Legendary Architect of Apocalypse

"What do you mean she is not here?" Rey stood outside the Dean's office, talking to the management team.

"Weren't you informed? A delegation from Chronos is coming. She went to welcome them. It might take some time before she's back."

"Ah, right. The Chronos Delegation was coming." Rey remembered hearing something about it before. "But wasn't she supposed to leave later for that?"

"Don't ask me. Something seems to have upset her. She was in quite a bad mood, so she left early to calm herself down."

"She just had to disappear when she was needed." Rey scratched the back of his head. "She is always so unreliable."

"Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"I would've asked you to contact her, but that seems useless now. If it's related to the Chronos delegation, she won't be back without them. Well, she can only blame herself."

Rey didn't explain anything further. He had already done the bare minimum by trying to find her. If the Land of Fables still became unstable, then he couldn't be blamed for it. In any case, he didn't think that it was anything too serious in the first place.

....

"Is that... a city?"

Elias looked at the sight before him, which looked less like a city and more like a village nestled between two strange mountains.

Until a few moments ago, he hadn't seen any mountains at all. These mountains had only come into view when he reached near the city.

He was still quite far from the city, but he could still see it clearly within the valley. It was very large, with many houses spread apart.

Every house was identical, even painted in a uniform yet lifeless grey. Every garden grew the same neat rows of pale flowers, lacking any variety in color.

He could even see a few villagers inside the village. Every villager seemed to be wearing a white porcelain mask sculpted into an unchanging smile.

In the entire city, there was only one thing that stood out from the rest of the houses. It was the grand castle in the center of the city.

While the other houses only reached up to a few meters in height, the Palace in the middle reached hundreds of meters high. However, even the palace was just as colourless as everything else.

"Ah, I remember! I came here as well!" the ego suddenly exclaimed, seeing a familiar sight. "This is the City of Echless, the colorless fable! Remember the masked guy amongst the four Domain Lords? It's his city! Ah, sweet memories."

"I guessed as much. Tell me something else." The children were wearing masks similar to the one worn by the Domain Lord he had seen before, which already convinced him that this wasn't Zesten's city.

"I remember my master saying that this isn't really a city, but a manifestation of Echless' fable. He said that he found the place uninteresting, so we went elsewhere. That's when we found Zesten!"

"That's right! I remember everything! Ah, it had been troubling me for so long! I can't believe that I even forgot about it! Zesten... He's that child my master beat up!"

The ego's voice became brighter as he started remembering everything that he had been trying to remember. Seeing the first city inside the Shadow Domain triggered his memories.

"So you remember why Aliath entered the shadow domain? It can't be just to beat up that guy, right?" Elias approached the colourless city, getting closer to it with each passing second.

"Who do you think I am? Of course I remember!" The ego proudly stated. "My previous master came here because he was given some instructions by his father. He was supposed to retrieve something from this place."

"What did he take?" Elias grew intrigued. As the ego started answering, he entered the city, and in turn the manifestation of Echless, letting him know that someone had arrived.

"He took the key."

"The key? The key to what?"

"I don't know. He just called it the key. Your father told him to bring it back. He said that it was something to make a deal with some Chronos or something? I heard your father say that it was supposed to be a secret, but since you're his son, I suppose it's fine to tell you. Just don't tell anyone else."

"Now what is Chronos?" The more Elias heard, the more confused he became. There were so many terms that he was hearing for the first time, but everything felt important for some reason.

"I don't know that much. The only thing that I could guess from their conversation was that Chronos isn't a person."

"So Aliath took the key?" Elias walked through the city, watching the masked people go about their day, without even paying attention to him, treating him as no different than a non-existent ghost.

He wanted to ask the ego about what happened with the key, but he remembered that it was useless. Aliath left this place without the sword after all.

"That's right. But we were chased by that giant thing. My master had to fight it, and then he sealed it with me. And then he said something before leaving... What was it?"

"F*ck, I thought I remembered everything. What did he say? Something about not the time? Argh, this will make me go crazy! Give me a moment! It's right on my tongue," The ego asked for more time.

"You don't have a tongue." Elias thought, but he didn't say it out loud. He let the ego curse out loud in frustration as he tried to remember.

Elias was approaching the palace, ignoring the people in his surroundings, when he suddenly noticed an old woman fall on the ground, with a small crack appearing on her mask.

"Hmm?" He looked at the mask, as the crack started getting bigger until it covered the entire mask.

"Child, come closer!" The woman raised her head, and looked at Elias. It was the first time that a manifestation had reacted to him.