The Nine Events

"I'm not a demigod. Not exactly. Not officially. Not in the way people think of them. I wasn't born of some pantheon's champion or a High Celestial noble. My lineage… is complicated."

Peroncerea's brows lifted, but she said nothing. The silence encouraged him to continue.

"My mother… isn't from Spheraphase. Not originally. She's a Nexus... well, the Nexus of Nesmarone. Dynasty Hanabas claims her and that includes me and my sister. My father, though... was just a mortal. A human. A seer from Nesmarone."

Peroncerea slowly stepped forward, wings tucking in tighter.

"A Nexus of Nesmarone… wait. That's not—Nesmarone isn't exactly a small deal. It's the largest continent. You're saying your mother rules it?"

Eldrigan nodded once.

"She does. And she has… for a long time."

"And what is she, then?"

His expression flickered. Then he breathed out a low, humorless laugh.

"She's an Eldritch Goddess."

Peroncerea froze mid-step.

"You're joking."

"I'm not."

"But Eldrigan, Outer Gods don't come to Spheraphase. The Nexuses don't allow it. Every being with outer origin is sealed away or fought off."

"I know," he murmured. "I asked her the same thing when I was little. I remember sitting under her throne's steps. She'd speak to me in stories, as if I were her only audience. Said she had no place among her kind. Said she was banished for being… curious. For loving too much. For reaching into things her kin considered 'soft.' She was cast out by her own, long before she came to Spheraphase."

Peroncerea's arms folded unconsciously and she sat on a broken column near him, her tail curling around one ankle.

"Then how did she get here?"

"She never told me. Not in detail. But I think she was pulled here like how the Epoch Cycles work. She always hinted that it wasn't by her will, but… she found something here that gave her a reason to stay."

Peroncerea's eyes narrowed.

"Your father."

"Yeah. A mortal. A man with no noble lineage. Just a brilliant mind, a bit of a prophet. He read the dreams of others, traced them back to origins no one could see. She met him in a dream, I think. That's what she always said. And then she entered that dream. Made it real. Fell in love."

Peroncerea leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees, lips slightly parted.

"And… she gave birth to you? And your sister?"

"Yes. Which is how I got my name Eldrigan. It means 'Child Born of Madness in Order' in her tongue. It's symbolic. She always said I represented something impossible. That an Outer Goddess could make something stable. That I was proof even chaos could love."

He looked up at the towering crystal door, his voice going quieter.

"She told me to never speak of her to anyone. But… you deserve to know. This place demands blood of divine origin. I may not be holy in the traditional sense, but her kind… they're older than gods. Their essence is divinity in a raw, distorted form. Her blood flows in me. Enough of it, I guess."

"Why are you telling me this now?"

Eldrigan met her gaze with a small, sad smile.

"Because if I didn't, and we used our blood to open that door, you'd feel it. And you'd wonder. But... I trust you."

There was silence between them for a moment.

"I won't tell anyone," she said at last. "That's Dynasty Hanabas information. That's sacred."

"I know."

Her eyes flicked back to the door. "So… we really are the answer."

"One with demonic blood," Eldrigan said softly, "and one with divine."

She didn't respond. Her body tensed again, not because of the revelation, but because it meant what she feared most was now unavoidable.

She would have to bleed for this. And he would too.

She stood. "Let's do it, then."

He hesitated. "Now?"

"I've waited long enough. We have been trapped here two weeks. I've been suffocating in the dark. I… I don't think I can go another day without tearing something apart."

Eldrigan nodded, stepping toward the door again. He pulled a short ritual dagger from his belt, more ceremonial than functional, its blade thin and extremely sharp.

"I'll go first," he offered.

"No. Same time. Together."

He looked at her for a long moment.

And then they both held out their left hands. He cut his palm, and she did the same. The blood—dark violet and black—dripped simultaneously onto the base of the door, right onto the Godscript.

The runes flared instantly in red, gold, and black all at once.

The temple shuddered. A crack appeared across the door's surface like a lightning bolt in slow motion.

Peroncerea stepped forward first, one hand still holding her palm as blood slowly trickled down, her blue eyes narrowed and alert. Eldrigan came up behind her.

What greeted them wasn't some vault of treasures, or a burial ground of deities, or even a prison of ancient horrors. What they found was empty.

