BONUS CHAPTER — The Origin of Lythen
(Written by Ellien S. Vorein)
Before Lythen became what it is today…it was something painfully simple.
Corny.Basic.Boring.The kind of story only an eleven-year-old could love.
Back then, I had two characters:
Rin Yakumo — edgy teen boy with a gauntlet
Vivian — bubbly ghost/witch girl who floated around
They weren't deep.They weren't tragic.They weren't layered.They weren't anything close to the characters you'll come to know —Noah, Cyran, Faran, Vivian, Kairo, Elyra.
It was the kind of story I look back on now and think:Wow. That was really all I had?
Nine Years Later
I tried again.
No expectations.No plan.Just a blank page.
And somehow… everything changed.
The world in my head wasn't childish anymore.It wasn't simple.It wasn't about gauntlets or floating ghosts.
It became something built from:
my own experiences
my pain and my growth
my imagination
and the inspirations that shaped me
Re:Zero.Expedition 33.Steins;Gate.Xenoblade.And many more.
Those stories didn't just inspire me —they taught me how to feel.How to write loneliness.How to write fear.How to write longing, memory, and heartbreak.
And without realising it… Lythen grew into something entirely different.
It became a story with weight.A story with heart.A story shaped by characters like Kairo and Elyra, and the people around them —Faran, Cyran, Vivian, Noah.
A story I never could've written at age eleven.
The Truth
Lythen didn't start good.
It started bad.
And that's why this version means so much to me —because every step, every rewrite, every abandoned idea across nine yearsturned something basicinto something I'm finally proud of.
Something I can share with you.