In the age before silence, when Aionios still breathed, millions called it home.
When the Endless Hollow descended, those millions had a choice: flee into the void, or fight for what remained.
They chose to fight.
But they were not warriors. They were farmers, artists, engineers, parents, children. They had no weapons. No training. Only desperation.
And so, as they fell one by one, they gave what they could.
Their dreams. Their hopes. The future they would never see.
They poured it all into those who still stood the thousands who had bound their souls to rings, who had taken up arms when no one else could.
The thousands of warriors fought.
Each wore a soul-bound ring. Each ring held a fragment of what they defended a memory of home, a promise to the fallen, the weight of millions watching.
But the Endless Hollow did not tire. Did not stop. Did not end.
The thousands fell.
And as each warrior died, their ring did not shatter. It merged absorbed into another, combining souls, layering wills, compressing power. Soul to soul. Will to will. Hope to hope.
"Carry what I could not."
"Remember what I fought for."
"Finish this."
Thousands became hundreds as rings consolidated, growing heavier with each fallen warrior.
The hundreds of warriors fought.
Each ring now pulsed with accumulated essence. Dozens of souls bound together. Hundreds of wills intertwined. The dreams of millions, filtered through those who had carried them, compressed into brilliant, desperate light.
They wielded strength beyond mortal limits, fueled by those who had fallen before them.
But still, the Endless Hollow came.
The hundreds fell.
And again, the rings merged. Power concentrating. Souls layering. Each consolidation made the remaining rings stronger—and heavier to bear.
"We are with you."
"Do not let this be for nothing."
"End this."
Hundreds became thirteen.
The Thirteen stood.
Each ring had grown impossibly heavy with presence. Thousands of souls. Hundreds of wills. Millions of dreams and hopes, all concentrated into thirteen warriors.
And from that concentration, the rings birthed something new.
Domains emerged fundamental forces given shape by the collective desperation of an entire civilization.
Each domain could take any form its wielder desired. The rings were not bound to a single shape they were possibility itself, limited only by the warrior's will and imagination.
But each of the Thirteen chose a form that resonated with their domain. A weapon that felt right. And in using those forms again and again, they became tradition. Memory. The shapes that would forever be associated with their power.
The warrior of VOID chose a Rapid-Shot Crossbow, sleek and angular. Its bolts did not fly they phased, tearing through the fabric of space itself. Distance held no meaning. Walls were illusions. The wielder stood nowhere and everywhere, and their shots arrived before they were loosed.
The warrior of REASON forged twin Cannons, heavy and cold. They did not simply fire they constructed. Each shot was a creation, each blast an engineering marvel. Artillery that adapted, reformed, rebuilt itself with every pull of the trigger. Logic made manifest in destructive force.
The warrior of THUNDER wielded a Katana, sharp and swift. The blade hummed with electric fury, cutting faster than thought. Each strike was a bolt of lightning condensed to a single edge. The air screamed. The weapon moved like storm given form, and its wielder danced between raindrops.
The warrior of WIND drew a Bow, elegant and waiting. Its arrows rode hurricanes, guided by breath and whisper. They did not fly straight—they curved with the currents, spiraled with the gales, struck from impossible angles. The archer needed no aim, only to ask the wind where to send death.
The warrior of ICE shaped a Lance, long and gleaming. Precision incarnate. Each thrust was absolute, each piercing strike a frozen moment in time. Where it touched, warmth died. Movement stilled. The weapon did not simply wound it stopped, crystallizing the world around its point.
The warrior of FLAME summoned a Greatsword, wide and brutal. Fire wrapped its edges, heat bled from its core. Each swing was an inferno contained, a promise of ash. The blade did not cut it burned through, incinerating resistance, leaving only embers and the memory of what once stood.
The warrior of SENTIENCE formed Gauntlets, close and unyielding. They did not strike from distance they met the enemy face to face, fist to claw, mind to madness. The wielder's thoughts were armor, their will a fortress. The gauntlets turned away not just blows, but the very erosion of self.
The warrior of STARS called forth a Rocket Hammer, impossibly heavy. It did not fall it crushed, gravity itself bending to its weight. Each swing pulled the world downward, collapsing space beneath its head. The wielder carried stellar force in their hands, the pressure of dying suns compressed into a single blow.
The warrior of BINDING unleashed Chained Blades, serpentine and cruel. They did not simply cut they wrapped, restrained, held. The chains extended endlessly, seeking targets, winding around limbs and throats. Escape was a concept the weapon did not recognize. What the chains caught, they kept.
The warrior of DOMINANCE raised a Cross, proud and terrible. It did not ask it commanded. The weapon's presence alone bent wills, forced submission from the weak-minded. When swung, it struck not just flesh but spirit, breaking the defiant, crushing resistance before it could form.