The chamber was massive, dome-shaped, easily spanning a kilometer across in perfect circular precision. Its floor was a smooth, translucent stone that barely caught the reflection of their feet, and the walls…

Nine curved partitions made up the chamber's perimeter and each bore an elegant pedestal projecting something utterly alien to the rest of the temple.

Holograms.

"...What? That's not… Eldrigan, these are holograms."

"But this temple is untouched by civilization. Even the energy signatures are ancient. There's no way something like this should exist down here."

She turned slowly, looking up at one. The image shimmered as if made of light-filtered dust, far beyond the flickering, functional holograms in Minafallen or Rise Borough. These weren't just images.

They were memories. Detailed, high-fidelity, almost conscious memories. And the second her gaze lingered on one, it reacted.

The first hologram sparked to life, pulsing gently as if awakening from sleep. The projection solidified into an image.

A city made entirely of golden bridges and white fire hovered amidst storm clouds, torn asunder by a lance of crimson lightning that cracked open the very heavens.

Eldrigan walked up beside her slowly, jaw slack, eyes wide.

"That's the Hidden Citadel," he muttered. "The divine capital from before the split… before the Nexuses even existed."

Peroncerea tilted her head.

"But… this kind of technology shouldn't be here. This is like something out of the future. Not even Minafallen's archives show projections this advanced. Only someone like Adelasta or Phaenora could pull this off with their hands tied and blindfolded."

"Exactly. And we're seven thousand, seven hundred years behind that level of tech. And this? This predates the current age entirely."

She stared at him. "Then who made this?"

He stepped toward the wall, slowly placing his hand near the edge of the projection. The letters beneath the hologram flared with light.

"They're written in Godscript again. But these ones… they're formatted like an epic."

"An epic?"

"A story. A recording. A first-hand account."

The image flickered and then reshaped again, showing a second scene. A battlefield that stretched from horizon to horizon, armies of different beings clashing, mountains crumbling beneath their roars. Above them all, two colossal figures stood facing each other, one wreathed in blinding solar flame, and the other cloaked in pure, lightless entropy.

Eldrigan's face darkened.

"This is the Destras Cataclysm," he said. "The war between the First Generation Deities and the Second Generation. The moment the divine world fractured into the pantheon we know today."

Peroncerea's eyes darted between the panels. There were nine holograms arranged in a perfect semicircle.

Each told a chapter.

The third projection shimmered and glowed, showing a goddess bound in chains, her eyes torn out and thrown into the sea as stars wept from the sky. The Godscript beneath it translated itself in Eldrigan's mind as:

The Betrayal of Indressa, Firstborn of the Polymorphs.

The fourth showed a hall collapsing inward, devouring a field of wounded gods, some trying to flee, others kneeling in surrender. Eldrigan's voice was tight.

"The Collapse of the Aeonic Choir. That's when the gods realized they weren't immortal to each other."

Peroncerea felt her knees weaken slightly.

"These aren't myths… These are memories."

The fifth was even stranger. It depicted a humanoid shadow, featureless and empty, staring at an infant wrapped in a cloak of stars. Eldrigan hesitated.

"This one's name is redacted. It says: The Forsaken Child. I've never seen this one referenced in any divine text."

The sixth showed the splitting of land masses, continents forming from the bodies of fallen gods. It was known as Mopheria's Hidden Realm.

The seventh depicted the rise of the Nexuses, beings chosen to lead in place of their fallen creators, known as the Rise of The Third Generation.

And the eighth…

Peroncerea's hand flew to her chest.

"That's… this temple," she whispered. "But it's been swallowed by the void. Maybe the void is underground?"

Eldrigan's eyes narrowed.

"It is called the Sacred Temple of Secrets. These nine projections are not just stories. They're steps."

And then they stood before the ninth and final hologram.

This one was blurry, the image flickering violently. It showed two figures, barely visible. One of them wreathed in shadows with wings like hers… and the other cloaked in divine flame with horns.

Their faces were obscured. But the resemblance…

"It's us," Peroncerea said, breath caught in her throat. "That's us."

Eldrigan's hand trembled.

"And the Godscript says… The Ninth Lock. We're not here by accident," Eldrigan murmured. "This temple… this whole thing… was a test. A remembrance. We were meant to see this."

Peroncerea clenched her fists, her heartbeat like thunder in her ears.

"But why? Why show us this now?"

And that was when the entire hall shook.