“You’re Elysea,” Aurelian repeated with ascending eyebrows while looking down at the Greek brunette. “The Elysea.”


    “Well when you say it like that, it just sounds silly,” the woman replied with amusement. “But yes, I am Elysea—also known as the First Calamity.”


    “And this isn’t some sort of fever dream?”


    “Oh, it’s definitely a dream,” Elysea said with a laugh. “It’s just a necessary one.”


    “What about my Tempering?”


    “That is taking care of itself,” she assured him. “The System will see to the necessities of your body, and we are within a bubble of potentiality here anyway—time is not actually moving at the same speed.”


    “And how do I know this isn’t a trick?”


    “Just ask the System,” Elysea said with a gesture at the tree.


    “Ask the—” Aurelian cut off and turned toward her. “What?”


    “Oh, right, you aren’t there yet,” Elysea said while reaching up to palm her forehead. “That’s embarrassing. Uh, okay, let me just—” she reached behind her and thumped her fist against the tree’s trunk. “Hey! Show him!”


    Before Aurelian could question further, System text appeared in the air before him.


    This meeting has been ordained.


    You reside within the System’s embrace, Reclaimer.


    There is no imminent danger here.


    Aurelian raised his eyebrows at the words, and then nodded slowly.


    “Okay, so, that’s a thing. Cool…” he said while at a loss for words, and stared with a mix of wariness and burning curiosity at the tree. There were so many questions to be asked after that interaction, and he didn’t even know where to begin.


    “I can see the questions burning in your eyes,” Elysea said wryly from where she sat. “Sadly, we don’t really have time to answer them. I’m here to deliver you a warning, Aurelian, and do my duty as the First Calamity. What you do with that warning is up to you.”


    Aurelian looked back at Elysea when she spoke, and a mix of disappointment and stubbornness welled within him, but he brushed away the former and suppressed the latter. Bullheaded wilfulness certainly had served him well in some situations, but this was unlikely to be one of them where it gave him a positive outcome. Instead, he forced himself to focus on her words.


    “I take it this is something that all Nephilim experience?” he guessed while acceding to her words and sinking down to join her on the grass near the tree.


    “No,” she said with a shake of her head. “This is something special. It wasn’t made for you, but you’re the first one to qualify for it, which is pretty interesting.”


    Aurelian blinked at her words. So it wasn’t an inheritance from the Empire, which meant it was something older. His eyebrows rose, but he gestured for her to go on.


    “Before I continue, though,” Elysea said while peering at him, “I have to warn you that even though you know what I’m about to tell you, it doesn’t mean you are able to do anything about it. You need to be ready for the fact that information can sometimes be entirely without merit, especially when you lack the power to affect change.”


    Aurelian frowned at her words, but nodded in acceptance.


    “Yeah, I’ve gotten used to that sort of thing,” he said with a small shrug. “This hasn’t exactly been an easy experience.”


    “Neither was mine,” she agreed with a smile, and reached out to pat his cheek in a way that reminded him, oddly, of his mother. “It’s good you have that sort of resolve, though. It’ll go a long way in helping you realize your goals. Accepting what you cannot change is an imperative part about the burden Nephilim must carry.”


    “That burden being?” he asked without preamble and with genuine interest.


    “The Curse of the Nephilim.”


    “Ah,” Aurelian said with a faint shock of nervousness.


    “I can see you’ve been informed. That’s good, but you probably weren’t told everything,” Elysea said while idly clasping her hands together over her stomach. “What do you know about the curse?”


    Aurelian peered at her, and then recalled what Tarixi and Bael’tharax had told him with a frown.


    “Honestly? Not a lot. I was told that Nephilim eventually go crazy, and the ones that don’t tend to find a way to die or fade out without going nuts on people,” he said with a small shiver at the thought. “Sometimes they become Echoes, in order to preserve their knowledge—but it’s basically inevitable for them to go nuts.”


    “More or less accurate,” Elysea said with a nod. “Though the concept of an ‘Echo’ is just a trite imitation of an Anima Construct. We can discuss that another time, though. You’ll learn about those soon enough.”


    “Oh. You know about Anima?” he asked with surprise, while looking at her scarlet eyes with newfound understanding. That was why they seemed so identical to his.


    “You thought you were the first?” she asked with an amused chuckle. “Nah, that was me. The Elden were the ones that summoned me to Terra in the first place. They were the ones that gave me the strength to do what needed to be done. They were the ones that taught me to harness Calamity’s Blade.”


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    “Then why did the System—?”


    “It didn’t lie,” she cut in before he could finish. “It just told you the exact truth. No one has done what you did. I never became a Primogenitor, but I was a Blood Lord. It’s hard to explain,” she said while waving her hand. “The point is, that’s also why you’re seeing me right now. We share that commonality. Among all the Nephilim that have come after me, you are the first to achieve the power of the Elden once more, Aurelian.”


    Aurelian stared at her for a long moment, and then let out a heavy sigh. It was a bit to process, not because he was entirely surprised, but because of the implications. It also overrode what Tarixi had told him. She had said that Selenia’s followers had summoned Elysea, but the woman herself said that the Elden had, so—


    Aurelian froze mid-thought and his eyes widened.


    “The Elden were worshippers of Selenia?” he half-asked, and half-stated.


    “Ha!” Elysea said with a laugh. “They’d probably kick you in the head for saying that. No, Aurelian, they weren’t her worshippers. The Elden were Selenia’s benefactors and teachers. They were her allies, too, and stood ready to help her when she finally realized how far beyond their original mission Solarius had strayed.”


