Andar’s words shook the air, his tone carrying a flavor of Rowan’s unique pitch. Rowan had a perfect understanding of all languages, and that also equated to his speech and voice, and every word he spoke was done in the exact manner it was intended to sound.

For anyone else such perfection of speech would be a horrifying thing to listen to, but his celestial origin gave his words a unique majesty and flavor that offset the perfection of his speech, thereby making every word he spoke to be, entrancing, and so even hearing it second hand from Andar, the majesty of the person who spoke shone through.

The white-haired girl gasped and tears emerged from the side of her eyes,

“Chains, it has always been about the chains that bound us all. I don’t know the reason why I could be conceived, with the chains imposed on my father, it should have been impossible, and he had surely paid a heavy price. Yet he did not give me a name, he did not claim me for himself, he only gave me the freedom to find who I could be. No matter how hard I tried, I could not see the reason for this decision… he was so stubborn, and unlike your Father, he always wanted me to figure things out for myself.”

“Well to be fair,” Andar smiled, “I don’t think mine is that much different, I mean he left me as soon as he said those words, not even saying goodbye.”

The white-haired girl nodded, “It hurts you know, the way they leave us and suddenly expect us to understand everything.”

The heavy voice of the Power rumbled, “You are not expected to understand everything, only believe in your potential. It is one of the reasons I am here, for you all to witness and see the beginning of the true battle over all of creation. The board has been set, and the pieces are in position, remember this moment for it would be yours, for all time.”

The wings of the Power unfurled and a new world was shown to them. The shattered Trion was remade once more, and with no fear of the end plaguing their minds they could easily realize what was different about the new universe that had been created.

Everything was the same except for one fundamental quality, the Time Period had changed. Normally it might be expected that such great changes would lead to a change in time, perhaps a shift thousands of years in the future, perhaps even billions of years, anything was possible, yet it was still shocking when they all saw that instead of the future, they had been thrust into the past.

The Empress who had barely managed to comport herself felt her knees go weak and she collapsed. She could hear Fury’s teeth grinding together as he also tried to place his ever- increasing shock in bound. Only Andar and Staff who seemed connected by their similar stories looked at this new world in astonishment and curiosity.

They saw Trion as it was five years ago when the threat of war and its complete eradication was just whispering in the minds of a madman. Billions of people still walked upon it, and their lives were relatively mundane, the only difference being that the entire universe seemed to be frozen in place, making it seem as if they were not looking at reality but a snapshot of the past.

Yet their senses could not be deceived. This was reality in all its glory and horror, but it had become frozen in place. Andar knew of the power of Tower Masters who could freeze and reverse time over a limited area, but had never anticipated that such a feat could be carried out over an entire universe. A thought occurred to him and he stroked the brooch on his chest,

‘Could it be possible that he could find Mira in this universe?’

Of course, this spectacle could distract them for a while, but it did not take long for them to see that the universe was different… smaller in a way that was hard to describe.

“Is there something strange about the universe?” Andar stroked his chin thoughtfully, “Um, of course, there are many things strange about the universe,” Fury snapped, his eyes moving around jerkily in their sockets as sweat poured out from his face, his body had not recovered its previous divine might, and the stress he was undergoing was making his heart beat like a racehorse,

“Not discounting the fact that it was destroyed and now restored, from what we are seeing, time has been reversed by five entire years… five! How can something like this be… you know what, sorry I asked that, I have forgotten we have a divine Creator floating around somewhere.”

“Shut up pretty boy,” Staff growled, “Andar is right, there is something about the universe that is strange, but I can’t seem to place my finger on it.”

They felt a weight behind them as the gaze of the majestic creature fell upon them again,

“Your sights are too limited, and even with the truth in front of you, none of you can see. It would help if you follow his rise up to the heavens, perhaps then you might be able to understand.”

Staff cocked her head to the side, “His rise?”

The power simply looked to the side and the rest followed his gaze, their eyes crossing countless miles across Trion until they came upon a pyramid made up of crystallized Aether, and on it was the desiccated body of a man, and by his side was a beautiful woman with long blue hair.

Andar’s breathing was caught in his throat, for even with the present state of Rowan, his presence was unmistakable. Something happened next that was quite impossible to describe because it seemed as if although they witnessed it, their minds could not understand it. He looked away for a moment before looking back and Rowan was no longer a corpse sitting on a crystal throne instead he stood a man whose beauty could rival all of creation.

“Do not be distracted,” Malik spoke out, shaking them from the hypnosis they all suffered upon looking upon Rowan, “follow his Ascent to the heavens or you will miss what is to come.”

Andar felt his heart contract painfully when he noticed that Rowan was already thousands of miles in the air and already left Trion his body recurring through a vast stretch of space with a single movement of his feet.

His gaze followed his rise with maniacal intensity and that was when he finally saw what was strange about the universe. Using Rowan as a guiding lamp he discovered that there was no longer one universe, but two!

His perception was nowhere powerful enough to cover the entire stretch of the universe, but Rowan’s presence seemed to make the entirety of the universe smaller. It was as if in his presence, everything else became meaningless.

The second universe was familiar to Andar, this one was the war-torn one that he had fled from, although its state was far more devastated than he remembered, there were barely any intact heavenly bodies in this second universe, and dividing both universes in its center was a bridge made from the light of twilight.