I. The Last Dawn of the Golden Age
Historical records often focus on destruction, but few speak of the hours before. According to chroniclers in the library of Borea, that day began with unnatural clarity. The sky was a shade of blue so deep it hurt to look at, and the winds of Zone 3 blew with unusual warmth. In human citadels, the Solstice Festival was being celebrated; children ran through cobblestone streets, and mages performed displays of harmless light.
No one suspected that the fabric of reality, that invisible membrane Gaia had kept taut for millennia, was reaching its breaking point. There were no weather warnings, no clear prophecies. The attack did not come from within Orbis, but from "outside." It was at high noon when the sunlight flickered. Once, twice. And then, a shadow that cast no cloud began to spread, not over the land, but over the sky itself, like an ink stain on a perfect canvas.
The silence that followed was absolute. Birds fell from the sky in mid-flight, their hearts stopped by a primal terror that preceded intellectual understanding. Mages felt sudden nausea, a violent disconnection from the source of their power. The world held its breath, waiting for thunder that never came.
"It was not a war. A war implies two sides. That was an execution. The sky opened up, and hope bled out."
II. The Fracturing of the Firmament
The sound arrived minutes later, a sonic tear that shattered the glass of the highest towers and knocked elders to the ground. Above the snowy mountains of Zone 3, reality gave way. It was not an orderly portal, but an open, jagged, festering wound. From the fracture poured not fire, but a light of impossible color, a sickly, vibrant violet that seemed to possess physical texture.
It was the Void. Varyn did not send diplomats or explorers; he sent his own essence. Corruption fell like black rain, burning the land where it touched and mutating flora instantly. The white snow of Borea turned ash-grey in a matter of hours. Gaia's magic, pure and elemental, reacted violently to the intrusion: green lightning storms erupted without clouds, and volcanoes in Zone 4 erupted simultaneously, as if the planet were trying to cauterize its own wounds with lava.
Artistic depiction of the first Void fracture over Borea.
III. The Betrayal of Matter
The greatest tragedy was not the destruction of infrastructure, but the corruption of the protectors. The Stone Golems, ancient guardians forged with runes of loyalty, were the first to succumb. Void energy seeped into their mana cores, rewriting their purpose. Their eyes, once a serene blue, glowed with the purple of madness. In a cruel twist, they began to demolish the bridges and sanctuaries they had sworn to protect, crushing those who sought refuge behind them.
The fauna suffered a worse fate. Noble Mosshorns and Fen Stalkers did not die; they changed. Their hides hardened with plates of corrupted obsidian, their minds clouded with insatiable bloodlust, and their bodies grew deformed. The Trorks, warrior tribes yet honorable, lost their culture in a night, devolving into mindless war beasts under Varyn's psychic command. Orbis was no longer a home; it was a death trap.
IV. The Exodus and Fear
Panic dismembered alliances. Humans, seeing their swords useless against shadows, locked themselves in stone fortresses, raising walls ever higher and mistrusting any magic. The Ferans, whose ancestors mastered the wind, were enslaved or forced to flee to the scorching deserts of Zone 2, where extreme heat seemed to slow the corruption.
For the Kweebecs, the situation was existential. Being vitally connected to the earth, they felt Gaia's pain as their own. Many elders died of grief in the first days. The younger ones, guided by Treesingers, initiated the "Great Slumber," camouflaging themselves as inert trees in deep forests, hoping to go unnoticed by Varyn's gaze. The vibrant Kweebec civilization became silent and static.
V. The Silence of the Goddess
Amidst absolute chaos, high priests and powerful shamans attempted a final desperate act: to wake Gaia. They gathered at power nexuses, sacrificing their own life force to send a distress call to the world soul. They hoped for divine intervention, an earth avatar to expel the invaders.
But they got only silence. A heavy, terrifying, definitive silence. Some theologians believe Gaia was mortally wounded in the initial fracture; others, more pragmatic, maintain that the Goddess was forced to retreat her consciousness to the planet's deepest core, locking herself in a stasis cocoon to avoid corruption herself. Whatever the truth, the result was the same: the children of Orbis were orphaned. Year Zero ended with a broken sky and a chilling certainty: the night had just begun, and Varyn was here to stay.