Crown & Cataclysm: Legend of Yan
Long before the stars found their order when the cosmos breathed chaos and song, a wish-forge at the cusp of a galaxy's halo, in this place, Wishing Stars could turn dreams and wishes into reality.
This place is Thassara End.
It was no sanctuary, no haven. It was sacred, yes, but also wild. The Wish Forge, at its heart, responded not to righteousness but to intent.
And one day, someone dared to do it.
A tyrant king from another realm, obsessed with power, control, and eternal dominion, crossed dimensions secretly to find the wish-forge. He came not with reverence, but with ambition. He demanded a creature of fury and flame, something no army could challenge, something to bend the realm to his reign.
Waiting at the threshold was a Wishing Starâa celestial being of quiet light and boundless knowing. Her name was Celestarya-Astraea.
She stood barefoot on a dirt path of stardust, unadorned and unwavering. She wore a long, sheer pale blue robe draped loosely over her shoulders. No crown adorned her brow. No weapon hung from her belt. Her silver-lavender hair spilled down her back, and when she spoke, her voice was both calm and absolute.
He comes with greed, thought Astraea. Her gaze was not unkind, but resolute. "The Forge does not give freely. It gives truly." She said to the King as he approached.
The King laughed. He did not listen. With contempt, he strode past Astraea toward the entrance of the Forge. No one stepped into the Forge without an invitation. And he had none. Astraea's anger flared.
A pulse of white-blue light burst from her hand, striking the King's chest. A sheer electric jolt tore through his body, dropping him to his knees.
"You will yield to me if you desire your wish so badly," she said, her voice ringing like tempered steel. "No one enters the Forge before me." Her body ignited with celestial brilliance, white-blue light radiating outward, blinding the King. He could barely see her now, a glowing figure suspended above him, more star than flesh.
Still gasping, the King dragged himself forward, collapsing onto his knees. He crawled, trembling, trailing behind Astraea as she passed through the threshold of the Wish-Forge. Astraea stopped. She turned to face him. Without a word, she reached down and removed the crown from his head with both hands. Then she turned away and continued deeper into the Forge, the light of the cosmic fire casting her shadow long behind her.
"My crown! It belongs to me!" the King cried, voice cracking with agony.
Astraea paused, but did not turn. "Your crown will suffice for what you seek," she said softly. She thought she was being merciful.
After all, every great wish demands a great sacrifice.
At the center of the Forge, a massive pit yawned, its core alive with cosmic fire, swirling in celestial colors that pulsed and howled as they rushed upward, spiraling out through the top of the spire. The air shimmered with heat. It was unbearable. The King choked, coughing violently, gasping for breath beneath the rising waves of energy.
Astraea looked back at him, silent, unreadable. Then, without ceremony, she took his crown and cast it into the Forge. "Nooo!" the King cried, his voice breaking with desperation. Unmoved, Astraea stepped closer to him and gently guided him to the edge. "Place your hands upon the Forge," she whispered into his ear. "And speak your wish. You must speak it loudly so that the cosmos will hear you."
Breathless and exhausted, the King laid his hand upon the Forge, his hand singed and burned. He cried out but didn't give up on making his wish. The King spoke his wish into the fire. His voice trembled not with reverence but triumph.
Astraea hovered above the Forge, her starlight wavering like a dying flame. The King's wish had been spoken loud, proud, and dripping with ambition. The Forge roared in answer, swirling faster, higher, until the cosmic fire rose into a spire of color and flame, reaching toward the stars.
And then, something shifted. Astraea gasped as the Forge drew upon her essenceâher starlight, her celestial core, the sacred power she wielded as a Wishing Star. A pull, she could feel it leaving her. Wishes had a cost. And she was the price. Her silver-lavender hair lifted in the heat and surge. Her skin and eyes glowed, revealing constellations of stars that blinked alive across her arms, her chest, and her spine. She cried out, not in pain, but in knowing. She had seen what was coming.
From the heart of the Forge, the wish took form. A creature emerged, not born of love, nor hope, but of hubris. A massive dragon, forged from raw stardust and black flame. Its scales shimmered like fractured voids of collapsed galaxies. Its eyes were black as depth burned with unnameable hunger. He was not loyal. He was not tame. He was born of the King's ambition, but forged by Astraea's power, a creature of chaos. A wish made real.
The dragon slithered out of the Forge, smoke trailing from his nostrils as he sniffed the air. He glided effortlessly through the heat currents, circling the spire like a phantom of flame and void. Then, he saw the King.
