Illya Vel'areis

"Alright, let's get a move on it, prodigy," Chronos called, his voice bouncing off the viewing box walls like he was ordering coffee, not watching Raiden stand there, rigid as a toppled statue mid-crash.

Chronos tilted his head, eyes narrowing. "What's the holdup? Forgetting something?"

Raiden's exhale was a slow hiss, his shoulders quaking under an invisible anvil. "Haven't cracked the code on walking yet."

I raised an eyebrow, leaning against the wall, used to Rai's theatrics, but not this. "You? Stumped? By walking?"

"Not stumped," he growled, jaw tight as if chewing gravel. "Just figuring out how to stroll while gravity tries to murder-suplex me like a jealous ex with abandonment issues."

Then he glanced at Ella. Oh, that glance. The kind that screamed please mock me so I feel alive.

Ella raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Don't look at me. You're the one who said, 'Yeah, let's slap an Ascendant's gym equipment back on. That'll be fun.'"

He pointed at Ella with an accusatory tone, "Woman, do not put words in my mouth, I said no such thing!"

I bit my lip to keep from grinning too wide. This was better than the matches. "Dramatic metaphors and self-sabotage? Be still, my heart. You might be dying under those Anchors, Raiden, but your mouth's still undefeated."

He gave a grunt that might've been a laugh, or just his soul escaping. Hard to say.

"Glad I can suffer for your entertainment," he muttered.

I leaned back against the table. "Mm, you're like a handsome boulder with unresolved issues. Difficult to move, oddly charming, probably needs therapy."

Raiden coughed a laugh, just one, but I caught it. Victory.

Raiden's knees buckled, his foot catching a chair with a clatter as it toppled across the polished floor. His aura pulsed, faint indigo ripples bracing his calves like spectral scaffolding.

Chronos sighed, arms crossed like a disappointed parent at a dance recital. "This is why I don't take you anywhere." He nodded, a coach eyeing a rookie half-nailing a drill. "Good effort. Solve it faster."

Raiden sucked in a breath, shifting his weight. His foot inched forward, then froze, as if the Anchors were whispering, Not so fast.

"Walk, I didn't bring a wheelchair for you," Chronos said.

"By the Celestial," Raiden muttered, jaw tight. "Ever tried moving with a star's worth of gravity glued to your spine?"

Chronos smirked, slipping into an old man's croak. "Back in my day, that was the average morning commute."

I bit back a grin as Chronos finally stepped in and grabbed Raiden by the collar. His shoes squeaked faintly as they dragged across the floor. He didn't resist. Chin high, shoulders squared, like even now he refused to look beaten.

The door clicked shut behind them. The tension cracked.

Áine collapsed, knees hitting the floor with a heavy thud. Her arms hung limp at her sides. Her face had gone pale, sweat running down her temple. Her breaths came sharp and uneven, chest rising too fast.

"Áine!" I rushed toward her, heart kicking hard in my ribs. I expected her to snap back with that glare she always carried, icy and calm. But she didn't move.

Her eyes were locked on the spot where Chronos had stood. Wide. Unblinking.

And wrong.

Not just fear. Like she'd seen something she couldn't explain and wasn't meant to.

"What did you see?" I asked, crouching beside her, voice soft.

She didn't meet my gaze. Her whisper barely carried. "Nothing."

I frowned. "Nothing?"

She shook her head, fingers digging into her robes. "No aura. No warmth. Just… a void. A pit that devours everything and gives nothing back."

I swallowed. My throat had gone dry without me noticing.

I'd never seen Chronos fight. Just the way people reacted when he entered a room. The way his presence made even confident Ascendants adjust their stance without realizing it. And now, Áine, cold, unshakable Áine, was on her knees, shaking.

That told me everything.

Powerful didn't do him justice. Chronos was the kind of presence that made even the strongest forget how to breathe.

Raiden… just who did you get involved with?

Raiden Alaric

Chronos didn't give me a warning.

One second, we were walking, well, he was walking, I was being dragged like a drunken dwarf got his shirt caught on a mine cart. The next, he tore open a glowing slit in space with a flick of his fingers. It shimmered like glass dipped in lightning.

"Alright," he said. "Field trip."

I squinted at the portal. "Something illegal is gonna happen huh?"

Chronos ignored me and hoisted me by the arm like a sack of potatoes. "Oh so you know we're going to Selena's? She's been waiting."

"Oh no..."

We stepped through, and the temperature shifted instantly. The sterile hum of magitech buzzed through the air, and the scent of clean steel and acrid herbs hit my nose.

We were in her lab, Selena's lab. You know, the lab that always changes no matter if I'm gone for a week or an hour? The lab that has body parts of unknown creatures? The lab that has objects that make me question existence? The kind of place where jars of glowing goo share shelf space with claws you hope aren't fresh. A place where every visit feels like a fever dream with a side of existential dread. Yeah that lab.

I barely had time to finish processing that before—

"RAI-BEAAAR!!"

Something small, fast, and dangerously caffeinated slammed into me like a heat-seeking gremlin with boundary issues.

Her arms wrapped around my neck. Her legs locked around my waist. She was clinging to me in a full-on human koala grip, and to top it all off, she started planting rapid-fire kisses all over my cheek like I was her favorite science fair project that finally mutated correctly.

I wheezed. "Ribs—Selena—the ribs—!"

She didn't care. Her aura flared in tiny, erratic bursts, like her soul was short-circuiting from joy. But now... now I could see it.

And by the Celestial, it was beautiful.

Her aura flowed like strands of living starlight, unpredictable yet smooth, wrapping around her in intricate spirals. Each flicker shimmered in hues I couldn't name, as if color itself was trying to keep up with her mood. It pulsed with warmth, wonder, and manic curiosity.

It was chaotic, sure, but it had rhythm. Like music played by someone who didn't care about the rules but still made it work. I've never seen anything like it. Would've never seen it at all if I hadn't Awakened.

I searched for her rank, instinctively trying to sense the weight behind all that brilliance, but there was nothing to measure. No pressure, no tiered hierarchy, no linear feel. Just her. Alive and blinding.

Note to self, ask Chronos on how to actually read auras to detect ranks. If that didn't count as high-rank, then I was out of my depth.

I was so caught in it that I didn't realize she'd pulled back until her face was inches from mine, eyes glittering with delight.

"I knew it! I felt it happen!" she shouted. "You Awakened! You finally Awakened! You beautiful, reckless, idiot boy—I'm so proud of you!"

