Long before the founding of the Holy Kingdom, before the rise of Garaga, before the Republic of Gult or the Heskin Territories existed, the world of Altris had already survived the end of itself more than once. Hidden beneath fragmented myth and contradictory elven records was a truth almost nobody living in the year 570 understood: history was not moving forward naturally. It was trapped in a cycle.
The first signs of this cycle began with the arrival of the Umbrefel, the people later remembered as the Elder Elves. They arrived through a portal fleeing a dying world, carrying with them half-remembered warnings of cosmic war and a force tied to the Triplets: Thalenir, Seradine, and Balmaridous. Most of the elves believed they had escaped destruction. Only a hidden few understood they had merely delayed it.
Balmaridous, the Devourer, did not conquer worlds through armies alone. It spread through corruption, memory, roots, influence, and despair. Entire civilizations slowly turned inward, fractured, and collapsed long before open war ever began.
By the time the signs became obvious, it was already too late.
Each cycle ended differently, but always with the same result: civilizations consumed, histories erased, and survivors fleeing into another age believing themselves unique.
Known later only as the Gray Wizard, Norm ceased being entirely mortal long before the current age. Time itself became unstable around him. Through magic, fractured memory, cloning, temporal manipulation, and repeated exposure to the unraveling cycles, he slowly pieced together the truth no one else could fully comprehend: every age was repeating variations of the same collapse.
At first Norm tried direct intervention. He fought wars. Guided kingdoms. Built alliances. Preserved knowledge. None of it mattered. Every timeline eventually broke.
So he changed his approach.
If the world could not be saved conventionally, then perhaps the cycle itself could be disrupted.
Norm began quietly searching across fractured timelines and possible histories, pulling together the best versions of people he could find. Not the strongest necessarily, but the versions capable of impossible choices. Men and women who would sacrifice themselves for others. Leaders who could inspire hope during collapse. Warriors who would still stand when defeat became certain.
He assembled them piece by piece across generations, often without them understanding the larger design.
King Jessir Cullet became one of the most important of these figures. Jessir represented something rare: moral stability. Where Norm had become fragmented by centuries of compromise and temporal decay, Jessir remained grounded.
That made him uniquely dangerous to the cycle itself. Balmaridous feared him not because of magical power, but because Jessir could willingly choose sacrifice if it meant saving others.
As the centuries unfolded, the signs of another collapse accelerated. The Weeping Maw spread corruption through kingdoms. The Blood Order destabilized governments from within. The Inferno Brotherhood prepared hidden strongholds beneath cities. The Gold Elves isolated themselves while secretly manipulating events tied to the old cycles. Meanwhile, the roots of Balmaridous spread beneath the world itself.
The northern kingdoms began failing first.
The lizardman empire of Lazshorma mysteriously regressed into savagery. Civilized settlements vanished. Trade routes collapsed. The dwarves of Roc-Moc were driven underground. Wild Elf villages disappeared. Then came the opening of the Elven Gates.
Whether through fear, manipulation, prophecy, or hidden agreement, the Elder Elves abandoned the gates protecting Guthan. The horde poured southward unchecked. Orcs, savage lizardmen, Oriff, crusader goblin descendants, corrupted beasts, and dragon-allied warbands swept through the north, consuming everything before them.
Most believed this was simply war.
It was not.
The invasions were shaping movement.
Norm already knew the final containment plan required entire regions to be emptied before activation could occur. The obelisk network — ancient monoliths tied to dragon magic, planar boundaries, and impossible arcane engineering — stretched across the center of the continent. Once activated, they would sever an enormous section of the world from the rest of reality, imprisoning Balmaridous and its roots inside a contained region for thousands of years.
But the cost would be catastrophic.
Everything along the obelisk line would be destroyed.
The Kingdom of Rol'Col was sacrificed strategically long before it realized its fate. Defensive aid was quietly withheld, allowing the horde to push the population toward the mountains or across the sea into Southern Uniche.
To outsiders, Rol'Col appeared abandoned. In truth, its collapse was engineered to reduce casualties inside the future containment zone.
The Cendachi refused to retreat.
Warned but unconvinced, they held their cities and fortresses against the tide. Proud enemies of Rol'Col for generations, they believed they could survive through strength and resistance. They never understood they were standing directly atop the future line of annihilation.
Almost none of this knowledge was public. To the common people, kingdoms were simply falling. Refugees fled. Armies collapsed. Dragons burned cities. Siege lines stretched across mountain passes while starving defenders bought time they did not realize was meant for evacuation rather than victory.
At Shaedoen Citadel, soldiers believed they were defending Garaga from invasion. In truth, they were protecting one of the final operational corridors before the world itself would break apart.
Then came the final revelation.
The roots were no longer spreading naturally.
They were attempting escape.
Balmaridous had become aware of the containment.
The timetable collapsed overnight.
Norm, Elim Zolus, and King Jessir realized they could no longer delay activation. The war had accelerated too quickly. The northern kingdoms were already breached. The horde was converging toward the obelisk regions. If the roots crossed containment before activation, the cycle would begin again across the entire world.
The earth split. Mountains shattered. Walls of mist descended from sky to ground. Entire regions vanished behind impossible barriers while magical storms consumed the obelisk lines. Kingdoms disappeared in moments. Armies marching toward battle simply ceased to exist. Cities were swallowed by collapsing terrain and spatial fractures. Millions died without ever understanding why.
Then Norm committed his final act of cruelty and mercy.
With the aid of dragon magic, he cast a world-shaping curse upon the survivors outside the containment.
And inside the containment?
History continued.
Broken. Fragmented. Isolated.
The people trapped within the separated lands inherited ruined kingdoms, shattered truths, and myths of a world they could barely remember. Some viewed the Gray Wizard as a savior. Others as a monster. Most never knew he existed at all.
But the cycle had finally been interrupted.
Not ended.
Only delayed.
And the heroes gathered by Norm across broken timelines — Alex, Warley, Kor'Goth, Talia, Else, Darla, Jessir, and countless others — were never truly meant to save the world completely.
They were meant to accomplish something far more difficult.
They were meant to choose which part of the world would survive.