crown of self-interest

The Skyward Cities—once gleaming jewels suspended above the world, untouchable by the hands of fate—now trembled under the weight of destruction. The air was thick with the smell of burning aether, a sickening stench that lingered in the nostrils of the dying. The grand floating islands, powered by centuries of Aether Manipulation, had begun to crack and falter, their once immovable grandeur falling into chaos.

Below the crumbling towers of the Aetherborn, a massacre unfolded. Zaros’s hand had reached the skies, and his chosen subordinate, Vaedros, now moved among the slaughter with cold, calculated brutality. His mission: retrieve the Eye of Aether, a relic capable of immense power over time and space—one the Aetherborn had kept hidden for generations. But to retrieve it, the price would be the blood of an entire civilization.

Vaedros stood in the middle of the Great Hall of Solance, the largest of the Skyward Cities. His black armor gleamed beneath the unnatural light of the aether-filled skies, and his gauntlet-clad fingers flexed as the power of Zaros coursed through him. The hall was littered with the bodies of the Aetherborn’s elite, their once proud and luminescent forms now lying lifeless, drenched in their own ethereal blood. He had cut through them with ease, like a scythe through wheat.

The surviving Aetherborn—those too weak or too young to fight—huddled in the corners of the hall, their radiant eyes wide with terror. The shimmering light that normally surrounded their bodies flickered like dying flames, the essence of their magic slowly draining from them as fear consumed their very souls. Their once proud race, hailed for their mastery over raw energy, had never faced anything like this. They had never known what it meant to be prey.

"Please," a voice whimpered from the shadows of the hall. A young Aetherborn girl, her eyes glowing faintly, crawled toward Vaedros. Her voice was a broken whisper, filled with a desperation that cracked even through her celestial beauty. "Please, spare us. We... we will give you whatever you want. Take the Eye. Just leave us be."

Vaedros’s eyes, cold and unfeeling, settled on her. He crouched down slowly, bringing himself to her level. For a moment, his face was expressionless, as if considering her words. Then, without a flicker of emotion, he reached out and grasped her by the throat.

The girl gasped, her hands clawing at his iron grip, the light in her eyes dimming as he lifted her effortlessly from the ground. Her luminescent skin began to fade, the life force that sustained her being snuffed out as Vaedros tightened his grasp.

“You think I care for your surrender?” Vaedros’s voice was as cold as the void itself, a deep rumble that echoed through the hall. “Your existence means nothing. Your cries mean nothing. Zaros demands the Eye, and for your insolence in keeping it from him, I demand your extinction.”

With a sickening crack, Vaedros snapped her neck, her body going limp in his hand. He tossed her lifeless form aside, letting it fall into the growing pile of corpses. The remaining Aetherborn cried out in horror, their wails filling the chamber as they realized there would be no mercy.

The sound of steel clashing against stone filled the air as the few remaining Aetherborn soldiers charged, desperate to protect what little was left of their people. They had no hope. Vaedros moved like a shadow, his black blade cleaving through the air, cutting down anything in his path. Their radiant bodies were torn apart, their light extinguished with every stroke. Limbs flew, blood sprayed, and the once gleaming hall was drenched in gore.

In the skies above the city, Zaros’s forces were relentless. The winged Aetherborn, those who had taken to the skies in a last-ditch effort to flee, found themselves pursued by Vaedros’s vanguard—shadowy creatures conjured by Zaros’s will. They moved with unnatural speed, their claws ripping through flesh and bone as they dragged the Aetherborn from the skies, tearing their wings from their bodies before dropping them to the ground below.

The screams were deafening. The once-proud race of Aether Manipulators, who had spent centuries perfecting their art, were now reduced to nothing more than terrified animals, scrambling for survival. Mothers shielded their children in vain, only to be cut down as the soldiers moved methodically through the city, ensuring no one was left alive.

The light of the Aetherborn was snuffed out, one by one.

Vaedros stepped over the bodies of the dead as he made his way deeper into the hall, toward the altar where the Eye of Aether was kept. The relic itself was a magnificent thing—a sphere of swirling light, radiating an otherworldly glow. It pulsed with energy, ancient and incomprehensible, its power stretching across the very fabric of time and space.

But Vaedros felt no awe, no reverence for this artifact. It was simply a tool, a means to an end. He reached out, his gauntleted hand wrapping around the Eye’s glowing surface. The energy within it surged, but Vaedros’s will, bolstered by Zaros’s power, held firm. The artifact was his.

A sound behind him—soft, desperate. Vaedros turned, his eyes narrowing. A single Aetherborn elder, her once radiant form now frail and broken, crawled toward him. Blood poured from a wound in her side, staining the once pristine marble floor beneath her.

"Why?" she rasped, her voice barely more than a whisper. "Why would you do this? We were... no threat to you."

Vaedros regarded her coldly, the Eye of Aether glowing in his hand. He stepped toward her, his boots splashing in the blood pooling on the ground. “You lived in defiance of Zaros’s will,” he said simply. “That was enough.”

The elder’s eyes, once so full of life and light, dimmed as she struggled to draw breath. “You... are monsters.”

Vaedros knelt down, his face inches from hers. “We are what the world made us,” he said, his voice a whisper. “And soon, you will be nothing at all.”

With one swift motion, he drove his blade through her chest, ending her life.

The Skyward Cities—the once untouchable realm of the Aetherborn—had fallen. Their light, their legacy, and their people had been wiped from existence. All that remained was silence and the cold glow of the Eye in Vaedros’s hand.

As he turned to leave the ruined city, the skies above him began to darken further, as if the heavens themselves were mourning the genocide. But to Vaedros, and to Zaros, it was just another step in their plan—a necessary slaughter on the path to ultimate power.

The Aetherborn were no more.