"Thanks," I croaked. "Now please let me breathe before I pass out and you have to dissect my corpse."

"Oh right!" She got off me instantly. I stumbled, my body still confused about the distribution of the new weight on me, only for Chronos to grab the back of my collar like I was a toddler mid-faceplant.

Selena didn't even notice. She was already bounding across the room, dragging a tray of glowing instruments behind her like a woman possessed.

"You have no idea how long I've waited to scan you," she sang. "Aura mapping, spiritual pressure analysis, core formation checks, aether realm alignment—oh my gods I get to see your aether realm!"

I blinked. "Wait. That's a thing I have now?"

"Yes!" she shouted, spinning toward me, arms full of arcane gadgets. "And I want to see it, study it, poke it—maybe hug it if it doesn't explode!"

Chronos gave her a look. "Don't let it explode."

"No promises."

I groaned and glanced at the nearest chair. "So this is my life now. I achieve something, and get poked with sharp things."

"You say that like it hasn't always been your life," Chronos said.

"Alright Rai-Bear, strip!" Selena chirped, already powering up one of her scanners.

I froze. "Is there some sort of theme here with you two asking me to strip when checking something?"

She gave me a look over her shoulder. "Spiritual mapping requires skin contact. Unless you want me to cut through your shirt."

Chronos nodded. "That does sound faster. First, have him change shirts you aren't getting through that one."

I sighed, peeled the shirt off, and slumped back into the chair. Selena practically vibrated with excitement as she rolled over with a rune-slate and a suspiciously sharp-looking needle.

"I swear," I muttered, "if this thing stabs me, I'm reporting you to the medical ethics board."

Selena grinned. "Joke's on you. I am the medical ethics board."

Great…

I was sore, half-broken, wearing what felt like five tons of weight on my limbs… and yet, somehow? I was still grinning. Because this was real. I had Awakened. My aura was mine. My aether core existed. My aether realm existed. And for the first time in my life, I had no idea what was coming next.

Which meant it was going to be fun… or it might kill me…

Honestly, same thing at this point.

I leaned back and let the tension fall away, one breath at a time. No theatrics. No dramatic shift in atmosphere. Just stillness, earned, not given.

The noise of the lab faded. My focus narrowed until the room didn't matter. My breath slowed. My chest settled.

Aura moved in closer, aligning itself without effort. I wasn't commanding it. I was listening.

There was a point behind my ribs, where everything tightened. The center of me. Pressure gathered, not sharp, not heavy, just dense enough to pull me deeper. Not out of my body, but past it. Through it.

I stayed there, centered, while something within started to respond. My aura traced a path inward, familiar but still unfolding. Every part of me felt deliberate. Every breath sunk lower.

Before, stood the door.

Same door as last time. Floating in that silent, not-quite-black space. But it looks different now. More solid. It felt… aware. The surrounding shimmer flickered like static, like the entire realm hadn't quite finished rendering yet.

I walked forward, each step echoing somewhere in my chest instead of the ground. I stopped in front of it, tilted my head slightly, and gave it a look.

"You better open this time," I said. "Or I swear, I'm breaking you."

The door said nothing, because obviously. But I felt it. Not resistance, more like recognition.

My hand hovered for a second, then pressed flat against the center.

The surface was warm. Not just physically, something deeper. It buzzed faintly under my palm, pulsing in rhythm with a force I couldn't name. My aura jumped in response, sharp and tense, but it didn't stay that way. The tension dropped. It was syncing.

A line of light traced the center seam. No noise. Just motion. The door opened.

The second it did, my aura moved, calm, steady, already ahead of me. It reached into the open space before I could even think. My skin lit up with the echo of something vast pressing just beyond my senses.

I stepped through.

Something pulled. Not visually. Not with force. Just enough to unsettle the center of me. The ground held, but something beneath it adjusted. My balance wavered. Aura reached forward on its own, faster than before, more certain.

Then it hit.

No sound. No clear thought. Just presence.

It didn't arrive. It was already here. Pressing against the edge of my mind, firm and quiet. Not demanding. Recognizing. Pressure gathered low in my chest. Warm. Heavy. The kind of weight you don't notice until everything else goes still.

I didn't need to move. The message was already clear.

"Welcome home."

Light expanded. It didn't blind. It revealed.

The moment I stepped in, the space opened around me.

Glass stretched under my feet in all directions. Not smooth, cracked. Dozens of panels split outward from where I stood, edges glowing faintly with threads of shifting light. But nothing felt damaged. The fractures were part of the design.

Beneath them, stars shifted in real time.

They burned, collapsed, and reformed, slow, constant, and alive.

Clusters drifted just below the crystalline surface, turning lazily or collapsing silently into nothing. The realm seemed to hold entire galaxies beneath my feet, suspended in a shimmering, translucent mosaic. Every panel beneath me glowed faintly, etched with a delicate pattern of constellations and nebulae, softly pulsing in shades of azure, violet, and gold.

With each careful step, ripples of light radiated outward, briefly illuminating celestial patterns hidden beneath the glass-like floor. Tiny flashes stirred in response, fleeting glimpses of distant stars or forgotten dreams. Most remained dormant, quietly waiting for a touch that might never come.

The air hummed subtly, not with sound, but with a gentle resonance that whispered of latent potential. Above, clouds of deep violet and warm amber stretched across a twilight sky speckled with countless steady stars. They watched without blinking, distant yet intensely aware.

At the horizon, an eclipse hung quietly, perfectly aligned and suspended motionlessly above a luminous sea. It conveyed a calm expectancy, as though paused mid-transformation.

This place wasn't complete. It shifted subtly around me, responding to my presence with intuitive precision. I sensed it clearly. This was no dream, no trick of perception Selena would later analyze excitedly while putting sticky notes saying "mine".

As I stood quietly at its center, absorbing the surreal yet strangely familiar beauty.

And right now, mine were still trying to decide whether this was the coolest thing I'd ever seen… or the start of something I wasn't ready to understand.

I took a few more steps, careful but curious.

Each step landed clean. The floor answered with a low thrum, subtle, steady. Panels shifted ahead of me, locking into place without a sound. Some tilted first, like they were still getting used to me, then clicked down as if they'd always meant to be there.

This wasn't random.