His roar shattered the silence. It thundered across the celestial planes of Thassara End, a sound not heard since the first stars were named. And the King, foolish and elated, smiled. The King's wish had been granted. He believed he had won. Astraea, her light dimmed, her essence nearly spent, stepped forward. "Take your dragon and leave," she said, her voice withered and thinned by exhaustion. "And do not return."
For a time, in the greedy Kingâs realm, he rejoiced. He paraded the dragon like a trophy. But joy, like starlight, fades. It was not long before he understood: He could not command the dragon. The beast did not bow. He did not listen. He did not obey. Planets withered beneath the dragon's shadow. Stars trembled in their orbits. The Kingâs armies scattered like ash in the wind. Terrified of the very creature he had summoned, the King returned to Astraea broken and desperate. "Undo it," he pleaded. "Take it back. I command it!" But she did not move. Her light, though faint, still held the truth. "Your wish was sealed the moment I made it flesh," she told him. "To undo it would require another⌠and that would only deepen the corruption." Still, the King tried to force her hand. He failed. Astraea had forged the dragon with her starlight, and at significant cost.
âYou canât rescind a wish!â Astraea snapped. The King collapsed before her, his voice hollow with panic. âIâve made a terrible mistake. Pleaseâmake it go away. My kingdom is in ruin. My lands are scorched. My peopleâŚgone. I have nothing leftâbecause of that dragon.â He begged on his knees, a crownless man beneath the stars. Astraea sat high upon a stone ledge, the Forge pulsing dimly below her like a wounded heart. Her body was still, but her light flickered faintly at the edges, stretched thin from the forging, from the price of granting a wish not meant to be. His wish had nearly unmade her. She stared at the King. He was broken. But the damage was done. And the only way forward was through sacrifice.
Astraea closed her eyes and inhaled slowly. She anchored her breath to the cosmic leyline that once pulsed freely in her chest. Then she reached across stars, across the scorched echo of the dragon's path, and felt it.
The dragon. âYan,â she whispered. A pause. A breath from the stars. And then, a distant chuff, like stardust shifting through obsidian scales.
He had heard her. Astraea smiled softly, though her body trembled with fatigue.âYour name is Yan,â she said again, voice gentler than flame. âReturn to the Forge.â She did not command him. She called him home.
Not long after, Yan returned to the Forge. He chuffed low in his throat as he emerged from the skies beyond, sniffing the air as he descended. Cosmic flame swirled beneath him, drawn to his massive form as if the Forge itself remembered him. The king backed against a jagged wall of stardust and stone, trembling. âPlease!â he cried. âMake this beast go away!â Yan slithered forward, graceful and terrifying, his growl low and thunderous. It rippled through the stone beneath the kingâs feet, a sound that belonged to the void between galaxies. He sniffed once, twiceâhis breath curling like smoke around the crumbling edges of the kingâs body.
From high above, Astraea remained seated on a ledge of a high stone, watching. Her expression was neither cruel nor kindâonly final.
âYour wish cost me much,â she said, her voice echoing through the hollow Forge. âTrue, selfless wishes are effortless. They flow through light and love. But wishes born from greed...â she paused, "...require more. They demand sacrifice.â Her gaze darkened, silver-lavender hair lifting slightly in the Forgeâs heat. âAnd now⌠You owe me the starlight I've lost.â She nodded once. Without hesitation, Yan moved. He became shadow and fire, gliding through the roaring cosmic currents like a phantom of judgment. In a single, fluid bound, he descended upon the tyrant king. And then, he devoured him. The Forge quieted.
Astraeaâs light, fractured by the wish, began, at last, to mend. However, healing did not come in days or decades. It took centuries for her radiance to return in full. And yet, Yan did not vanish into ruin or wrath. He was not evil. He was unfinished, a creature born of selfish desire, but not beyond redemption. What he needed was not a master, but a sense of meaning. Astraea offered him purpose. Not as a weapon, but as the warden of the Forge that had birthed him. Not as a beast to be feared, but as the eternal guardian of Thassara End. To her quiet astonishment, Yan accepted.
Since that day, he has haunted the edges of Thassara End, a shadow among stars, a trial wrapped in silence. None may draw near the Forge without first passing his gaze.
When Astraea fell to Earth, exiled for her defiance, cast down from the stars, Yan followed. Cloaked in the form of a black cat, he took the name Rui. To guard. To wait. To remind her that even a corrupted wish can become a protector when given a second chance.
Source: Crown & Cataclysm: Legend of Yan