The warrior of CORRUPTION carried a Scythe, curved and whispering. The blade did not wound it withered. Flesh decayed at its touch. Strength rotted. Life unraveled into entropy. The scythe harvested not crops but vitality itself, leaving hollow husks where warriors once stood.
The warrior of ORIGIN threw a Javelin, pure and final. It did not pierce it returned all things to their beginning. The weapon struck at fundamental truth, unmaking complexity, reducing the constructed back to base essence. Armor meant nothing. Flesh was irrelevant. The javelin cut through to what was, stripping away all that seemed.
The warrior of PERMANENCE held a Trick Staff, shifting yet immovable. The weapon transformed, adapted, but never broke. Where it stood, reality held firm. Chaos could not touch it. Change could not move it. The staff was a pillar driven into existence itself, and around it, the world remembered how to stay solid.
These were the Thirteen Armaments.
Not the only forms the domains could take but the forms chosen by those who first wielded them.
The shapes that had become legend. Memory. Tradition.
Weapons forged not from metal, but from the collective soul of a dying world.
The Thirteen fought for years. Decades.
And one by one, they fell.
Each time, their rings merged with those who remained.
Thirteen became seven.
Seven became four.
Four became two.
Two rings. Two warriors.
Kevin and Mei stood together in the ruins of what had once been their world.
On Kevin's right hand was the Ring of Finality a single band that pulsed with dark light. Seven domains compressed into one: Void, Reason, Stars, Origin, Binding, Dominance, and Permanence. The omega point made manifest.
On Mei's right hand was the Ring of Death and Beginning a single ring that flickered between warmth and cold. Six domains merged into one: Flame, Ice, Wind, Thunder, Corruption, and Sentience. The cycle incarnate.
Two rings that had consumed all the others. Two warriors carrying half a civilization each.
They had fought side by side for so long that neither remembered what it felt like to be alone.
But the Endless Hollow never stopped.
And even they had limits.
Mei fell during what should have been just another battle.
There was no dramatic final stand. No grand sacrifice. Just exhaustion. Just the slow, inevitable erosion of someone who had carried too much for too long.
Kevin caught her before she hit the ground.
Her right hand the one bearing the ring was already cold.
"Kevin." Her voice was quiet. Tired. But she smiled anyway, like she used to before the world ended. "Looks like you're stuck with the cleanup."
He didn't respond. Couldn't.
"Don't make that face." She lifted her right hand slowly, the ring pulsing with faint light. "You know what needs to happen."
"Mei"
"It's okay." She reached for his left hand the empty one and pressed her ring against his palm. The metal was warm despite everything. "I'm not leaving. None of us are." Her smile softened. "We'll all be right here. You won't be alone."
The ring slipped from her finger.
For a moment, it hovered above his left palm six domains, thousands of souls, millions of dreams, all contained in a single band of light.
Then it settled onto his left hand.
Mei's eyes closed.
Kevin held her as she became light, dissolving like the mara-struck he would one day fight on distant worlds. Not violent. Not painful.
Just... release.
The last words she said weren't grand. Weren't prophetic.
Just: "See you later."
Kevin Eventide Aionios stood alone.
The last.
The bearer of both rings.
On his left hand: the Ring of Death and Beginning Flame, Ice, Wind, Thunder, Corruption, Sentience. The cycle incarnate. The end that births the start. Mei's ring.
On his right hand: the Ring of Finality Void, Reason, Stars, Origin, Binding, Dominance, Permanence. The omega point. The absolute end. His ring.
Two rings.
Thirteen domains.
Thousands of souls.
Millions of dreams.
All of it resting on his hands.
The rings were powerful. Immensely so.
Each one carried the accumulated strength of half a civilization. Wielding them made Kevin an Emanator a being who could stand against cosmic forces, who could fight horrors that would break lesser warriors.
But he kept them separate.
Always.
The rings whispered to him sometimes. Called to merge. To become one.
But Kevin never answered.
Not because he feared the power.
Not because he didn't know what would happen.
But because... what was the point?
Everything was already destroyed. Aionios was falling. The people were gone. The dreams had died with their dreamers.
More power wouldn't change that. Wouldn't bring anyone back. Wouldn't undo what had been done.
It would just be... more. More strength. More destruction. More emptiness.
Meaningless.
Kevin could have left Aionios long ago. The rings gave him that power. He could have walked away into the stars, left the dying world behind.
But he didn't.
He stayed.
Not to save it he knew that was impossible.
But to witness it. To see it through to the end. To stand with his world until its final breath, because leaving would mean abandoning even the memory of what it had been.
Someone had to be there when Aionios fell.
Someone had to watch.
So he never combined the rings. Never sought that final transformation.
He kept them on separate hands. Used them individually. Never let them touch for longer than necessary.
