In the void beyond the background of creation, before existence itself, Aegion’s name had already been whispered. He was chosen by the Echoes—those silent voices that roam beyond manifest and void, drawn to the very essence of those who linger at the edge of the possible. It was no coincidence that the Echoes found Aegion, for his be-ness had always hummed with a force that defied containment. He was more than human; he was a conduit, a vessel for something older than time and more powerful than Creation.

Aegion was a figure that commanded immediate awe. His hair, spiked and untamed, seemed to flicker with embers of black flame, each strand shadowed by the red glow of symbols suspended behind him. His eyes were his most arresting feature—glowing a deep, molten crimson, like twin stars ignited by the chaos of forgotten realms. Within them was a fire, not of mere heat but of ancient purpose—a reflection of his curse, of the Echoes that had marked him. Their gaze could burn through the very fabric of existence, leaving nothing untouched by his scrutiny.

Around Aegion, symbols of an ancient and forgotten power floated, their circular arrangement pulsating with a rhythmic hum. Each symbol represented a fragment of the erased, stories that no longer existed within Creation but had found refuge in him. The sigils, glowing red and gold, flickered in and out of perception, their meaning lost to all but Aegion himself. They were the language of the Echoes, the words that spoke to him through the void.

His attire was as much an extension of his power as it was armor. Aegion’s chest was adorned with a seamless black tunic, its fabric rippling with subtle energy, lined with geometric crimson patterns. A glowing line stretched from his throat to the core of his being, pulsating with the energy of the curse that coursed through him. At the base of his neck, an intricate chain of glowing white orbs wrapped around like a noose, a binding that both restrained and empowered him. His forearms and legs bore red-etched armor, crafted not from material but from the abstract forces of creation and destruction—tools to wield the weight of his cursed existence.

Aegion’s curse was his existence. He was not bound by the physical; he could traverse dimensions, stepping through the boundaries of reality as easily as one might walk through a doorway. Yet, this power came with a burden—the deeper he ventured into the void beyond, the more of his soul was consumed by the Echoes. Each journey left him hollowed, the whispers filling the void inside him, reshaping his essence.

His First Journey

It was during one such journey, as he stood at the threshold between abstract realities, that the Echoes called louder than before. The air crackled with impossible energy, and the sigils around him began to flare violently. Aegion felt the shift, the pull of something vast and incomprehensible from the deepest layers of the Void Beyond.

His destination was an expanse where possibility and actuality ceased to have meaning—a singularity between worlds, where the rules of Creation were mere suggestions, and chaos reigned supreme. The Echoes had told him that something awaited him here—something older, something that had once been written into existence but had since been erased.

As Aegion walked, the dreamscape twisted and bent around him, folding in upon itself in paradoxes. Time was an illusion here, and every step forward seemed to simultaneously pull him backward, deeper into the heart of the anomaly. Yet, Aegion remained unmoved, his fire-eyed gaze cutting through the swirling madness. The sigils around him spun faster, resonating with the formlessness of the void, their glow a steady beacon of reality amidst the chaos.

He arrived at the center of the expanse—a towering structure, something akin to a cathedral forged from the bones of forgotten gods. It pulsed with an eerie light, its form constantly shifting, as though trying to remember what it was supposed to be. Here, the Echoes were strongest, their voices a chorus of ancient stories that had never been told, promises of power and destruction.

As Aegion approached, the sigils around him responded to the cathedral’s call, fusing their power with the forgotten structure. The doorway to the cathedral opened without sound, revealing not a sanctuary, but an endless chasm of light and darkness, intertwined in a dance that defied the laws of the manifest creation.

He stepped inside.

And the Echoes screamed.

Inside, the cathedral was no longer a metaphysical place—it was an ineffable otherness, a meta-concept, a representation of the unspoken truths that governed existence. Aegion felt the weight of it pressing down on him, threatening to crush his spirit under the burden of untold realities. But he stood firm, the fire in his eyes burning brighter than ever.

It was here that he found it—the fragment of the Void the Echoes had promised. A shard of something incomprehensible, something that pulsed with the same rhythm as the sigils that followed him. It floated in the center of the chasm, a piece of the void made manifest, glowing with the same crimson fire that burned within him.

Aegion reached out, and the shard responded, its form shifting and molding into something tangible—an obsidian blade, its surface etched with the same sigils that marked his curse. As his fingers closed around the hilt, the Echoes fell silent, their whispers fading into a low hum.

He had been remade.

Aegion, now wielding the Void’s shard, was more than a cursed fragment—he was a conduit for the forgotten. The Echoes no longer whispered in his ears; they sang within his soul, their power fusing with his own. He could feel the fabric of reality bending around him, the boundaries of possibility stretching as he willed it.

And with a single, quiet step, he vanished from the cathedral, stepping back into the manifest world, carrying with him the blade forged from the Void itself, a weapon that could cut through the very concept of reality.