The ground extended only when I moved. It didn't pre-build anything. It waited. The cracks beneath me lit up with each step, slow pulses of color threading through. Galaxies flickered just under the surface, moving, reshaping, adjusting. Some of the light disappeared the second I looked at it, like the realm knew what was meant to be seen and what wasn't.

I didn't tell it to do any of this.

It just knew.

Each step sent a soft push through my aura. My core matched it, pulse for pulse, without hesitation. The hum in the air lined up with my breath. This wasn't some distant spiritual landscape.

This is mine.

I paused and turned slightly. Panels behind me dimmed the moment I looked away. No flicker. No hesitation. Just quiet confirmation that their job was done.

The longer I stood there, the more I felt it. Rules did not build this space. It followed me and my being.

And I grinned.

Full grin. No restraint. Because this? This was mine. All of it. Every shifting panel, every quiet pulse, every flicker of starlight buried beneath the glass.

This wasn't just an aether realm. This was me, with nothing in the way.

"Okay," I muttered, still smiling. "This is actually pretty fucking cool."

The realm didn't respond. But the next panel lit up anyway.

I glanced down.

For a moment, the cracks beneath me pulsed, then realigned. A familiar shape appeared, quick, vague, gone again before I could make it out. A memory maybe. Or a fragment of something I hadn't processed yet. This place felt too sharp to be a dream, but too personal to be anything else.

I didn't feel like I'd stepped into a realm. It felt closer. Internal. Like something I hadn't been able to reach before had finally opened up, and it was active. Aware.

Tracking me as I moved.

I kept walking. The ground adjusted without being asked. The path stayed just ahead of each step, reshaping itself one panel at a time. It didn't feel invasive. Just careful.

Then it changed.

Two pulses rolled out from beneath my feet. Pressure, not force. A signal. The realm was reacting to something.

Ahead of me, the panels began to shift. Seamlines parted in wide arcs, the surface folding back in slow, deliberate layers. Each movement was precise. Measured. The floor didn't break, it made room.

Beneath the rearranging panels, stars curved inward. The pattern was too focused to be random. The realm was drawing something in.

The air responded next. Light spiraled from the edges of the space, not falling from above or rising from below. It moved laterally, pulled inward as if the boundaries of the realm were filtering it in on command.

It wasn't asking for permission. It already understood mine.

Chronos arrived first.

He stepped into the center of the light. The moment his foot touched the surface, the realm locked into place around him. The panels beneath him adjusted instantly, holding firm. They didn't shimmer. They didn't hesitate. They simply made space.

His presence was acknowledged, not tested.

The realm treated him as someone I'd already accepted. Because I had.

Chronos scanned the surroundings, calm, quiet, letting his eyes track the edges of what I still hadn't fully explored.

He didn't need to ask where he was.

The realm answered for him.

Then came Selena.

The light warped before she emerged, flickering twice before it pulled her in. She landed mid-step, barely upright. Her boots hit the forming ground just as it caught up to her weight. Everything around her moved at once, panels flaring, cracks sparking, too many details trying to form at the same time.

Chronos got precision. Selena got saturation.

The realm had responded to both of them, just not in the same way. It wasn't reacting to who they were. It was reflecting how I saw them.

Chronos, measured, calculated, no wasted motion.

Selena, impossible to pin down, fast, and loud without meaning to be.

I didn't have to think hard to understand it. The realm didn't just let them in. It filtered them through me.

Selena didn't even stop to take it in.

The second her shoes stopped sliding, she bolted across the nearest panel and started scanning the ground. Her eyes tracked every flicker and seam like the place was trying to sneak something past her. She muttered notes I couldn't keep up with, and based on how she was already pacing in a half-circle, this was probably the calm version of her reaction.

"Constant restructuring… adaptive layering… is that a containment bend or spatial mirroring? No, wait, it's recursive…"

I couldn't tell if she was making actual observations or having an episode. Either way, the realm kept shifting under her like it was trying to keep up with her thoughts and failing miserably.

Chronos had moved too, though his approach was the exact opposite. Quiet steps. Slow gaze. He was scanning the space like he was reading an ancient scroll, one sentence at a time.

Haha, old man.

He didn't say anything, but I could feel it, the way his eyes lingered on the edges of the horizon, how he tilted his head every time the galaxies pulsed beneath the glass. He wasn't looking around casually. Instead it seemed he was measuring something.

Then he spoke, "The realm is now more solid compared to the last time I was here. Now the floor has foundation, but these visuals… I've only seen these in a few individuals, but not to this scale."

I turned back toward Selena just in time for her to scream.

It wasn't a scream of terror. It was the kind of shriek someone makes when they forget a cake in the oven.

Chronos flinched just slightly, which honestly made it worse, and I nearly tripped over my own feet spinning around.

"What? What happened?"

She pointed at me, breathless and wild-eyed. "The seal!"

I blinked. "Seal?"

"The one that was suppressing your Awakening," she said, already sprinting back toward me. "I have to see the condition it's in."

That stopped me. I hadn't even thought about that part. My focus, all this time, remained on being finally Awakened, finally free. But the thing that had been holding me back, the seal, what happened to it?

Was it broken? Dormant? Still hanging on somewhere?

My curiosity caught up with me fast.

"Alright," I said, rolling my shoulder. "Let's take a look."

Selena clapped her hands once and held them out, expecting something to appear.

Nothing did.

Her smile twitched. She tried again, slower, more deliberate this time, summoning her aura into her palms like she was prepping a slate from memory.

Still nothing.

Chronos rolled his eyes, "Selena… he's not Blue Rank yet, don't get ahead of yourself."

"Ugh. Come on—seriously?" she muttered, fingers twitching as if trying to will her lab into existence through sheer caffeine and rage. "Of course. Of course you wouldn't be high enough rank to support conjured instruments."

I blinked. "What does that even mean?"

She groaned and ran both hands through her hair, gripping the ends like she was deciding whether to yank it out or scream into the stars. "It means I can't bring anything in here. No tools, no gear, no diagnostic slates—nothing. I'm working blind."

I gave a helpless shrug. "I didn't exactly get a user manual with my Aether Realm."

"Well, you should have! This is basic realm access theory! Blue rank is the minimum for material constructs. You're still one rank too low for a proper lab setup." She threw her hands up. "Do you know how many readings I could've taken by now if your realm wasn't spiritually underleveled?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Realm access theory, huh? Where exactly do I take these courses?"

"At the academies of cour— oh right."

Chronos, ever the observer, casually folded his arms. "You could always just wait."

