Prologue – The Incubation
"Incubate the next coming."
The words were not spoken. They were etched, carved into the marrow of his existence before thought, before breath, before self. They were all he knew.
The first thing Icaris became aware of was the fall.
A weightless descent, as if the sky itself had cast him aside. He did not know what sky, or what world, or what existence had done so—only that he plummeted through an emptiness so vast that space itself seemed hesitant to claim him.
He was not alone.
Twelve others fell beside him, bodies wreathed in flickers of formless energy. Some struggled. Some were still. None of them spoke.
They had no names, no past, no future. Only a purpose.
"Incubate the next coming."
A shudder ran through him, though he had no body to tremble. A feeling unbidden, unallowed gripped at something deep inside him.
Fear.
Not of death—because he did not think they could die. Not of pain—because he did not know what it felt like.
But of the unknown.
Of the world rushing toward them, waiting to receive them.
Of the truth that had not yet been spoken.
Of what they would become once they touched the ground.
The sky split open in a streak of gold. The first of them hit the earth. Then the second. Then the third.
And then Icaris.
The impact should have shattered him.
The force of his descent should have broken every part of him, scattered his existence across the land like dust in the wind. But it didn't.
The moment Icaris hit the ground, the world bent around him.
Stone rippled like disturbed water. The air split apart, then stitched itself back together. Time hiccupped, skipping forward and back in the same breath. Reality did not reject him—but it did not know how to accept him, either.
He lay there for a moment—if time even existed yet—gazing up at the sky. Clouds drifted in unnatural patterns. The sun hung low, but its light felt unfamiliar. As if it, too, had been waiting for something to arrive before it could shine properly.
Something burned at the edges of his thoughts. Awareness.
The weight of his name.
Icaris.
The 13 Archons arrived on Earth during the late Neolithic period, around 3000 BCE, in what would one day become Mesopotamia—the cradle of civilization.
They fell near the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, where early human settlements were beginning to flourish. Towering ziggurats and primitive city-states were still centuries away, but villages and nomadic tribes had already begun shaping the land.
This location was not random. Mesopotamia was one of the first places where human civilization took root—a place where laws, writing, and early governance would soon develop. The perfect setting for the incubation of something greater.
At first, the Archons were regarded as gods by the early people who saw them descend. Their arrival was interpreted as a divine event, shaping mythologies that would later echo in human religions and beliefs. But their purpose was never to rule or guide humanity.
They were here for something else.
The Remnants, whatever they were, already existed on Earth in some form—lurking, festering, unseen but felt. And as the Archons stepped onto this world for the first time, the conflict that would decide the fate of reality had already begun.
The others had landed nearby, scattered across the ruined expanse of this unfamiliar world. Some stirred, others remained still, absorbing the same truth pressing into him.
They were here.
But where was here?
His fingers dug into the dirt, feeling its texture for the first time. It was coarse, dry, crumbling beneath his touch. He had never touched before. He had never felt before. And yet, none of it was foreign.
His mind whispered: Earth.
A name. A place.
It did not feel like his own, yet it settled inside him like a memory that was never his to begin with.
The others began to rise. He saw them—twelve figures, each wreathed in something indistinct. Not light, not shadow, but presence.
One of them stood taller than the rest. A figure adorned in shifting golden-white, eyes colder than the space they had fallen from. She did not hesitate. She did not waver.
Serapha.
She turned toward them, gaze sweeping over the group before settling on Icaris. Recognition. As if she knew something he did not.
No one spoke.
They didn't need to.
Because even as they stood, as they took in the world around them, as they tried to piece together what they were, what they had been, what they were meant to become—
The words still echoed.
"Incubate the next coming."
And they knew.
The world did not belong to them.
They were here to prepare it.
The silence stretched, thick and heavy, as the thirteen figures stood in the broken land where they had fallen. The air was still. Not empty, not lifeless—just waiting.
Icaris felt it. All of them felt it.
Then a voice broke through.
"Where are we?"
The words came from a figure draped light, their posture stuff but calculating. Oris, the Archon of Order. His voice was even, but the question carried weight—because it was not just about their location. It was about what this place meant.
Serapha's gaze
swept over them all before answering.
"Earth."
The word settled like stone in their minds. Familiar, yet foreign.
A scoff came from the side. Zephir, the Archon of Chaos. His mismatched eyes flickered with amusement.
"And that means what, exactly?" His grin was sharp, mocking. "Because I don't remember asking to crash-land on some dirtball."
He kicked at the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the air. The world did not react.
No punishment. No correction.
Icaris felt a strange tightness in his chest. A pressure he could not name.
Serapha did not acknowledge Zephan's words. Instead, she turned, gaze sweeping over the horizon.
"The mission has not changed," she said. Her voice was not loud, but it carried an undeniable weight. "We incubate the next coming."
The words were familiar. Etched into their existence before they even knew they existed.
And yet, hearing them now, something about them felt off.
Another figure stirred. Nyxara, the Archon of Death. Dark threads of something intangible curled around her as she spoke.
"And how do we do that?" Her tone was calm, but there was something else beneath it. Something sharp. "We have no knowledge. No direction. Just a phrase repeating in our heads."
The others shifted, their unease growing. Even those who remained silent—like Halos, the Archon of Space, or Voreis, the Archon of War—felt the weight of the question.
Icaris looked at his own hands, flexing his fingers. He felt something beneath his skin. Energy. Power.
But what was he meant to do with it?
Serapha turned to face them fully. The golden light of her presence flickered, adjusting, settling.
"The remnants," she said.
A ripple of recognition passed through them. That word—they knew it.
Remnants.
It was instinctual. A threat unnamed, unseen, but known to them as deeply as their own purpose.
Mourne, the Archon of Sorrow, exhaled slowly. His violet-hued form dimmed the demeanor of the life around him "If we must fight why must we feel"
Serapha answered, "we must feel to weep for the departed and to ensure We incubate the next coming."
she turned to the sun, and they all followed no one was content with the answer but no one viewed it as wrong, the 13 walk the face of the earth off in their nakedness
no right, no wrong
no new, no old
none told, none unknown
that is the truth of the Archons