My Infinite System.

The air in the library was cold and still, the only sound the soft rustle of ancient pages. Reia had been silent for a long time, her focus absolute, her gloved fingers tracing lines of text that hadn’t been read in millennia. The others had given her space, sensing the gravity of what she was piecing together.

Finally, she leaned back, the old leather of the chair groaning. Her face was pale, the usual sharpness in her eyes replaced by a deep, weary horror.

”It’s not a song,” she said, her voice quiet but cutting through the silence. ”It was never a song. That was a mistranslation. A prettier word for something... much uglier.”

Evelyn looked up from a star chart she’d been studying. ”What is it, then?”

Reia pushed the heavy book, The Origin of the Universe, toward the center of the table. The pages were open to a complex diagram that looked less like a creation myth and more like a scientific schematic of a bomb.

”It’s a cycle,” Reia said. ”A loop. The universe isn’t born from music or a god’s whisper. It’s forged in a single, catastrophic event. A... Convergence. All matter, all energy, all life, compresses into a single point of infinite potential. And then it explodes outward. The Big Bang wasn’t the beginning. It was the last reset.”

Silas, who had been dozing off against a stack of scrolls, blinked himself awake. ”Reset? Like... everything just... stops and starts over?”

”Worse,” Reia said, her gaze distant. ”It doesn’t just start over. It’s consumed. The potential of all that exists is harvested to fuel the next cycle. The universe is a farm. And we’re the crop.”

A cold dread settled over the group. Kaela, who had been quietly observing, finally spoke, her voice hushed. ”And the Aethel? What was their role in this?”

Reia’s finger landed on a part of the diagram that showed three interlocking symbols. ”The three Primordial races weren’t just the first life. They were the engine. The Diva were the architects, the ones who shaped the laws of physics from the raw energy of the Convergence. The Ashura were the catalysts, the chaotic force that ensured change, evolution, and diversity. They made sure life wasn’t static.”

She took a slow breath, as if steeling herself. ”And the Aethel... they were the key. The ignition. The ones with the will to start the process. Their collective consciousness, their ’First Will,’ is what triggers the Convergence. It draws everything back to the source so the cycle can begin again.”

Evelyn’s eyes widened in understanding. ”So the Aethel weren’t just reality-warpers... they were the universe’s self-destruct mechanism.”

”Exactly,” Reia whispered. ”And the other races... the countless species that evolved in later cycles... they eventually learned the truth. They found ruins, artifacts, fragments of data from previous cycles. They discovered that their existence, their entire history, was just fuel for the next one. And they saw that the Aethel were the trigger.”

Silas let out a low whistle. ”So they didn’t gang up on the Aethel because they were jealous of their power. They did it to survive.”

”It was the only logical move,” Kaela said, her face grim. ”If you know a button exists that will erase all of creation, you destroy the button. You don’t try to reason with it.”

Reia nodded, turning a page to a horrific depiction of a galactic war. Stars were going out like snuffed candles. ”The Diva and the Ashura... they joined the alliance. They saw the later races as their children, in a way. They chose the life of the current cycle over the cold, mechanical perpetuation of the system they were born into. They helped the younger races hunt the Aethel down. Every last one. Or so they thought.”

The pieces were clicking into place with terrible clarity.

”Alistair,” Evelyn said.

”He survived,” Reia confirmed. ”Somehow, he hid. He slept. He waited through countless millennia while new civilizations rose and fell, completely unaware of the sword hanging over their heads. And he watched as the races that slaughtered his people prospered. The Diva and Ashura were hailed as saviors. They became legends, then myths, then faded into nothing. But their descendants, the races they protected, still fill the galaxy.”

Silas rubbed his face. ”So all this time... he hasn’t been trying to ’reset the world’ for some grand, cosmic purpose. He’s just... pissed off.”

”It’s not just anger,” Reia said, her voice low and intense. ”It’s vengeance on a scale we can barely comprehend. He watched everyone he ever know be exterminated for the ’crime’ of being what they were born to be. He spent eons alone, festering in that loss. His sole purpose isn’t to reset the universe. It’s to make sure that when he pulls the trigger, he takes every single one of their descendants with him. He’s going to use the Convergence to wipe the slate clean as the ultimate act of revenge.”

The horror of it was suffocating. This wasn’t a mad god seeking a new beginning. This was the last survivor of a genocide, his finger on the button, ready to burn down the entire house out of spite.

”And his kids?” Evelyn asked, though she dreaded the answer.

Reia’s shoulders slumped. ”Lucy, Marc, Lucian... they’re not just his children. They’re his legacy. And his tools. The texts are clear—triggering a Convergence requires an immense, focused act of Aethel will. The will of one survivor, hardened by hatred, might not be enough. But the combined, awakened will of three? A new generation, born of his bloodline, powerful beyond measure...”

She didn’t need to finish. The conclusion was obvious and terrifying.

”He’s not just sharpening weapons,” Kaela said, the truth dawning on her. ”He’s building a new trigger. A better, more powerful one. He orchestrated the invasion, their awakening, all of it... to forge his children into a single key that he can turn to unlock the end of everything.”

For a moment, no one could speak. The vast, silent library seemed to press in on them, the weight of all this ancient knowledge feeling like a physical burden.

”So what do we do?” Silas asked, his usual flippancy gone. ”How do you stop a guy whose only goal is to blow up the whole damn universe?”

Reia closed the book with a definitive thud. ”We don’t try to reason with him. You can’t negotiate with that kind of hatred. We have to stop the mechanism. We have to find out where this ’Convergence’ is supposed to happen and break it.”

”And if we can’t?” Evelyn asked softly.

Reia looked at each of them, her expression grim. ”Then we have to be ready to do what the Diva and Ashura did all those eons ago. We have to stop the Aethel from pulling the trigger.”

The unspoken meaning hung in the cold air: We have to stop Lucian.

The mission was no longer just about finding Alistair. It was a race to prevent a revenge eons in the making from consuming all of reality. And the person they were trying to save might become the very weapon they had to destroy.