She snapped her fingers in his direction without looking. "I am waiting. Loudly."

I held up a hand. "So what I'm hearing is... if I hit Blue Rank, you'll stop yelling at me?"

"No, then I'll yell at you with equipment," she said, shooting me a wild-eyed grin. "Big difference."

I didn't bother answering Selena. She was still ranting about all the measurements she would've taken, pacing in frustrated circles like the ground owed her a few acres for lab space.

Instead, I turned to Chronos. "Can you show me where the seal is?"

He didn't get the chance to answer. The floor beneath us responded immediately.

A soft pulse of light spread out from where I stood, reaching forward in a slow, steady sweep. The glass-like panels shifted beneath the glow, rearranging into a path that curled off into the distance. Every crack realigned, and a line of deep indigo and pale blue carved itself forward, clear and focused.

The realm wasn't reacting out of habit. It was giving direction.

The path extended further ahead, forming with the same clean intent it had shown since I stepped inside. It didn't hesitate. Every panel knew where to land.

Chronos didn't move.

His gaze followed the path, but he wasn't studying it. No crease in his brow. No shift in his stance. He stood still, arms loose at his sides, locked into whatever thought had just hit him.

There was no tension in his posture. No aura flare. Just silence.

And in that stillness, I realized something had changed, for him too.

"Adaptability… my hypothesis was right." he muttered, but quieter this time. Not making a note, he was seeing something rare.

I turned slightly, expecting Selena to throw out another jab. She didn't. Her jaw was actually open. Not speaking. Not moving. Just staring at the glowing trail. The silence stretched. Which, for her, might've been a bigger statement than anything she could've said.

I stepped forward.

The path adjusted with me, not waiting.

It was matching my pace.

I didn't say anything. I just followed.

Behind me, Selena finally let out a tiny noise that sounded like her brain short-circuited. Chronos moved to follow, quiet but alert, still watching the realm with that rare flicker of focus I'd only seen when things really mattered.

The path kept pulsing.

Steady. Controlled.

And somewhere at the end of it, I could feel something waiting. Not pulling. Just present.

The path narrowed the farther I walked. The realm didn't want to distract me. Background stars dimmed. The panels stopped shifting. Everything leveled out, as if the entire place had agreed to shut up for a minute and let the moment speak for itself.

And then I saw it.

Suspended above a glowing glass platform, the chain loomed, massive, dark, and ruined. This wasn't some forgotten relic or elegant metaphor. It was destruction made visible.

Half of it still hung in place, thick links twisted and warped under strain they were never meant to hold. The other half had come apart entirely. Splinters of metal drifted in lazy arcs, still turning from an impact that clearly hadn't faded.

The break wasn't clean. Something tore the core open from the inside, leaving jagged, sharp, and warped fragments jutting out. The weight it once carried didn't escape. It forced its way out.

The surrounding space trembled in places, faint flickers running along the surface. The realm hadn't fully stabilized here. Pressure lingered, subtle but tense, residue from the chain's failure still clinging to the edges.

I stepped closer.

Every part of me moved forward without question. My thoughts tried to catch up. This was the thing that throttled my growth. The presence I never quite managed to push past. For years, it sat at the edge of my reach, choking every close call with a quiet, brutal finality.

Now it just floated. Shattered. Stripped of its power.

My aura moved without prompting. It stayed close, steady, tracking the edges of the fragments like it was trying to figure out what used to hold it. No resistance. No recoil. Just a hollow stillness that felt too familiar.

Chronos stopped beside me. He didn't say anything at first. His eyes stayed on the chain, slow and measured, like he was working through something he'd seen before but still didn't understand. Not a single joke. Not a single glance at me.

Selena stood a few paces back, unusually quiet. With her mouth slightly open, she fixed her stare on the shattered end. For her, silence said more than questions ever could.

The chain hovered ahead, unmoving but not settled. Some links were split down the center. Others cracked unevenly, glowing faintly along the breaks. The light hadn't faded yet. It was still trying to hold shape.

I stared at it for a while, letting the silence sit. There was no need to guess. I knew exactly what it was.

I'd fought against it more times than I could count, feeling it clamp down the second I got too close to something real. It had always been there. Quiet. Invisible. Just waiting to shut me down the moment I pushed too far.

I could finally see it for what it was. Or what was left of it. Not justice. Just something long overdue.

I stepped closer. The fragments drifted apart, shifting under the weight of my aura. There was no pushback. No tension. Only the trace of what used to be there.

The shape it left behind lingered, familiar and quiet, a reminder without the sting.

I hated that thing. Always had. And now that I was looking at what was left of it? The satisfaction hit a little deeper than expected. But there was something else buried under the relief. Something that hadn't gone away.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

But why was it here to begin with?

It hadn't come from me. That much was obvious. I never agreed to be sealed. Never asked for it. And whoever put it there didn't do it halfway. This wasn't a flimsy patch job. Someone had deeply embedded it, so I would never have known of it. Its entire purpose was to make me give up on awakening. Kill any insight or motivation.

So why? Why bind someone's potential like that and never say a word? Who did it? And what was the goal?

Chronos spoke, "It really did shatter under all of your efforts. Good job, Rai."

Selena didn't wait. She was already pacing, muttering to herself and gesturing toward the air like there were diagrams floating in front of her. She got onto her knees and pressed her face to the glass-like floor.

"…None of these formations are mapped," she said, voice dropping. "That nebula—those stars—I've never seen any of this in our charts or any of the other realms I've visited. These aren't mental projections. They're real. They're out there."

She blinked hard and snapped back to her pacing, the awe in her voice giving way to rapid-fire theory. "Unbelievable. The way it ruptured, it didn't just break from pressure. It responded to him. Sympathetic resonance? Maybe something entangled? I need to get a closer look—"

She stopped a few steps short, scowling. "Why are you two staring at me like that?"

Chronos didn't answer. Just kept watching her like she was about to try and phase through the floor.

I shrugged. "Just waiting to see if you start digging. You've got that 'I can science my way through solid matter' look again."

"I do not dig."

"You do," I said. "It's like watching a raccoon eye a locked fridge. Curious, determined, mildly dangerous."

She rolled her eyes and folded her arms. "You realize how frustrating it is not being able to examine the exact moment the seal destabilized? I should've been right there when it broke."

"You and me both," I muttered. "I felt it tear—but I still don't understand what let it happen."

