Only a few days had passed, but for Seline, they had stretched into an eternity.

  She had never felt more alone than she did now. She would go to that same coffee shop, order a coffee, and sit at a table by the window. Each time, her heart would skip a beat: what if he came? And each time, at the chime of the doorbell, she would turn her head towards the entrance only to see that it wasn't him—and each time, she became more convinced that he would never come.

  Dan's days were spent searching for an answer to the tormenting question about the origin of the Primitive-mage and the flow of time within the latest Rift. He wondered if other Lords were involved or if it was just a mere coincidence.

  "Something is very strange about all this…" the Lord said thoughtfully. "It can't be just a coincidence. There's something else at play here… or someone…"

  Dan was sitting on the edge of a roof, watching the city below him slowly drown in the twilight. The sunset painted the sky in every shade of orange, and in those colors, he suddenly remembered that day. The day he and the other Lords had risen against the Creator.

  "Could it be Him…?" the Lord whispered quietly, clenching his fists. "Unlikely. After the failed Descent, he drained himself to the limit. We siphoned all the Mana from this Planet, preventing him from replenishing his spent strength... Everything he had, he spent on the battle with us and on his escape… It will take millennia for him to recover…"

  Dan remembered it as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.

  The heavens had torn open then, and the shadow of the apocalypse loomed over the planet. It seemed as if the Earth itself was about to turn into a lifeless desert, dried up like a well that had long been without water.

  But it was then that the Lords united in the name of life and the survival of this World and turned against the Creator a relic created to fill worlds with Mana. The flow reversed, and instead of a feast, the Creator was left with nothing.

  "Thousands of years…" Dan exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke into the darkening sky. "He would need millennia to recover from that day. His power is immense, but his wounds are deep. Right now, he's too weak to intervene. But if it's not him… then who…?"

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  His eyes suddenly widened.

  "What if he did manage to do it? Managed to create those who would continue his work… Did he have enough strength to spawn new Lords?"

  The thought of new Lords seemed logical to him; after all, for every world that was consumed, its own Lords were created. That's what Dan thought. But he didn't know, or more precisely, he didn't remember, that all the worlds that had been consumed before were filled with Mana by him and his brothers. And every time they moved on to the next one, their memory of what they had done was erased forever.

  Dan raised his eyes to the sky, still ablaze with the sunset's rays. The questions weighed heavily on him, but there were still no answers. He rose from the edge of the roof.

  The city lived its usual life: hustle, laughter, farewell kisses. But for Dan, it was all just noisy background. Thousands of faces flashed beneath him, all blending into one faceless blot, like paint washed away by rain.

  "Perhaps the next Rift will shed some light…"

  With that thought, he unclenched his palm, and subtle shadows swirled around him, rising like a living haze. The darkness thickened, enveloping his body.

  A moment. And the world around him fell silent. The wind died down, the sunset light vanished, yielding to the silence of the Darkness. Dan stepped forward and disappeared, leaving only a tremor in the air on the rooftop.

  The next second, he was standing in a narrow alley between two old buildings. He clenched his fist. The darkness, crawling along the alley walls, was sucked back into his body. The dampness, the smell of garbage, the hum of the city—everything returned.

  He glanced around the alley. No one. He adjusted the collar of his coat and walked unhurriedly out onto the busy street. He went into a corner café and bought a coffee.

  He strolled slowly through the streets, holding a cup of hot coffee in his hands.

  His steps led him to the embankment on their own.

  The river carried its murky waters slowly, reflecting the faded light of the city's lights. Dan sat on a bench opposite the railing that saved people from accidentally falling into the water. Dozens of locks, peeling from moisture and time, hung on the rusted grating.

  Usually, he paid no attention to them. But not today.

  Leaving his coffee on the bench, Dan carefully got up and moved closer to the railing.

  "me+you", "V+A", "forever S", "my love", "together forever"

  The inscriptions on the locks were simple, as if written by children. Half were already faded, others eaten away by corrosion, but they still hung there.

  "Weird, why do people do this?" Dan said quietly, looking at the rusted locks. "What's the point? These locks are useless… they aren't holding anything…"

  "They serve as a symbol of a strong bond, my brother," a male voice said behind him.

  Dan froze. His shoulders trembled almost imperceptibly. It wasn't fear. Rather… something else.

  Without waiting for an answer, the man standing not far behind Dan added:

  "It's been a long time."