Briefly after the consolidation of the human-monster war, and the grand sacrifice of the Apostle of Freedom, the world began a new era of peace under the overseeing of the six fabled souls. These individuals would spend their years fighting for the keepsake of peace, and would eventually end their tales the same way, for said peace.
Such a threat on the level of the Apostle of Fear didn't appear, perhaps because of the balance, or perhaps that's just how it was written.
The tales of these six souls were uttered even after they ended, through the word of others, and thus, they came to be known as the Fables of Fated Souls.
From my perch beyond the veil of mortality, where time flows like honey and moments stretch into eternities, I watched as the world breathed its first breath of true freedom in countless centuries. The ashes of Akumu had scattered on solar winds that carried them to the far reaches of space, and in their wake, something beautiful and fragile began to grow like flowers pushing through battlefield soil.
RMI: They don't know yet, do they?
His coffee had been replaced by something that sparkled like captured starlight and tasted of celebrations that hadn't happened yet - a drink for momentous occasions, though the weight that lingered in his ancient eyes suggested he knew exactly what I knew, what we both pretended not to see in the threads of fate that stretched before us.
BLK: Know what?
I replied, though we both understood the question with the perfect clarity that comes from existing outside the linear flow of mortal time.
RMI: That peace has a price steeper than war ever demanded. That freedom must be defended with the same fervor that once fought to claim it. That someone always has to stand watch in the darkness while others sleep peacefully in beds they've never had to earn.
Below us, scattered across a world still healing from wounds that went deeper than flesh and bone, the six souls went about their lives with the blessed ignorance of those who believe the hardest battles are behind them. They had survived the confrontation against the Apostle of Fear, had witnessed their closest friend transform into something beyond the boundaries of mortal understanding, had felt the crushing weight of cosmic despair lift from the world's shoulders like chains finally broken. In their hearts, they carried the simple, beautiful assumption that the hard part was over, that peace was a destination rather than a journey. They were wrong, but beautifully, heartbreakingly so.