    “So it wasn’t her people that summoned you, it was—”


    “The Elden Blood Lords,” she confirmed with a smile, “at Selenia’s behest and imploration, yes.”


    Aurelian blew out a breath and reached up to brush his fingers through his hair in confusion. “What does this have to do with me, though?”


    “Calamity’s Blade,” Elysea said immediately while gesturing idly with her right forefinger, and drawing a sword in the air. “I locked it behind the power of the Elden, because I needed to ensure that when it was used again, it was by someone that wasn’t necessarily doomed to go insane.”


    “The Curse?”


    “Yes. The Curse’s effects are, in simple terms, a check and a balance. The Nephilim are inordinately powerful, and can affect unimaginable levels of change upon the infinite Realms. To combat this,” she explained with grim certainty, “the System—” she knocked the tree “—created a baked-in devolution of their mental state. Nephilim, Aurelian, eventually go completely insane—and at the zenith of their madness, when everything becomes too much, they turn their power inward against themselves.”


    Aurelian swallowed hard at her words.


    “Boom?” he asked quietly.


    “Boom,” Elysea confirmed.


    “That’s…”


    “Yeah,” Elysea agreed, “it sucks. The System is not evil, Aurelian, but neither is it good. It is a force of reality, as omnipotent and omniscient as the biblical God of Earth. It operates on a cause and effect premise, and creates checks and balances for everything—for everything, Aurelian. That includes the Nephilim and the Gods, and it also includes the Curse.”


    Aurelian blinked at her words, and then nodded with a glance at the tree. It made sense, and was consistent with his experiences. The System did not seem like a punitive nor malicious force, but it also certainly wasn’t a benevolent one. The most he could charitably say was that it was egalitarian in its callousness—and while he was convinced it had a sense of humor that erred toward sadistic, he also wasn’t married to the theory. What Elysea was saying made sense, and more than that, gave him hope.


    “And you found this balance in the Elden?”


    “Yes,” she confirmed with a smile and a nod. “Through them, I found the second path toward escaping the Curse, though it was not easy. All I can tell you right now is that you must achieve Sanguination prior to your Third Temper, in order to be able to mitigate the Curse’s effects. Achieving it as you did as an Untempered? Well, that’s definitely a good thing, though I’m not sure how that will impact your growth.”


    Third Temper made sense. It was by all reports the most critical Temper stage.


    “What was the first path?” he asked her, having not missed the emphasis in her voice.


    “The first path is both easier and more difficult at the same time,” she explained with a faint smile. “Easier in that it is relatively natural progression, but more difficult in that—at least in my era—it painted a massive target on your back. The first path, Aurelian, is to become a god. Once you do, you lose your Nephilic benefits and your Divine Core overrides your Realm Walker abilities and the System’s Nephilim balance enforcement. By ascending to godhood, you become part of the Prime Material wholly and irrevocably. Your power here and within the immediate Realms grows immensely, but your ability to affect ancillary Realms—like Earth—is massively mitigated.”


    “Checks and balances,” Aurelian murmured in understanding.


    “Exactly.”


    “I take it you’re about to give me a big revelation,” he ventured with trepidation.


    “Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Elysea said with a warm laugh. “First, let me start by telling you this: the god you know as Solarius was originally a Nephilim named Arcastor, and was born in Greece during the time of the Peloponnesian League.”


    Aurelian stared at her, and then let out a low whistle.


    “So he’s not just a former Nephilim, he’s from Earth? That’s… a really big coincidence,” he said slowly. “A really big coinci—that isn’t a coincidence.”


    “No, it isn’t,” Elysea agreed with a wry smile. “Shall I rip off the band-aid?”


    “Please,” Aurelian said with a grimace.


    “Very well. I know how Arcastor became Solarius, and what his original goal was, and the fact he was a Nephilim because before I knew he was Solarius, I fell in love with him as Arcastor.”


    Aurelian closed his eyes and muttered “here we go” under his breath.


    “Arcastor was my husband, Aurelian,” Elysea said with the same easy calm, “and the father of my children. It turns out that, even though Arcastor and I brought children into the Prime Material, our joint origins meant they inherited not just our Nephilic gifts, but Arcastor’s divine ones as well—and the ability to sunder the planes.”


    Aurelian opened his eyes and raised his head.


    “You always wondered why the System chose you for this. It wasn’t random, Aurelian. It wasn’t some twist of fate that brought you, of all people, here. It wasn’t just pure moxy and grit—though those certainly played a part—which allowed you to not just survive, but thrive here,” Elysea said while looking at him intently.


    “Don’t say—”


    “When my son went to visit the Realm of our origins, he took the name ‘Crossworld’. Over time, that name changed and evolved into ‘Crosswood’.”


    Aurelian’s blood ran cold.


    “You weren’t summoned at random, Aurelian. You were chosen because you were the person best suited to stopping Solarius and the Eight by merit of the fact you, and you alone, possessed the potential for power that could eclipse any other Nephilim that came before you. Nephilic lineage, Elden lineage, Divine lineage.”


    Aurelian felt himself take a breath, and stared at Elysea in wordless shock.


    “I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances, but I am so proud of you, Alexander,” Elysea said to him warmly. “My name is Elysea Nike Athanasiou, and I welcome you home.”


    Aurelian felt his heart booming against his ribcage.


    “Just don’t call me Granny.”