… the Empyreans win.” Kite swallowed, the pressure in his chest tightening. The image shifted again, violent streaks of magic and destruction ripping through the starscape.

  Empyreans, glowing and ethereal, rained violet light down from impossible wingspans. Angels, armored and radiant, cut through the void with judgment in hand.

  And amidst it all, the figure in black—the Cosmic Child—stood alone. “In every timeline, in every existence, the burden falls to the Cosmic Child.”

  “He bears it alone.”

  “He refuses to change.”

  “And that refusal… is always his downfall.”

  Kite’s lips parted slightly, his chest rising and falling as he stared into the truth stitched across the stars. “I… don’t even know who that is…” he murmured. But the weight in his gut said otherwise.

  The page’s drawing shifted once more. The figure in black now knelt, his chains shattered, his exosuit torn to ruins, flickering with the last scraps of cosmic energy. His head hung low. His shoulders slumped.

  Before him stood the True God. He reached forward—a hand pressed to the Cosmic Child’s exposed forehead.

  The man’s eyes held no triumph. No anger. Only… pity.

  A soft stream of light, bright, violet, full of cosmic energy, flowed from the figure in black, drawn upward into the God’s hand like wind into a vacuum. The life drained from him—not blood, not breath—but something deeper. His cosmic essence.

  The next image showed the boy’s body, limp on the cosmic ground, curled slightly, as though trying to protect himself from the cold of death. His suit flickered. His eyes closed. Concealing the ghastly white pupils beneath.

  The True God stood over him, hand raised, and then… He released the cosmic essence, scattering it into the infinite void.

  It shimmered like falling snow… and vanished into darkness. Salti curled her limbs in closer, her glow dimming slightly.

  Kite's jaw tensed. “That’s…” Kite swallowed, his voice barely a whisper. “That’s awful.”

  The words glowed once more, grimly and without fanfare: “In every multiverse… the Cosmic Child always fails.”

  And with that, the page crumbled into cosmic embers, drifting up into the air—silent, delicate, and weightless—before vanishing like they had never existed.

  Only the whisper of the music remained. Kite stared for a long moment, lips pressed into a thin line, his shoulders slack.

  He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

  His eyes drifted down, and there it was. The real first page of the book. Clean. Simple. Unassuming.

  Yet glowing softly. Waiting. As if now… he was finally ready to read.