Because the end was already here.
What would more power change?
But even used separately, the rings were too much for normal combat.
To draw on their full power to unleash six domains at once, or seven—was to invite destruction on a scale Kevin no longer had the stomach for.
So he sealed them.
Suppressed them.
Allowed only the faintest trickle of their true strength to flow through.
From the Ring of Death and Beginning, he drew a Lance sleek, dark, simple. A shadow of what six domains could truly create.
From the Ring of Finality, he shaped a Blade straight with a subtle curve, elegant but restrained. A whisper of seven domains held firmly in check.
These were his restraint. His control.
The weapons of a man who had nothing left to protect, but fought anyway.
But the Thirteen still existed.
Not as separate rings those had been absorbed, merged, consolidated into the Two.
But as echoes. Imprints. Memories.
When Kevin needed more than suppressed power, he could call upon them individually. Not the combined might of six or seven domains. Not the full strength of either ring.
Just one domain. One weapon. One purpose.
The Rapid-Shot Crossbow of Void, phasing through space.
The Cannons of Reason, constructing destruction.
The Katana of Thunder, cutting like lightning.
The Bow of Wind, riding the gale.
The Lance of Ice, freezing time itself.
The Greatsword of Flame, burning everything.
The Gauntlets of Sentience, protecting the mind.
The Rocket Hammer of Stars, crushing with gravity.
The Chained Blades of Binding, restraining the world.
The Cross of Dominance, commanding submission.
The Scythe of Corruption, reaping vitality.
The Javelin of Origin, returning all to the start.
The Trick Staff of Permanence, anchoring reality.
These he could wield safely. These he could use without overwhelming force.
Each weapon was a fraction of the whole. Manageable. Controllable.
Enough to fight. Not enough to unmake.
Kevin stood alone on a world that was already dying.
The rings had made him something more than human. Something beyond mortal limits.
An Emanator but one without a Path. No Aeon had chosen him. No cosmic force had blessed him.
Just two rings and the weight of everyone he'd failed to save.
So he fought.
Not for himself. Not for victory.
He fought for the hopes of millions of civilians who had believed someone could save them.
He fought for the dreams of thousands of warriors who had passed their rings forward, trusting the next would succeed where they fell.
He fought to honor the faith of the Thirteen, who had given him everything they were.
He fought because Mei had smiled and said "See you later" as if there was still a future waiting.
He fought because they had believed in something.
And he was the last one left who could carry that belief forward.
But the Endless Hollow didn't care about hopes.
Didn't care about dreams.
Didn't care about faith or promises or belief.
They came. They consumed. They continued.
Days became weeks. Weeks became months. Months became years.
Decades passed in endless battle.
Perhaps centuries he stopped counting.
Kevin killed them by the thousands. By the tens of thousands. But they were endless, and he was just one man carrying two rings and the weight of a dead civilization's final wishes.
The civilians who had hoped? Already gone.
The warriors who had dreamed of victory? Already ash.
The Thirteen who had trusted him? Already faded to echoes.
Mei's "see you later"? There was nowhere left to see her. No future. No after.
He was fighting for people who could no longer witness it.
Carrying dreams that would never be realized.
Honoring hopes that had no future to fulfill.
The fight had no meaning. No purpose. He couldn't win. Could only delay. Could only watch as the Hollow consumed more and more of what little remained.
He was fighting to keep promises that were already broken.
To save a world that was already lost.
To fulfill hopes that had become empty the moment their dreamers died.
It was futile.
Pointless.
The purest form of meaninglessness struggling not because it mattered, but because stopping meant admitting it never had.
And that was when IX noticed him.
The Aeon of Nihility gazed upon Kevin Eventide Aionios.
Saw a man fighting endlessly against an unwinnable war.
Saw the emptiness behind every swing of his blade.
Saw the meaninglessness of struggle without end.
And in that moment of recognition, Kevin became something more.
An Emanator of Nihility.
Not because he sought power.
Not because he wanted acknowledgment.
But because his existence had become the perfect embodiment of futility itself.
Shortly after, Aionios fell completely.
Not in fire. Not in screams.
Just... silence.
The shadow swallowed what little remained, and Kevin stood alone in the void where his world had been.
And so Kevin walked the stars, carrying two rings that must never become one.
Millions of dreams watched from within.
Thousands of souls guided his hand.
Hundreds of wills steadied his resolve.
Thirteen domains waited to be called.
Mei's voice still echoed in the silence: "See you later."
The Lance and Blade were his restraint.
The Thirteen were his arsenal.
He was an Emanator twice over once from the rings, once from IX's gaze.
Pathless first. Nihility second.
And the full power of the Two Rings, kept carefully separate?
That was the strength he carried.
But if they ever merged...
That was a question Kevin would never answer.