Selena took a breath, eyes flicking from the ground to me, then back. "Can I...?"

Chronos cut her off before she could finish. "You'll scramble your perception if you get too close. His aura hasn't stabilized yet."

She groaned. "Then buffer it. Filter it. You're Chronos Elior, figure it out. I'm not asking to tap into his core—I just want proximity. A read. A signature. Something I can work with."

"Uh-huh," I said. "You want to get closer for science. Meanwhile, I'm standing here probably glowing, slightly cracked, and very shirtless, and you're pretending none of that matters."

She blinked. "It doesn't."

I grinned. "That's cold. I thought we had something."

"We do. A shared love of complicated trauma and poor boundaries."

Chronos let out a long breath. "If I blink and either of you are holding hands, I'm anchoring you both to a wall."

I took a few more steps toward the shattered chain, letting the scene settle in my head. It was suspended over nothing.

The ground, if you could even call it that, cut off in a clean line just ahead, leaving the chain hovering above a void that fell into darkness. No bottom. No reflections. No light. Just... gone.

I felt it tug at my aura, faint and steady. Like the pressure you get standing too close to the edge of a skyscraper. Chronos and Selena didn't follow. They stayed back a few paces, quiet, but their focus shifted the second I moved.

I glanced at the drop, then back at the broken seal. Part of me needed to get closer. Not to touch it. Just to see it for what it really was. After carrying it for years, I wasn't about to walk away without getting a better look.

So I kept walking.

Selena was the first to break the silence. "Uh… Rai-Bear?"

Chronos didn't say anything, but I caught the way his weight shifted. One foot angled forward, subtle. Ready to move in case I was feeling like jumping, for some odd reason.

I might do it just for shits and giggles to be honest, then again I don't know if I can die here or not.

They couldn't feel what I felt. The realm wasn't pushing me back. It was holding its breath.

I didn't move right away.

The broken chain floated just beyond the edge of the path, caught in a gentle sway. It hadn't decided whether it still belonged here or somewhere deeper. Part of it dangled over the void below, while the other half stretched toward the endless sky, anchored to nothing. Still tethered to something.

My aura pressed forward without hesitation. Not as a flare. Not as a threat. Just instinct. Recognition. The quiet kind that settles in your bones when you've seen a thing too many times to pretend you haven't.

The weight of that chain had lived inside me for years. Now that I was finally free from it, I wanted a better look.

And my realm was already moving.

There wasn't a ripple. No blinding glow or celestial shift. But I could feel it, the moment my intent sharpened, the moment I decided to see more, the realm started shaping itself around that thought.

Light gathered beneath the edge of the platform, pulsing softly, then stretched outward in a narrow arc. It didn't just form panels anymore. This was smoother, cleaner. A seamless curve, like the beginning of a bridge.

It extended forward into the open space between me and the chain, laying itself down one length at a time. Each section unfurled with quiet precision, responding to my pace without rushing. Every time I lifted my foot, another piece of the bridge slid into place underneath it, matching me step for step. It had already mapped the walk out ahead of time and was just waiting for me to catch up.

The realm wasn't building the bridge because I asked. It was building it because I wanted to look closer.

So you want me to see it too, huh?

No hesitation. No resistance. Just trust.

Behind me, I could feel Chronos shift slightly. That usual stillness of his gave a little, subtle, but enough to register. He didn't say anything.

Selena did. "By all the realms," she muttered. "He's building a bridge now? Seriously? His realm's making him a personal skywalk?!"

I kept walking.

The void below didn't pull at me. The broken chain didn't move. But I could feel something watching, not from above, not from below. From within. My realm wasn't passive.

It was attentive. Curious. Engaged.

It was wondering the same thing I was.

What exactly did this thing used to be?

The bridge carried me smoothly forward, each segment locking into place the moment before I needed it, never a beat early. It didn't look mechanical. It felt more like a thought becoming real. Like I'd taken a step, and the world decided to finish the sentence for me.

When I reached the chain, the largest link floated only a few feet away, split, scorched, and still humming faintly. The closer I got, the more I noticed the strain left behind. The fractures weren't clean. Something had pushed it apart, not broken it by force, but by pressure that had nowhere else to go.

I stopped at the edge of the bridge. The chain was right in front of me now, suspended like an old verdict still waiting for appeal.

Chronos spoke, low and calm. "The realm isn't just responding to your aura. It's responding to your will."

Selena let out a sharp breath, practically vibrating. "Okay, no—no, no, no, that's not how it should work. It's building for him. Literally constructing a bridge. Those panels didn't exist a second ago. They're manifesting under his feet. That's not aura response—that's full spatial restructuring."

She threw her arms out, clearly talking more to the universe than either of us. "Do you understand what this means? He's not just influencing it—he's authoring it. The realm isn't reacting, it's obeying."

Her eyes darted toward the bridge again, wide with something between horror and fascination. "I've seen high-rank spatial shaping. I've seen awakened realms. I have never seen something this precise form from instinct alone. No sigils. No incantation. Just raw, focused intent."

She looked at Chronos like she needed permission to keep freaking out. "This should not be possible. Not at this scale. Not at his rank."

Chronos didn't respond, but I could tell he agreed—if not in words, then in that usual silent told-you-he's-different way he had when I did something I wasn't supposed to pull off.

I didn't need to nod. I already knew. The bridge pulsed once under my feet. Not in warning. But in acknowledgment. And I stayed there, staring at the remains of something that used to define me, waiting to see what it still had left to say.

The silence here didn't hit my ears. It pressed into my aura—slow, steady, impossible to ignore.

There was something in it. Not a message. Not a voice. Just pressure. It pulled at me in a way I didn't like. Too familiar. Too close to something I thought I'd outgrown.

This wasn't curiosity anymore. This was the itch that had been living in the back of my mind since I broke free. Whoever put this thing on me didn't want me to know the why. And the longer I stared at what was left of it, the more I needed to.

I started reaching.

The moment my hand lifted, my realm responded. Despite remaining steady underfoot, the bridge's air thickened slightly, as though it understood my intentions and prepared for what was to come. The pressure wasn't hostile. It felt more like I was prying into something that had been buried so long even my realm had forgotten it was part of me.

"Raiden," Chronos said, a clear warning stitched behind the calm.

I kept moving.

Selena's tone cut sharper. "Okay, no. Don't touch that. Seriously. Back up."

I could hear her steps closing in.

