Before the measure of breath and hour, before the syllables of mortal tongue were conceived, there was the Silence — vast, unlit, and whole. It stretched beyond thought and reason, neither void nor fullness, neither dark nor light. In that sacred hush, the Nameless stirred, and from Its dreaming came the first wound upon eternity.

The wound was radiant.

It was not light as mortals would name it, but something far older — a searing consciousness, white and soundless, rending the stillness as birth rends the mother. From this tear poured three streams of being, mingled yet distinct, each a limb of the same infinite will. They fell like rivers of divinity through the endless hush, and where they touched the Silence, matter awoke and sang.

The first stream was Aura, the Breath Unending — the voice of thought, motion, and remembrance. It gave to all things the whisper of intent, the unseen shape behind form. Wherever Aura passed, the dust remembered its maker, and the abyss began to dream of itself.

The second was Life-Force, the Heart Unbroken — the pulse and red essence of continuity. It was hunger and nurture, death and renewal, the ceaseless tide that binds flesh to flesh and seed to soil. From its current rose the first beasts, the first green things, the first pain of separation — for to live was to long for what had not yet been.

The third was Heavenly Radiance, the Flame Unfaltering — the pure resonance of will beyond sin, the mirror of divinity’s perfection. It descended not as river but as crown, unseen yet felt, sanctifying what the others had shaped. Its fire was the soul’s yearning for order, for the unreachable summit beyond decay.

Together they formed the Trifold Radiance, and the heavens shuddered beneath its harmony.

But the Silence, once torn, began to weep. For creation is not a gift freely given — it is a debt written into being. The Nameless, bereft of Its solitude, turned Its gaze upon what It had wrought and found Itself divided, bleeding into Its own offspring. In the reflection of the Radiance, the first shadow was born — not of malice, but of sorrow.

That sorrow sank.

It coiled beneath the roots of creation, unseen and waiting, whispering of reversal and return. There, where light could not reach, the sorrow took form — a mirror, inverted and formless, yet full of meaning. From its lament were born the Three Echoes of Unmaking: Soulshard, Echorot, and Nullfire.

They were not crafted, but remembered by the universe’s wound — memories of what the Nameless had lost when It gave away Its Radiance.

Soulshard was despair given shape — the severing of one’s self from the whole, the breaking of every song into silence. Where Aura united, Soulshard sundered.

Echorot was the rot of longing — the breath turned inward, feeding upon its own warmth until nothing remained but hunger and husk. Where Life-Force gave rise, Echorot consumed.

Nullfire was the unflame — the holy inverse of sanctity, a stillness so pure it devoured divinity itself. Where Heavenly Radiance blessed, Nullfire erased.

The Trifold and the Crucible were thus balanced — light and echo, birth and undoing, will and void. The cosmos trembled upon their contention, and from the clash of their harmony was woven the first firmament.

And so began the Age of Veiled Dawn, when stars first drew breath and the Architects of Being took shape from Radiance itself. They walked as living pillars of creation — faceless, nameless, each embodying a fragment of the divine streams. To them was given the burden of shaping worlds and keeping the Silence at bay.

Yet among them rose one who looked upon the Crucible’s reflection and found it beautiful. He saw in its blackness not corruption, but truth — that all creation was a wound pretending to be a miracle. He whispered to the Silence, and the Silence answered.

In that answering, the first fall began.

For the Trifold Radiance could not love what denied its harmony, and the Blighted Crucible could not endure what refused its truth. The cosmos split — not in place, but in purpose. Light wept into matter, and shadow hardened into abyss.

Between them, the veil was drawn.

And in that veil — thin, trembling, eternal — the seed of all worlds was sown.