Chapter 145: The First Companion
Fifteen Days Until Arrival.
There were many stories about Astraeus.
Too many.Some called him a god.
Others called him a king.
Some believed he had never existed at all.
The stories disagreed on almost everything.
Except one thing.Astraeus was never alone.
No matter where he traveled.No matter what age he walked through.Someone was always beside him.A shadow in the background of history.A name almost completely erased.
Auren.
The Missing Boy.Deep beneath the Endless Sea, Thal'Zorath continued searching.For fifteen straight days he had ignored everything else.
The Door.
The Hunger.
The coming arrival of Asterion.
None of it mattered.
Because the more he searched for Auren
The stranger things became.
The Impossible Pattern
Every record containing Astraeus mentioned companions.
Friends.
Travelers.
Heroes.
Yet one figure appeared again and again.
A silver-haired child.
Never aging.
Never changing.
Always present.
And always erased.
The First Record
At last, Thal'Zorath found something.
Not in a book.
In a memory crystal.
An ancient artifact from before the Threshold War.
The crystal flickered to life.
Images appeared.
And for the first time in ten thousand years
The Lord of Depths saw Auren clearly.
The Memory
A bustling city.
Markets crowded with people.
Children running through streets.
Life.At the center stood Astraeus.
Younger than legends portrayed him.
Laughing.Beside him stood a boy.
Perhaps twelve years old.
Silver hair.
Silver eyes.
A smile that seemed far older than his face.
Auren.
The Conversation
The crystal captured their voices.
A rare thing.
A priceless thing.
Thal'Zorath listened carefully.
"Aren't you tired?"
Astraeus asked.
The boy laughed.
"You're asking me that?"
The Wanderer grinned.
"Fair point."
The recording continued.
Simple.
Ordinary.
Nothing important.
Yet somehow—That made it important.
Friends
History painted Astraeus as something larger than life.
A hero.A god.A savior.
The recording revealed something else.
A man spending time with a friend.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
The End of the Recording
As the crystal began fading, Astraeus suddenly looked directly at it.
Directly at the viewer.
As though he knew someone would watch someday.
Then he smiled.
A knowing smile.
And said:"If you're seeing this..."
Static interrupted the recording.The image distorted.The crystal shattered.Gone.The message unfinished.Frustration
For perhaps the second time in his life
Thal'Zorath screamed.
Not loudly.
But passionately.
The entire underwater city shook.
Several ancient books exploded.
A tragedy few could appreciate.
Elsewhere
Within the Moonless Forest, Myrathis sat quietly.
Watching flowers bloom.
Watching them die.
A cycle she understood all too well.
Suddenly—A memory surfaced.
One she had not thought about for millennia.
The Child
The Threshold War.
One of its darkest years.
Entire nations burning.
Hope fading.
The Devourers advancing.
And amidst all that chaos—A child walked through a battlefield.
Calmly.
Completely unharmed.
Auren.
The Strange Meeting
At the time, Myrathis had already become a Devourer Lord.
She should have killed him.
Instead—They talked.
For three hours.
About flowers.
Nothing else.Flowers.
To this day she still wasn't sure how it happened.The Question
Before leaving, she had asked:
"Why aren't you afraid of me?"
Auren had looked genuinely confused.
Then answered:"Should I be?"
The memory ended there.
And somehow—That answer still irritated her.Vorak'thul's Memory
Far away, the Lord of Ruin continued his march.Mountains cracked beneath his feet.
Storms followed in his wake.
Yet his mind drifted elsewhere.
To another memory.
A battlefield.Corpses.Fire.Despair.
And a silver-haired boy sitting beside him.
The Worst Day
It had been the day Vorak'thul lost everything.The day before he accepted the Hunger.The day hope died.
Or should have died.
Auren had sat beside him for hours.
Saying almost nothing.
Just listening
The Final Question
Eventually Vorak'thul had asked:
"What happens when you fail?"
The question carried all his pain.
All his grief.All his despair.
The boy considered it carefully.
Then answered:"You keep walking."
Simple.Almost stupidly simple.
Yet ten thousand years later—The memory remained.The Realization
Across the world, three Devourer Lords remembered the same person.
Not a warrior.Not a king.Not a god.
A child and somehow—That child had touched all their lives.
Deep Within Asterion
The silver-haired guardian stood before an ancient mirror.Watching old memories flicker across its surface.
Astraeus.
The Devourers.
The Threshold War.
Auren.
Always Auren.
The guardian sighed.
"They're finally remembering."
Not fearfully.Almost proudly.
As though a long-awaited moment had arrived.The Truth
Because the greatest lie in history was not that Astraeus had disappeared.
Nor that the Devourers had been defeated.
Nor even the existence of the Door.
The greatest lie was far simpler.
The world believed Astraeus had been the most important person of that age.
He wasn't.
Far beyond reality.
Within the Hall of Threads.
Vael'Thar stared at the image of the silver-haired child.The impossible anomaly.
The forgotten companion.
The one person erased from every future.
And for the first time—The Lord of Fate spoke a name that history had lost."Auren."
The Hall trembled.
Thousands of threads shifted.
Countless futures changed.
And somewhere deep within Asterion
A sealed door slowly began to open.
From behind it came a familiar voice.
Warm.Playful.Patient.
"That took longer than expected."
Fifteen Days Until Arrival.