Chronos didn't move, but I felt his aura rise slightly, just enough to let me know he was ready to intervene. They didn't understand. It wasn't about recklessness. It wasn't even about closure.

It was personal.

My fingers hovered over the fractured link. The metal flickered, faint and restless. The space between us felt charged, uneasy, like it hadn't decided whether to pull away or pull me in.

Too late.

The moment my hand touched it, energy surged through my arm. It didn't slice or burn. It flooded. My aura buckled, rhythm thrown off, and my vision stuttered. For a second, I wasn't sure if I was even supposed to see what came next.

Then the realm vanished.

There was no warning. One moment I was walking, the next, everything dropped. The bridge, the pit, the sky, they all vanished in an instant, like someone had wiped the scene clean mid-frame.

What replaced it wasn't silence. It was pressure. Thick. Absolute. The kind that filled every part of me at once and left no room to move or think.

I couldn't tell if I was upright or falling. My limbs were still there, but they stopped responding. My aura hung mid-motion, like it had started to act and then froze, unsure where to go.

Heat and cold didn't exist here. Even pain had been stripped out. All that remained was sensation, raw and skeletal, stretched past the point of familiarity.

And behind it, below it, or maybe inside it, something watched. Not hidden. Not waiting to be discovered. Just there. Always had been. Waiting for me to finally see it.

I opened my eyes that weren't mine.

I couldn't move, at least not yet. My body felt suspended in some kind of limbo. I wasn't sitting or standing. I wasn't flying, but I wasn't falling either. I just… was. Held in place by something I couldn't name, in a position I hadn't chosen.

Below me stretched a continent's worth of destruction waiting to happen.

Fissures split the earth in every direction, wide and raw. Gates hung in the air, fractured and unstable, bleeding out armies by the thousands. They marched across what was left of the world, cracked hills, rivers that didn't run so much as spill, cities caught mid-collapse, flickering in and out like they were barely holding onto form.

And I watched. From above. Still. Detached.

Whoever these eyes belonged to, they weren't rattled. No fear. No rush. Just a quiet certainty that none of this would last.

The body I was in didn't feel trained. It felt built. Every breath carried weight. Precision in the joints. Power stored deep. The kind that didn't ask for permission.

My cloak dragged behind me, heavy and steady. Black fabric edged in silver sigils, each one lit with a pulse I could feel even without looking.

My chest plate was unfamiliar but unmistakably powerful, minimalist, matte obsidian trimmed in angular seams that hummed low, almost like they were anticipating impact.

My hands… didn't shake. They didn't even twitch. Just hovered by my side. Loose. Ready. Like they'd done this before.

There was a sword in one of them.

I didn't know when it ended up in my hand. But I knew it had always been there. Not forged for ceremony. Not meant to impress. It was long. Single-edged. No carvings. No shimmer. The kind of weapon that didn't need explanation.

It didn't hum with energy. It didn't try to feel important. It just was—sharp, still, and certain. Not a tool. A verdict.

My grip adjusted on its own. No hesitation. No thought. Just readiness. The aura inside this body didn't roar or surge. It breathed slow and steady, completely in sync with the weight in my hand.

Whatever was coming… this blade had already answered.

And the moment my gaze settled on the army below, the blade tilted slightly. No sound. No warning. Just instinct.

I moved. I didn't brace. Didn't breathe. I just swung. One smooth arc, effortless, fluid, terrifying in its simplicity.

And the sky ripped. The swing had already happened.

I didn't feel the motion. I felt the aftermath.

A perfect scar stretched across the sky, clean and deliberate. The clouds didn't scatter, they split. A reluctant shudder passed through them, like they were trying to stay whole just to save face. It didn't work. The air itself gave way, bleeding light that didn't belong to this world. Not sunlight. Not aura. Just light. Raw and unfiltered, like the sky had been peeled open and was struggling to stitch itself back together.

Then the sea responded.

It didn't crash. It rose.

Currents tore away from the ocean in wide, spiraling sheets. No foam. No resistance. Just volume abandoning its home. The water didn't ripple, it unspooled. One spiral at a time, the sea lifted into the sky, as if the world had been flipped upside down and hadn't bothered to warn anyone.

No one screamed. No one fought. The vision didn't give space for reactions.

Only cause. And consequence.

Mountains collapsed in the distance. Not broken. Not shattered. They just gave up.

The rifts closed without warning.

One by one, they cracked inward. No flash. No collapse. Just silence swallowing itself. Whatever had been coming through, armored beasts, Ascendants, gods pretending to be men, vanished mid-step. No screams. No resistance. They didn't die. They stopped existing. Like the portals had changed their minds and took back everything they gave.

The air didn't get quieter. It became aware.

Ash drifted where armies had marched. Wind moved where power had tried to stake a claim. But there was no one left to fight. No one left to witness.

I stood there, still locked in that stranger's skin.

And I felt nothing.

Not calm. Not relief. Just that stillness again. The kind that didn't wait for a reaction because it already knew how this ended.

Whatever force lived in this body wasn't made for expression. It didn't hum. It didn't radiate. It concluded. Power here didn't announce itself—it left aftermaths.

That's when it started. Low. Slow.

Something shifted beneath my ribs. Not from me. It pulsed once, cold and deliberate. Then again, even slower.

It wasn't grief. It wasn't rage. It was older. Heavier. It didn't need a reason to exist. It just did.

No numbness. That would've meant something had faded. This wasn't absence. This was the thing left behind when everything else gave up. Not hatred. Just indifference, sharpened into permanence.

A phrase pushed through the haze. Not a thought. Not a voice. Just a fact that lodged itself behind my eyes.

That wasn't their full strength.

There was that part of me that wanted to know what was.

Light crashed through me again. No softness. No transition. Just one relentless sweep of white that didn't ask for permission. It erased everything without effort. The vision didn't end, it snapped shut like a steel trap. My realm slammed back into place, dragging me with it. Sky above. Bridge beneath. The broken chain still hovering behind me.

My knees hit the ground. Air dragged its way back into my lungs, rough and uneven, as if my body had just remembered it needed to function. My fingers curled against the surface, still twitching from something they hadn't physically done. The weight of that swing hadn't belonged to me, but my joints carried the echo anyway.

My aura lagged behind for a second before falling back into step. Every part of me felt delayed. My skin ran hot, then cold, as if recalibrating. The realm stood still, holding its breath.

