God’s Tree

The name still echoed in the walls of the chamber.

Elyrion.

A name not just spoken, but woven—threaded into the lattice of a forming world. It pulsed faintly now, not in stability, but in awareness. It was not alive, but it had begun to remember itself.

Argolaith stood still, hand over the lattice's center.

His cube hovered beside it, quieter than usual. As if listening.

He adjusted three minor glyphs on the outer rotational ring, recalibrating the memory-fused mana strands to match the core pulse. Every rune glowed a little warmer. A little brighter.

"You want to exist now," he murmured.

And Elyrion responded with a silent flicker.

But he was no longer alone.

There was no sound.

No light.

But Argolaith felt the air shift behind him, like a dream folding inward.

He didn't reach for a weapon.

He didn't need to.

"I wondered which of you would come first," he said.

"You expected us?" came a voice like a whispered constellation.

He turned.

And found Elder Faeryn, standing not in robes, but in a shimmering threadcloak of silver light, her golden skin aglow with soft astral shimmer. Her nebula eyes reflected more than just stars.

They reflected understanding.

"You named it," she said, stepping toward the lattice.

Argolaith nodded. "Only once it started responding."

She studied it in silence for a moment. The living ring. The faint pulse. The mana signature that spiraled both inward and outward—like a breath caught between thought and space.

"It's not stable yet," she observed.

"It's not meant to be."

"And yet, it hasn't collapsed."

"Because it wants to be real."

She smiled faintly.

Not amused.

Impressed.

"I felt it the moment you first pulled memory into the weave. Most students who dare to attempt realmcraft simply replicate textbooks. But this…"

She traced a finger just above the surface of the construct.

"…this is original. Alive. And selfish."

Argolaith tilted his head.

"Selfish?"

"Yes," she said softly. "It wants only your vision to shape it. If anyone else were to touch it, it would reject them. It already has a bond."

Argolaith looked down at the core.

And he understood.

He hadn't just created a realm.

He had begun to become its god.

"You're not here to stop me."

Faeryn folded her hands behind her back. "No. I came to see if you knew what you were doing."

"I don't."

"Good."

She smiled again.

"That means you'll keep asking questions instead of pretending you have answers."

They stood in silence for a moment.

Then Faeryn's expression shifted, her voice more formal.

"But you must understand, Argolaith—when you finish this, it won't belong to the academy. Not even to Morgoth. It will be yours. Entirely."

"I already assumed that."

"Then you must also accept the burden: anything created with true sovereignty must be protected. Maintained. You will owe it your life… or worse."

He looked her in the eyes.

"I've already died ten thousand times for less."

She nodded.

"Then I'll help where I can. Quietly. But I suggest you give Elyrion a sky next. Even worlds need a dream to reach toward."

And just like that—

She vanished into starlight.

Argolaith stood alone again.

But this time, he didn't feel watched.

He felt guided.

He looked at the core and smiled faintly.

"A sky, huh?"

He summoned the first anchor-thread.

A line of mana traced upward in a spiral.

And in that motion, the beginning of Elyrion's sky was born.

The core floated like a slow-beating heart.

Now stabilized with memory-woven mana, it pulsed gently in the center of the lattice array—anchored by light-thread runes, temporal buffers, and dimensional scaffolding that Argolaith had etched by hand across the chamber's hex-stone floor.

Around the core, he had begun to build upward.

A sky.

Not just atmosphere. Not gas or clouds or air. But a celestial design—one that would hold constellations, mana cycles, seasonal regulation, light transitions, and the first pulse of Elyrion's rhythm.

A world without a sky was a world without time.

And Argolaith needed this realm to breathe.

He stood at the outer ring of his glyph circle, a chalk stylus in one hand, his cube floating just behind his shoulder. With a quiet breath, he channeled a thread of magic from the cube and directed it through the stylus.

He began drawing the first celestial braid in midair:

One line curved clockwise, imbued with lunar essence pulled from a compressed moonseed gem. The second curved against it, holding the faint memory of light from the broken Gate's fractured sun. The third—a dreamline—was silent, made from the unseen current that only Veilstep could detect.

Together, they formed an ascending triad:

The Crown of Elyrion.

It wasn't a full sky yet.

But it would serve as the seed of stars.

As the runes locked into place, a cold wind stirred in the chamber—unnatural, born from internal resonance. The lattice brightened. The core spun once.

And in the invisible air above, a single star appeared.

White-gold. Small. Steady.

Argolaith exhaled.

"First breath of heaven."

But then the temperature dropped.

Not from the realm-core.

From presence.

Behind him, the shadows gathered into something sharp and cool and constant. And with them, a voice drifted like silk dragged over glass.

"How long did you think it would go unnoticed?"

Argolaith turned.

At the entrance to the chamber stood Elder Rutha—squinted eyes gleaming with flickers of illusion-magic and dreams not her own. Her presence was like sleep pressed into stone, real but not quite here.

She stepped inside, barefoot, the hem of her robe whispering against the carved runes.

"Mirith watches the anti-magic grid. Arvail monitors spatial pulse density. Solm listens to the ticking of time."

Her voice floated unnaturally, like a lullaby without a singer. Lo.ve* this- s-tory? Sh*ow* y!o-u#r sup+po.r^t on M$9VL#E@M!PYR.@

"But none of them see the dream forming."

Argolaith said nothing.

He turned back to the floating star, adjusting its arc slightly with a twitch of mana.

Rutha approached slowly, head tilted, watching not him—but Elyrion's core.

"This is not a training project."

"No," he replied. "It's not."

"It's not sanctioned."

"Doesn't need to be."

Her eyes narrowed just a hair.

"Realms are born from sacrifice. They require a soul, Argolaith. A cost."

He met her gaze then. Calm. Direct.

"I've paid more than most."

"But Elyrion has not."

She drifted to the edge of the celestial weave, hands behind her back.

"What you're building will call to others. Things that drift between realities. Creatures that feed on sovereign magic. Are you prepared to defend it?"

Argolaith didn't blink.

"Yes."

Rutha stared at him for a long time.

Then, in a voice too soft to echo:

"Then I will not stop you. But I will watch. And if it begins to dream things it should not—if it starts to awaken beyond your control—know that I will seal it without hesitation."

She turned to leave.

Then paused at the edge of the threshold, her silhouette framed by the faint glimmer of the first star above the realm-core.

"And Argolaith…"

He looked at her.

"Don't give it a moon you're not willing to bury."

Then she vanished.

He stood still for a moment longer.

Then turned back to the lattice.

With calm hands and silent thoughts, he began drawing the second celestial ring.

Not because he had to.

But because Elyrion deserved to dream.