The morning stretched pale over the village of Kanar.
The cloudy sky hung like a formless omen.
A mist hovered over the ground, mingling with the faint smoke of morning fires.
The sound of burning wood was the only noise in the silence that enveloped the village—a silence of resignation, not peace.
And even in that silence, there was something different.
The leaves trembled with an unusual wind.
Neither cold, nor hot.
Just… ancient.
As if it carried echoes of a forgotten era.
The Kanar tribe, shrunk over generations, barely numbered a hundred members.
Men with calloused hands and sunken eyes.
Women with hunched shoulders and a pale hope.
Children accustomed to running without smiling.
They lived among hidden mountains, isolated not by choice, but by rejection.
Ancient empires labeled them as savages.
Distant lords took their youth for foreign wars.
Even the healers of the plains refused to treat their wounded.
And yet, the Kanar endured.
Deep roots can withstand the worst storms, even if they stop blooming.
In the center of the village, Ankar sat in his hand-carved chair.
His fingers trembled faintly.
His eyes fixed on the horizon without seeing—not from blindness, but from habit.
That was where he awaited each new omen.
The first crow. The first star of the evening. Or… the end.
But on that day, it wasn't an omen that arrived.
It was change itself.
A gentle pressure fell upon the world.
The air grew denser.
The flames of the bonfires hesitated, as if bowing to something invisible.
Even the animals fell silent: birds, dogs, crickets.
All stopped.
And then he appeared.
Floating—not like a sorcerer, but like a pillar the very sky seemed to uphold.
A being from another world, another time.
His hair, long and red as living blood, danced like fire in the wind.
His eyes—two frozen oceans in the light—hovered over the village with a serene intensity impossible to ignore.
The people stopped.
Some fell to their knees.
Others hid.
Many simply froze.
The younger ones had never felt anything like it: a presence that not only occupied space but imprinted reality upon the surroundings.
It wasn't just fear; it was awe mixed with unease.
Their world was small and predictable.
Now, that man transformed even the air they breathed.
"Who… is he?" murmured Elenor, one of the hunters, her hand instinctively resting on the dagger at her belt.
"A force" answered Ankar without taking his eyes off the man "or perhaps… the end."
The man did not speak immediately.
He felt.
He felt the pain of those people as if it had been entrusted to him.
Every invisible scar.
Every seed never harvested.
Every child who left and never returned.
Time itself seemed to tell him stories directly.
『DING』
『Target found: Kanar tribe
Collective emotional state: fear, tension, contained expectation』
With a slight nod, Orion responded.
His aura, until then contained, expanded softly.
Not as an explosion.
Not as a display.
But as an invisible embrace.
The pressure vanished.
The air cleared.
The fear… lessened.
Little by little, the tribe's distrustful gazes began to fix on him with something new: curiosity.
Orion landed on the ground with a soft whisper of wind.
Grass sprouted under his bare feet.
"Are you of the Kanar Tribe?" he asked, his deep voice reverberating effortlessly, as if every stone around echoed it.
Silence answered before Ankar could gather strength.
"Yes… we are" his voice was hoarse but firm "and you… are a god?"
Orion walked slowly toward him.
Each step seemed more human than the last.
When he stopped before the old leader, there was no superiority in his gaze—only respect.
"No. I am not a god. But I am someone who heard you."
That simple phrase made the elders choke up.
The children stopped hiding.
Orion raised his hand and with it summoned the vision of the Eternal Empire.
Not an illusion, but a glimpse of reality.
Palaces, immortal fields, celestial arenas, cosmic portals, academies of wisdom and power.
The tribe watched in sacred silence.
"This" said Orion calmly "is what I built. An empire where hunger will not win. Where the small will not be crushed. A place where you can start anew."
Ankar dropped his staff.
Not out of disrespect, but because, for the first time in decades, he no longer needed it to stand.
"Why us?"
Orion tilted his head, like someone admiring an ancient monument still standing after a thousand storms.
"Because empires are not built with winners. They are built with those who survived."
The words sank deep.
Like a seed in the desert that, upon hearing the rain, decides to sprout.
