The kingdom of Eldoria lay in ruins.

  I stood amidst the wreckage of Solmaria, the once-glorious capital, now nothing more than a burning graveyard. The sky, painted crimson by the Seventh Eclipse, cast eerie shadows over the broken streets. Towers lay shattered, their spires crumbling into dust. Bodies of knights, mages, and innocents littered the ground, their lifeless eyes staring at nothing.

  Smoke curled around me as I pulled my sword free from the chest of the dying king. Blood dripped from the blade, the thick, warm scent mixing with the acrid burn of fire and ash.

  "You... shouldn't exist," the king rasped, his voice barely a whisper, crimson spilling from his lips.

  I looked down at him, watching the last traces of life fade from his eyes. "Neither should this world."

  Silence filled the throne room. The warriors, rebels, and scholars who had fought by my side stood frozen, their faces a mixture of exhaustion, triumph, and uncertainty. They had followed me this far, believing in our cause. But they had no idea what truly lay ahead.

  I did.

  I turned, my gaze falling upon the massive stained-glass window behind the throne. The light of the Seventh Eclipse bled through, turning the chamber into a twisted dream of red and black. The sky beyond churned unnaturally, a swirling vortex of something beyond mortal comprehension.

  "History... was rewritten," I whispered, my grip tightening on my sword. "The world I once saved was meant to flourish. But something... or someone... changed its fate."

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  My memories had returned in pieces, fragments of a past long erased. I had slain the Demon King centuries ago. I had saved this world. Peace should have followed.

  But the world had rotted instead.

  The rulers who once protected their people had become corrupt. The kingdoms had waged endless wars. The people I had fought for lived in fear, bound to a cycle of suffering that was never meant to be.

  This Eldoria—this twisted version of my world—should not exist.

  A movement in the shadows caught my eye.

  Ilyra stepped forward, golden eyes gleaming with something ancient, something knowing. She was calm, untouched by the chaos around us.

  "You remember now, don’t you?" she asked, her voice a quiet certainty.

  I nodded. "The world is broken. This timeline is... wrong."

  She extended her hand. Resting in her palm was a glowing shard—a fragment of something greater, something lost to time itself.

  "Then fix it," she said.

  I stared at the shard.

  If I used it, I could rewrite history. Return to the moment I first awoke in this time. Stop this corrupted path before it ever began.

  But to do so meant erasing everything.

  The people who had followed me. The war we had fought. This version of myself.

  I exhaled slowly.

  Then, I reached for the shard.

  Time shattered around me.

  ---

  The Beginning of the End

  I woke with a gasp.

  The scent of blood and smoke was gone. Instead, I smelled hay and morning air. Sunlight streamed through wooden shutters, painting golden streaks across the simple walls of the small room I was in.

  I wasn’t in Solmaria.

  I wasn’t in a battlefield.

  I sat up abruptly, my breath unsteady. My hands trembled as I reached for my chest—no armor, no scars, no blood.

  A mirror sat in the corner of the room. Slowly, I pushed myself to my feet and walked toward it.

  The face that stared back at me was not the battle-worn hero who had just toppled a kingdom.

  It was the face of a young man, barely twenty, with wide eyes and unmarked skin.

  A stranger.

  But I knew him.

  It was me.

  Memories surged—broken at first, then clearer.

  The battle against the Demon King. The golden age that followed. The slow, creeping corruption. The world falling down a path it was never meant to take.

  The wrong path.

  I clenched my fists.

  The Seventh Eclipse had sent me back.

  This time, I would not let the world fall.

  This time, I would change everything.