Legend LXI – The Shadow Keeper at the Edge of the Heavens

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It is said that there is a place no mortal ever willingly enters—a rift at the edge of the world, where rocks jut into the void like frozen teeth, and the clouds are silent, as if afraid to be seen. There, where even the wind holds its breath, stands a guardian beyond time, a lord of that border where stars end and souls take their final step. His name has fallen from the chronicles, been scraped from temples, hissed from prayers like a forbidden word. The ancients called him the Shadow Keeper, and whoever saw him never spoke with a human voice again.He is neither living nor dead—a figure in dark iron, shrouded in a cloak that seems to breathe with the stars. Beneath his hood, no face burns, only a skull, silent as frozen memory, and above it, blue ether blazes like the remnant of divine fire. His eyes are sockets, yet behind them there is movement… a glimmer that seeks not to see, but to judge. And in his hand rests the blade that divides worlds: a scythe as large as a ship's mast, toothed like centuries of hunger, forged from night metal and fueled by moonlight. For eons, he has guarded the edge of the heavens, where lost star trails fade. When a spirit goes astray, the blade calls softly, like glass in frost, and the Shadow Keeper raises it without haste. No whisper, no triumph emanates from him—only silent duty, like a heartbeat of the cosmos. Some claim he was once a king who sought immortality and found eternity instead. Others say he was the first angel, cast out for compassion on dying creation. But no one knows for sure. He himself does not speak. His silence is older than language. But on that night, uncharted on star charts, something happened that should not have happened. A soul stepped down to the edge—not trembling, not lost, but filled with fire and questions. It was a warrior with scars of light, whose heart had not died in death. She stood before the Guardian without kneeling, and in her voice was a sound that millennia had not heard: defiance. "I did not come to leave," she said. "I came to return." The scythe rose slowly, like a moon over a cold sea. Its metal sang, and the stars paused. One wrong breath would have extinguished the woman from this in-between space. But she did not yield. Galaxies were reflected in her eyes, the will of a lifetime trembled in her grip. Perhaps it was memory, perhaps grace—perhaps only curiosity—but the Shadow Keeper lowered the blade. His gaze was like the weight of centuries, and when he spoke, it was like breaking ice: "Then show me what has not yet ended." It is said that the warrior told him of worlds that still loved. Of children who laughed even though darkness lurked. Of fields that bloomed even though snow had fallen.