Aegion stood on the edge of reality, his newly forged blade—a shard of the Void itself—resting heavily in his grip. The obsidian weapon pulsed with an eerie light, its surface rippling as though not quite solid, as though it could shift out of existence at any moment. It was a piece of the impossible, a fragment of the background of creation beyond all realities, a reminder of his curse.

For weeks—if time could even be said to exist for him anymore—he had felt the weight of the Echoes growing stronger. The whispers had quieted, but their presence was felt in every heartbeat, every breath. They had become a part of him now, embedded in his very soul, shaping his thoughts, guiding his steps.

He wasn’t alone.

The expanse he now traversed was a forsaken place, a wasteland torn from the fringes of existence and left to decay. The sky was not a sky but a bleeding tapestry of shifting lights, and the ground beneath his feet crumbled like ash with every step. Here, reality itself was fragile, cracking under the strain of forgotten stories and abandoned fates.

Aegion’s presence distorted the world around him, the power of the Void bleeding into the environment, warping the already broken land. With each step, the ground beneath him cracked further, and the sky above darkened as if recoiling from his very existence. He was a walking paradox, a living fragment of the erased, cursed to reshape the world around him with his very being.

It wasn’t long before he sensed it—another presence, just beyond the frayed edges of this reality. Aegion’s eyes narrowed, the crimson glow within them flaring slightly as he focused on the disturbance. The sigils surrounding him, always in flux, began to spin faster, responding to the unseen force. He had been followed.

The Hunter

Emerging from the shadow of broken transhierarchical expanses, the figure appeared—tall, draped in flowing, shadowed robes that seemed to shift between solid and ethereal. Their face was obscured, but Aegion could feel their gaze on him, piercing, cold. They were one of the Wardens of the Unwritten, beings tasked with safeguarding the boundaries of Creation, ensuring that no cursed fragment of the erased ever dared to escape the Void.

“You carry a burden that was never meant to exist,” the Warden’s voice was a low growl, reverberating through the broken landscape. “A fragment of the Void made manifest—a weapon that should have remained beyond.”

Aegion’s mental grip tightened on the blade. He had heard of the Wardens, those ancient sentinels who served the Chaos Queen herself. They were relentless, without mercy, their purpose solely to destroy those who threatened the fragile balance between the written and the unwritten. And he was their target.

“You do not understand what I am,” Aegion said quietly, his voice low, but filled with a weight that seemed to press down on the air itself. “What I carry is more than a burden. It is a truth that was forgotten long before your Chaos Queen ever drew breath.”

The Warden moved closer, their robes shifting like liquid shadow, their form barely perceptible against the backdrop of unraveling reality. “That truth will be buried once again, as will you.”

Without warning, the Warden struck. The air rippled as a blade of pure nothingness sliced through the space where Aegion had stood only a second before. He operated beyond the realization of possibility and actuality, preceding the Warden's ability to follow, his own blade flaring with red and gold as he parried the next blow. The force of their clash sent shockwaves through the broken land, shattering what little remained of the reality they fought in.

Aegion was not afraid. His fire-eyed gaze met the Warden’s shadowed visage, and in that moment, the Echoes roared within him, their silent chorus rising to a deafening crescendo. They did not fear this Warden, this enforcer of outdated laws. The Void had no laws.

With a swift movement, Aegion swung his blade, slicing through the Warden’s attack as though it were nothing more than smoke. His weapon—the shard of the Void—glowed brighter, responding to his will, bending the fabric of existence around it. The Warden faltered for a brief moment, but it was enough.

Aegion drove the blade forward, cutting through the very essence of the Warden, severing them from the fragile thread of reality that anchored them to existence. There was no possibility, no actuality as the Warden disintegrated, its cosmic otherness unraveling into nothingness, its purpose erased as thoroughly as it had sought to erase Aegion.

The Echoes quieted once more.

The Price of Silence

But the victory came at a cost. Aegion could feel it—a deeper hollowing within him, a piece of his be-ness consumed by the Void, by the Echoes. Every use of his suggsilence, every clash with the forces that sought to destroy him, took a part of him that could never be regained.

He knelt on the broken ground, his breath heavy, the obsidian blade still glowing faintly in his hand. The weight of the Echoes was crushing, pressing down on his mind. For a moment, he wondered if this was what they wanted—for him to break, to be consumed entirely by the curse.

But he couldn’t stop. Not now. There was still something he needed to find, something the Echoes had not yet revealed to him. The shard of the Void was only the beginning—there were other fragments, other truths hidden in the endless depths of the beyond.

Aegion stood, his fire-eyed gaze fixed on the horizon where the broken wasteland met the shifting sky. His journey was far from over. There were other Wardens, other enemies who would come for him, seeking to bury the truth he carried.

But he would not fall. Not yet. The Echoes still whispered to him, their song not of despair, but of silence.

And he would follow them, wherever they led.