I looked down at my palm, the one that had touched the chain. It pulsed faintly, raw and red, the mark still there. My mind hadn't fully caught up yet, but the feeling hadn't faded. The silence hadn't either.

That wasn't just power. That was something else. Something steady. Something absolute. And somewhere inside me, something responded. Not in fear. Not in awe. Interest.

There'd been weight in that swing. And my bones still remembered the recoil.

I didn't understand what I just saw. But I knew one thing.

That was not a story.

That was history. And someone had left it behind for me to see.

The bridge hadn't broken. The chain hadn't moved. But I had. My fingers were still pressed against the fractured link, twitching slightly, like they hadn't caught up to the rest of me yet.

I tried to pull away. My hand didn't budge.

A pressure curled up from the chain's surface. It didn't burn. It didn't sting. But it clung to my skin with weight, thick and waiting, like I'd plunged my arm into the pause before a storm hits. My aura pulled back for a moment, unsure if this was the start of another vision or something worse.

The air tightened around my shoulders.

Then the pressure pushed deeper. Not into my bones, but past them—into the parts of me that didn't have names.

Then came the footsteps.

"Raiden!" Selena's voice, sharp and rising.

Huh… she didn't call me Rai-Bear. I guess this is serious…

Chronos was already moving. They must've seen me slump forward, or maybe they felt the change in my aura. Whatever it was, they were both at my side in seconds, reaching for my shoulders.

Chronos went for my wrist. Selena gripped my other arm.

The moment they tried to pull me back, my hand fought it. Not with force, just refusal. Like it didn't belong to me anymore.

"His aura's active," Chronos muttered. "But it's not responding."

"It's caught in something," Selena said. "Whatever this seal was holding? It's not finished."

I wanted to tell them I was fine. But I couldn't speak. I couldn't even move. Then the chain surged again.

Another pulse tore through my arm, slamming into my chest and gut like a second heartbeat detonating.

Selena staggered backward. Chronos didn't let go, but his brows furrowed like he'd just caught a glimpse of something he wasn't supposed to see.

"Another spike," he said. "It's pulling him back in. There's nothing we can do but let it run its course."

And then I felt it, like the floor beneath my soul gave out.

My vision went white again. The realm vanished. Something yanked the bridge, the chain, and the air from beneath me.

And I wasn't Raiden anymore.

It hit like déjà vu I didn't sign up for. There was no sound or warning. I was still in my skin one second, and the next I watched from behind someone else's eyes again. Same weight, same stillness. Same damn helplessness.

My feet weren't touching anything. They didn't need to. This body didn't seem interested in gravity, or rules, or pretending to be human.

Below me stretched a city so massive it didn't look built. It looked grown. Layers on layers, stacked spiral towers wrapped in glowing rails. Floating walkways looped between highrises, their glass edges catching light that never dimmed. Transit lines zipped by in straight lines that bent when they felt like it. And the streets below pulsed with motion, too many people to count, all moving in waves that glittered like scales on a living thing.

The roads had gold running through them. Literal veins, humming with light, splitting and rejoining through the city like someone had sketched it all in one breath and never bothered editing. This wasn't a capital. It was a monument.

And the crowd? Celestial guide me, there were millions.

Some walked. Some floated. Some didn't look like they belonged anywhere near the term "civilian," but nobody stared. No one slowed. No fear. Just movement. A city that didn't sleep because sleep would've wasted time.

I didn't know who I was inside this time.

But my body felt old. Older than anything around me.

My eyes turned down to the populace below.

Humans, sure. But also scaled merchants hauling carts with extra limbs. Elves with split-pupil eyes in robes too fine to wrinkle. Dwarves riding sleek metallic wolves. Winged beings perched on skyrails. A centaur sweeping his storefront while two fox-tailed kids chased each other in circles around his legs.

All of it alive. All of it loud. Until it wasn't. I didn't blink. I didn't even do anything. But something inside this borrowed body made a decision, and the silence landed.

Not as a wave. As a rewrite. Sound didn't echo. It just stopped. Like it was never written into this part of the script.

One second the city was bustling, layered with movement and auras and conversations.

The next second, stillness. Not paralysis. Not stasis. Just... the absence of choice.

A faun mid-step froze, hooves inches off the ground. A young woman paused mid-sentence with her hand raised in a dramatic flourish. A man carrying crates didn't drop them. He just never finished moving forward.

Nothing fell. Nothing panicked. Every single thing, every person, simply forgot what they were doing.

And I kept moving.

Each step I took formed new ground in the air, perfectly silent platforms that built themselves only when needed. No glow. No drama. The city didn't recognize me as a threat. It didn't recognize me at all.

And I was walking toward something.

A beam of light rose from the center of the city, straight into the clouds. Pure. Focused. It didn't flare with power or aura. It didn't ripple. Just existed, like it had always been there, waiting to be reached.

The Ascendant — I — moved straight toward it. Every motion was deliberate. Not slow. Just… inevitable.

I passed frozen races I couldn't name. Some with transparent skin, others whose bodies seemed stitched from mist and armor. All of them caught in the same hold. All of them blank. Silent.

I followed the curve of the descending street, each step smooth and silent. The closer I got to the beam of light, the quieter things felt, not in sound, but in presence. The silence itself felt hollow, as if I had stretched it thin.

The road sloped downward, drawing me deeper into the heart of the city. The structures here were taller, older, carved with sigils I couldn't read. Wide archways marked the path, each one darker than the last. The air didn't shift, but the weight of it changed. Heavier. Denser. Like something was waiting.

I passed more of the frozen crowd. There was a row of merchants behind their stalls, hands outstretched mid-bargain. A family paused on a bench, eyes half-blinked. A guard caught in the motion of reaching for his weapon, but there was no urgency in his face. Just confusion that never got to finish becoming fear.

I should've felt something. Guilt. Dread. Curiosity. But none of it belonged to me. And this body didn't spare them a glance.

My eyes stayed locked on the beam ahead. It rose from a platform at the base of the avenue, casting a pale column of light that reached the sky without flickering. It didn't radiate heat. It didn't vibrate with energy. It simply existed. Still. Constant.

I took another step. Then everything in me froze. Not out of instinct. Not fear. Something else. Something aware.

A presence stirred behind me, far, but sharp. It sent out no wave of force nor was it loud. It just existed… differently. The way a storm announces itself without wind. The way the air knows before the thunder hits.

My body didn't flinch. It slowed. It listened. And then it turned.

