Time did not yet move. It existed, yes—in shards and loops, in laws and lattices—but it was not yet observed, nor given direction.
Luke had forged Balance, Flame, the Elements, Life, and Death. From the great stillness to the breath of fury, from the golden cradle to the twilight gate—creation was alive now.
But it lacked continuity.
Events happened, yet were not bound. Planes existed, yet did not sit in true relation. Cause and effect were seeds without soil.
The world breathes, Luke thought, standing atop the high arcs of Eidryn, but it does not yet walk.
Time needed a witness.
Space needed a keeper.
And the weave of fate—the golden thread that would allow all stories to take shape—needed a guardian.
The Codex of Origin opened to him, slowly and with gravity. Its newest page did not flicker or blaze like those before.
Instead, it spiraled.
A great helix of shifting script, folding in on itself yet never repeating. Its letters were rivers of silver, and its symbols shimmered with depth impossible to measure.
At its center sat a single name, woven of starlight and gravity.
Chronis.
The God of Time and Space.
Luke lowered his hand, gently brushing the edge of the page. The air around him warped—slightly at first, then with increasing intensity.
Seconds collapsed and stretched. Lights flickered in backward rhythm. His shadow split in three directions.
He smiled.
"So… even your concept defies the norm."
Chronis would not be a god of fire or stone, of life or decay. He would be something more elusive.
He would be framework incarnate.
Into the Depth Beyond Distance
Luke descended through the layered planes of Eidryn for the final time before the next expansion.
But he did not stop at the Core.
Instead, he moved beneath it—into a place he had never touched, not even with Balance or the Flame.
A place outside position, unreachable by mere direction.
It was not Void, but something older: a Null Point.
Here, nothing had occurred.
Not because it could not, but because it had not yet been permitted to.
Luke inhaled, and the First Flame flickered at the edge of existence.
He lifted both hands.
And from the Codex's spiral page, he drew the Seven Threads of Movement—each one a law in itself.
Duration – The stretch between states.
Sequence – The binding of before and after.
Relativity – The mirror of perspective.
Gravity – The binding of mass through influence.
Distance – The reality of separation.
Convergence – The inevitability of contact.
Memory – That which gives past its shape.
Each thread pulsed as Luke wove them together, spinning them like the strands of a divine loom.
He worked not as a god now, but as a clockmaker of the cosmos.
When the weave was done, he shaped it into a shell—an egg of fractal glass, its interior a churning gyre of galaxies unborn.
Within it, he placed a single concept, whispered not aloud but into existence itself:
Continuity.
And then, for the first time since the shaping began…
He waited.
Not long. Just enough.
Just enough to let time tick once.
And from within the shell, a beat emerged.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
And then it broke open.
The First Tread of Time
The egg cracked along seven invisible seams. Its core unraveled in reverse and reassembled itself forward.
From within it stepped a being of impossible clarity.
Chronis.
He bore no flesh, yet he was formed. His eyes were twin spirals, one of stars and one of dark matter. His skin shimmered with constellations. A cloak hung from his shoulders, made not of fabric, but of the night sky itself, stitched with the lines between stars, between moments.
And around his neck hung a single loop of orbiting orbs: one red, one blue, one white—each pulsing to a rhythm that was not music, but causality.
Luke stepped forward.
"Chronis," he said.
The being turned. His eyes did not blink. He did not breathe. But the air itself adjusted to his presence—as if recognizing him.
"Father."His voice was not sound, but vibration through certainty.
Luke smiled faintly. "Do you understand your purpose?"
Chronis raised his hand. Threads of light unfolded from his fingers—showing not predictions, but realities in wait.
A seed sprouting.
A city rising.
A star dying.
"I do not see the future," Chronis said. "I see the order by which the future becomes the present."
Luke nodded slowly. "You are time. You are space. But more than that—you are the thread that binds the chapters of creation."
"Do you know what must come next?"
Chronis turned his gaze to the horizon of Eidryn. Beyond it, planes flickered like uncoordinated sparks. Aion's world shimmered with harmonic symmetry. Velkarion's realm roared with dancing fire and unbound skies. The twin realms of Liora and Kael lay in opposing gentleness.
"They are separate," Chronis said. "But not yet placed. They exist… but not together."
Luke gestured outward. "Then claim your dominion. And stitch the heavens."
The Weave of Worlds
Chronis ascended beyond the planes.
Not above them—but around them.
He moved faster than movement, slower than stillness. He appeared in all domains at once—not to rule, but to position.
From the cloak upon his shoulders, he drew a single needle made from pure inevitability. And with it, he began to weave the worlds.
Kairon was placed at the center—not as ruler, but as axis.
Varkael spun around it in great arcs of energy, its chaotic momentum calculated and bound in orbit.
Amariel and Nethyra, the twin realms, were folded together—mirroring one another through Elurai, the River of Passage.
And to all of them, Chronis linked the flow of time: past, present, becoming.
He carved pathways—corridors through which thoughts could move, through which beings would one day walk.
And then, at the very edge of it all, he placed Eidryn—the First Domain—not at the top, not in the center, but as the origin point. The root from which all others had branched.
Luke watched it unfold from the Arc-Spire and whispered:
He is not just a god of time. He is the architect of perspective.
The Temple of Threads
Chronis did not build a palace.
He shaped a temple, floating in a dimension unplaceable—a realm that existed between before and after.
Its pillars were braided timelines.
Its floor was stardust laid in spiraling designs.
Its air shimmered with all possible futures—and yet none were fixed.
Here, Chronis sat upon a throne of circular thought, his hands ever weaving, adjusting, measuring.
Not to control fate.
But to preserve its order.
Luke stepped into the temple—his first time existing within a timeline, even if only briefly.
He felt the weight of every choice, every action, every breath of every god and being yet to be.
"Are you satisfied?" he asked.
Chronis did not answer immediately.
He folded a golden thread, knotted it once, and placed it within a scroll of bound light.
"No," he said.
Luke's brow rose.
"Why not?"
Chronis stood. His body glowed with the pulse of turning worlds.
"Because time demands story. And story demands witnesses."
A Seed of Mortality
Luke stood in stillness for a long time after that.
Chronis was right.
The gods had domains. Laws. Power.
But soon they would need more than realms and thrones.
They would need eyes that looked up at stars and hands that reached into soil.
They would need beings who could live, not for eternity, but for meaning.
Mortals.
Not yet.
But soon.
He looked at the Codex, now heavier than ever.
A dozen pages fluttered behind him. New names whispered. Concepts stirred. Powers long sealed began to press against the edges of imagination.
The age of gods was unfolding.
The age of souls was approaching.
And from the farthest edge of the multiverse, something stirred in answer.
Not born of Luke.
Not shaped from law.
But watching.
Waiting.
Eryxis.
The Devourer of Threads.
Luke closed the Codex gently.
Time now moved.
Stories would begin.
And soon… they would be tested.