Rottweiler_JB

When mythology student Elias Morgan discovers a mysterious book in his university library, he is transported to Aetherion, a realm where all myths begin. There, he awakens as a primordial entity known as the Weaver of Echoes, destined to shape the birth of gods and legends. As he navigates the raw beginnings of Greek myth and encounters ancient forces like Nyx, Gaia, and Logos—the divine embodiment of language—Elias learns that speech itself creates reality. Armed with modern knowledge and the power of the First Word, he begins to write new myths into existence. But a dark force called Nulla, the unmaker of stories, threatens to silence creation forever. Elias must embrace his growing godhood or risk the unraveling of all myths before they begin.

Where Myths Are Born

It was said by the elder streams of Oceanus that the oldest stones do not dream—but this was a lie. Stones dream slowly, across centuries, in silence so deep it deafens time. And one stone in particular had waited longer than any god, longer than Uranus, longer even than the Soulforge.

Buried at the threshold between Gaia's flesh and Tartarus's bones, it had no name, no worship, no memory. The other Titans avoided it. Nymphs stepped around it unconsciously. Even shadows forgot its shape when they passed. But Aetherion remembered it, for he had seen it glimmer once in the Deep Dream—seen it pulse with a pain that did not know language.

And now, the world had cracked just enough for it to stir.

The lie that the stone could not bleed was not merely a myth—it was a lock, a curse placed by Uranus in the oldest age of silencing. He had cast down one of Gaia's first-born not with blade, but with forgetting. A Titan who had refused form, who had chosen to be still, to be foundation rather than flame. For that rebellion, Uranus had torn out his soul and imprisoned it within a stone, and bound it with a geas:

"So long as the sky remains uncut, you shall not bleed, and none shall remember why you must."

But now, the sky had been touched. The Soulblade's edge—still forming—had whispered to the firmament. Gaia had begun to shift. The Earth had dreamed again.

Aetherion approached alone, though the Dream-Walkers and even Mnemosyne had warned him. Not in fear—but in grief. For the stone did not call. It wept.

It sat nestled in a chasm where light could not settle, pulsing faintly. The surface was smooth, obsidian-dark, yet laced with impossible threads of rust and gold that moved only when one was not looking. It was not dead—only silent. And Aetherion, who had built a forge in the soul of silence, understood it better than anyone.

He spoke the words Gaia had whispered in sleep, ones no god remembered:

"Eurymon, you who chose to be still so others could rise. Your silence is not forgotten. Your stillness was never weakness."

A sound like bone snapping beneath the weight of a god echoed across the chasm—and beyond. Coeus felt it in his temples. Cronus paused mid-strike. Themis inhaled sharply, her eyes misting with a sudden memory she did not know was hers. Even Uranus, far above, furrowed his brow and looked down, as if something in his order had… shifted.

From the wound, no flame came, no water, no divine ichor. But color—a crimson so dark it swallowed the world around it. It was not blood, not yet.

Aetherion stood still, and the Forge within his Realm responded, glowing not with heat, but with sorrow.

"You may bleed when you are ready. But you no longer wait alone."

Then he turned and left the chasm, for some awakenings must happen without witness. He had planted remembrance. And in the world of gods, that was the most dangerous seed of all.

Behind him, the crack in the stone widened… and something shifted beneath it. Not a being, but a presence—slow, massive, and rising. A Titan not yet reborn, whose gift had once been the stillness that held the earth together.

The sky was beginning to fracture.

And beneath it, a stone prepared to bleed.

Chapter 39 – The Stone That Waited to Bleed