A child was the first to approach.
Then another.
And then Elenor released her dagger and took two steps.
Her eyes were no longer filled with doubt—they were filled with something far more dangerous: hope.
The sun filtered through the mountain clouds with unusual softness.
It was as if the sky itself was blessing the final moments of that forgotten village.
A time of farewell had begun, not with tears, but with busy hands and awakened hearts.
The Kanar Tribe, accustomed to the weight of scarcity, now moved with rhythm and purpose.
Where once steps were dragged and gestures resigned, now there was spirit.
The dry wooden huts began to be dismantled.
Ropes were cut, utensils packed, tools retrieved from the depths of the sheds.
Children carried baskets; women organized supplies with an unknown zeal.
There was no rush, but neither was there hesitation.
Orion stood at the center of the village, like a living statue of contained light.
He watched in silence.
Beside him, Ankar walked with slow but steady steps.
"They are moving…" said the old man, his voice hoarse but without despair. "For the first time in years, they are moving… without fear."
"Fear is the hardest of prisons" Orion replied softly "but when the spirit recognizes a new horizon, it begins to move… even before the body realizes it."
Ankar looked at him with tear-filled eyes.
"I… almost gave up. I almost accepted that this generation would be the last."
"But then you appeared."
"How do we know it's real?"
Orion looked at the sky for a moment.
"You will know because there are no more chains on your feet. Because your people begin to dream without needing to ask permission."
The words sank deep into the old man.
It was true.
The air, the village, the very sounds—everything had changed.
The invisible chains had been broken.
Across the square, a black-haired youth, Rikan, gathered the belongings of his mother and sister.
His eyes were not fixed on the ground, but on the horizon, on the path where Orion's golden portal would begin to form.
"Mom, did you see?" the little sister said, almost in a whisper. "We're leaving all this. We're going to live in a place where no one calls us trash… where no one comes for us with chains. Will we be… free?"
Mother only nodded.
She still couldn't speak.
The lump in her throat was like that of someone witnessing a miracle and afraid to wake up.
Orion approached them with the lightness of one who respects the ground he treads.
"Is your name Rikan?" he asked.
The boy turned, startled by the proximity, but didn't run away.
"Yes, sir."
"Do you believe what you saw?"
"I… want to believe. It's so big it feels like a lie."
Orion smiled with understanding.
"Then believe in what you feel. Because sometimes the truth is greater than any of us can explain."
Rikan nodded, his gaze now steady.
He returned to work, with an energy that came not from his muscles, but from his heart.
Hours later, when the sun was low in the sky, the portal finally opened.
It formed before the village's large wooden gate, now almost dismantled.
It was like a living window to another world: a golden arch of pure energy, surrounded by runes that danced like calm flames.
The sound it emanated was silent, yet deep—like the echo of a cosmic bell being rung on another plane of existence.
Orion extended his arm.
"It is time."
Everyone gathered before the portal.
Wide eyes. Clasped hands. Even the most skeptical warriors fell silent.
Ankar was the first to cross.
He carried only his staff—now, no longer out of weakness, but as a symbol of transition.
As he passed through the portal, he felt something subtle.
As if the weight of centuries had been lifted from him.
His soul… was reborn.
"It's real" he murmured from the other side, tears streaming shamelessly.
Rikan followed, holding his little sister's hand.
She stopped for a moment, looked at Orion, and said:
"We'll make it work. We'll honor her faith."
Orion merely nodded.
One by one, the inhabitants crossed.
Each carried their memories but left behind the pain that had defined them for so long.
Women with tired eyes, men marked by unjust battles, children who for the first time smiled without fear—all crossed the veil between a cruel world and a possible future.
When the last Kanar had passed, only Orion remained.
He took a slow step forward, looking at what had once been the village.
Only shadows and empty structures.
But also memories.
Stories that had now found another home.
He raised his hand.
And with a simple gesture, the village dissolved into light, absorbed into the earth with dignity.
"May the world remember where they came from."
And then he crossed the portal.
The golden arch vanished like a puff of wind.
The valley returned to silence.