The sky burned crimson as the world tore itself apart.

Rifts, as dark and boundless as the abyss itself, punctured the heavens, spewing forth nightmare incarnate. From these grotesque wounds, demon lords emerged, ancient and unspeakable in their malevolence, their forms too vast, too chaotic to comprehend. Alongside them came forgotten gods, beings who thrived in madness, whose laughter echoed with the resonance of crumbling worlds. The very air was suffocating, thick with the stench of sulfur and death, as creation crumbled beneath the weight of an invasion it was never meant to survive.

Armageddon had come.

The Ethereals stood at the last bastion of resistance, their forms cloaked in blood and ash, surrounded by the bones of those who had fallen in the futile attempt to stave off the end. Yuèliàng, the dark elf commander, her silver hair catching the dying light of the sun, scanned the battlefield with eyes that had seen too much. She knew the truth—there would be no surviving this. Yet there was no fear in her gaze, only grim resolve. This was their fight, their purpose, and the end would not find them cowering.

Beside her stood Ảo, the fae mage, her hands glowing with raw arcane energy, pulling the last vestiges of magic from the dying world. Every breath she took strained the very fabric of reality, and her wings, once vibrant and ethereal, were now torn and battered. Blade, their draconic swordsman, had already shifted into his half-dragon form, his golden scales gleaming in the twilight. He roared, the sound of a beast who knew this was the final war, his blade—an extension of his soul—dripped with the blood of gods.

Ilera, the angelic healer, stood at the center of their formation, her wings shimmering with a faint glow. She whispered prayers to a heaven that no longer answered, healing the wounds of her companions as quickly as she could, though even she knew it was only delaying the inevitable. Kkeungi, their berserker, howled into the night, his body a whirlwind of fury, muscles bulging as he tore through the demonic horde with reckless abandon. Xāh̄ār, their unlikely chef, had long since abandoned his kitchen for the battlefield, wielding his deadly cleavers with a precision that defied his jovial nature. And Mijikai, the dwarven blacksmith, swung his massive hammer with raw, brutal force, each strike sending shockwaves through the earth.

They were the last of their kind—the last guild.

The Ethereals.

They fought not for victory, but for defiance. To prove that even in the face of the end, they would stand.

But the end was inevitable.

In the distance, a towering demon lord, larger than mountains, raised its colossal hand. Yuèliàng's eyes widened as she felt the pull—a vacuum, an unseen force ripping the very essence of existence toward that singular point. The others sensed it too. A spell—an incantation of such magnitude that even time itself trembled beneath its power.

"Hold the line!" Yuèliàng cried, but her voice was lost in the cataclysm.

The ground shook as the demon lord spoke in a voice that was both the thunder and the silence between the stars. The words were incomprehensible, but their meaning was clear: destruction, oblivion, erasure.

Ảo's magic flared wildly, her desperation a flame as she tried to counter the incantation. Ilera's healing light burst forth, shielding them, but the force was too great, too absolute. Blade roared again, charging forward with the others, but even the combined might of the Ethereals could not stand against the end of all things.

The spell completed.

The world around them shattered like glass.

For a moment, there was nothing. No sound, no light. Just void.

And then, in that emptiness, they felt it—a pull, like being ripped through the threads of time itself. Their bodies, their very essence, began to unravel, atomized into the fabric of reality. Yuèliàng reached out, her hand dissolving before her eyes, her last thoughts a bitter realization that they had failed. The end had come, and they were not enough.

But then… something unexpected.

A pulse, a heartbeat, and a blinding flash of light.

The Ethereals awoke to find themselves whole once more, standing not in the desolation of Armageddon, but in a quiet, sunlit glade. The scent of fresh grass filled the air, and birds chirped in the distance. Yuèliàng looked down at her hands, solid, untouched by the chaos that had torn them apart moments before. The others were there, too, disoriented but alive.

Blade was the first to speak, his voice low with disbelief. "Where… are we?"

Ảo closed her eyes, her mind reaching out to the arcane currents. When she opened them again, they were wide with shock.

"We're not where… We're when. This… this is the past."

"How far?" Mijikai grunted, his hand resting on the handle of his hammer.

Ảo swallowed, her voice a whisper.

"A thousand years. The day our guild was first formed."

And as the truth settled over them, one thing became clear.

They hadn't failed. Not yet.

They had one last chance to save the world.

The Last Guild's story had just begun.