Prologue: Revelation and Salvation

After seeming to destroy the Origin, and thus all magic on Valisthea, Clive finds himself trapped within a void, all of the Eikons separate and surrounding him, with Ultima hovering above claiming that they did adequately in "getting lucky once more", but that They only needed to get lucky the once. Clive then learns of the endless cycles that he and the Eikons have been trapped in for so long, none of them can properly remember anymore. And they will continue to be stuck in the cycles until Ultima is either properly killed, or comes out the final victor. After an intense discussion over what could be done to finally be rid of the mad entity and their kin, it is decided that only by doing the impossible will they be able to break free and finally save Valisthea: they need to go back into Clive's past and rewrite history.

Clive performs the spell, only to end up in the middle of a burning village, with bandits mercilessly attacking and killing everyone they come across. He steps in between a bandit and a mother and son, only to learn that the two he had just saved were Barnabas Tharmr and his mother. Clive takes the opportunity to try and convince Barnabas away from Ultima, but only manages to tell the young man to find Clive once more, and is cut off after saying "You need to stop this" by a massive pain in his head, resulting in him disappearing without a trace... aside from an iridescent feather left where he once stood.

At first, Clive is within a subdimensional void composed of nothing but aether. Afterwards, he is in a village under attack by "bandits" somewhere on the continent of Ash.

The subdimensional void was created to drain away the memories and aether of Clive and the Eikons, leaving them weakened and at Ultima's mercy for each cycle.

The village of Kjara is under attack, with burning buildings, soldiers with a variety of weapons, and panicked civilians just trying to survive.