I could feel the motion before I registered it. My shoulders angled, my head followed, just starting to pivot toward whatever was approaching.

But before I could see it, before I even glimpsed a shadow, everything blinked out.

The silence collapsed. And I was gone.

I woke up with air clawing its way back into my lungs.

My whole chest jerked like someone had jammed a live wire into it. I stumbled backward, ripping my hand off the chain with more panic than control. My knees nearly gave out, would've hit the floor if Chronos hadn't grabbed me by the shoulder and steadied me.

My fingers burned.

There wasn't any heat. No fire. No pain that I could trace back to something real. Just raw current. My hand pulsed like it had been submerged in something alive and didn't get permission to come back up. Every nerve fired in the wrong order, and my aura was no better, jagged, shallow, disconnected.

It didn't feel like mine.

It moved on instinct, but not mine. Like I'd borrowed someone else's for too long and now it didn't know how to sync.

Selena was already crouched in front of me. Her hands hovered just above my shoulders, fingers twitching like she wanted to help but wasn't sure where to start. If she wasn't touching me, things were worse than I thought.

"Rai—Raiden, are you in there?" Her voice wasn't calm. It cracked on the edges. "Say something."

I tried. I opened my mouth, but only a breath came out. Shaky. Thin. The kind of exhale that feels like it's dragging something with it.

That vision—

It hadn't just been quiet. It had been wrong.

Not the normal kind of wrong. Not blood or horror or chaos. This was something else. Something quieter. Slower. The kind that gets under your skin and stays there. It rewired how I felt about silence. The kind that made breathing feel illegal.

That city hadn't just stopped moving. It told the world to stop with it. And everything listened.

Everything except me.

Chronos's hand stayed firm on my shoulder. "Your aura dipped hard. You didn't move. Didn't twitch. That wasn't just a projection. You were in something real."

I didn't respond. I couldn't.

Not because I was too shocked, but because I was still holding on to the memory of walking down that golden street like it didn't matter how many people had been erased.

My hand twitched again. The chain wasn't done.

A flicker of pressure crawled up my wrist, not sharp. Not aggressive. Just enough to remind me I wasn't finished.

Another pulse rolled through the floor beneath me. It wasn't loud. It didn't shake anything. But I felt it in my ribs.

Another vision was coming.

I didn't brace. I didn't try to pull back. There wasn't a point. I already knew what it meant when the realm started dragging like that. The air got tight. My aura leaned without asking. That slow coil around my spine pulled again, this time more deliberate. It wasn't calling.

It was claiming.

And if the last vision was a warning…

This one felt like a consequence.

I was somewhere high, so high that even the clouds were miles below me. The world stretched wide in every direction. Endless dunes, silver and black, rolled out under a sky that didn't quite look right. The sun was setting, but the colors felt off. Muted. Sickly.

And then I saw it.

The sky warped, slow at first. A twist in the horizon. Something started pulling. Not the wind. Not gravity. Light.

Everything around me started leaning toward the center of the sky. Not just the wind or the air, everything. The pull wasn't sharp. It was patient. Relentless.

At the center, something bloomed.

Not a flower. Not light. A wound.

It opened with no warning. No sound. No edge to track. Just a hole in the heavens that didn't belong. The edges rippled like torn fabric underwater. And at first, it only drank in the stars. Points of light vanished without ceremony.

Then it took color.

The sky dimmed by degrees. Reds dulled. Blues drained. Every hue faded like it had changed its mind about existing.

Then it went for the warmth.

The air thinned. The ground below didn't frost over—it just stopped remembering what heat felt like.

And then the sun moved.

Not shattered. Not snuffed. It bent. Slowly. Cleanly. It folded inward, curling in on itself like someone had turned it soft and was feeding it into a drain. No panic. No resistance. Just silence swallowing fire.

I watched it vanish. Piece by piece.

My body, whoever I was now, stood perfectly still. There was no reaction. No awe. Just stillness. My robes were layered in rings of thick cloth and lined with etched sigils too old to read. Each breath was shallow, intentional. I didn't need to move. I had already known this was going to happen.

The ground below started to fracture from the pressure. Sigils etched into ancient monuments lit up, trying to push back whatever was consuming the sky.

It didn't matter.

Barriers flared, dozens stacked on top of each other. Ascendants below flung entire constructs of aura toward the vortex.

They turned to ash before they landed. The void pulsed. And for a moment, I saw inside it. Not clearly. Not even with detail. Just an outline. A silhouette within the spiral.

Everything in me clenched at once. Not from fear, more like instinct. A part of my aura that still remembered it wasn't at the top of anything. That this… whatever it was… had rewritten the meaning of power in real time.

And someone like that? They weren't rare. They were just beyond reach.

The spiral tightened. The sky warped. And the world blinked out again, clean, quiet, and done with me.

I came back like someone dropped me from orbit.

My whole body tensed at once. Chest locked. Limbs heavy. I staggered back again, sucking in a breath that felt late to the party. My spine nearly gave out. Chronos caught me, again, this time with both hands.

"Easy," he said. "You were gone longer."

I couldn't answer. My throat was dry and my brain hadn't figured out what part of me it wanted to use first. My fingers were still curled from when I touched the chain, and every joint ached like I'd been holding on through a wind tunnel.

Selena was pacing in front of me, full-blown panic in her eyes now. "Raiden, what did you see? You dropped like a rock, and your aura practically stopped breathing."

"I'm fine," I lied.

Everything in me was buzzing.

The world still felt too small. As if I hadn't finished leaving that last vision yet. I could still see it, faint cracks of memory lining the corners of my thoughts. That spiral. That sky, that thing in the dark, that didn't need a name to be terrifying.

"I was in a desert," I drawled. "But the sun got… eaten."

Selena blinked.

Chronos didn't.

He was quiet, his hand still on my shoulder. Not steadying me anymore. Just holding me there, like he didn't want me slipping back into whatever that was. Yet, my hand remained attached still.

"Whoever that was," I muttered, "they weren't trying."

Chronos's grip tightened a little.

"I mean it. The world was falling apart around them and they didn't even lift a hand. Just stood there. Watched it all fold in."

Selena finally stopped pacing. I looked down at my hand. It was still shaking. And the chain was still humming. There was more.

It hadn't let go yet. And neither had I.

The pulse hit again. Then the world shifted.

I blinked, and the silence came with me.

I felt light. My body moved cleanly, without delay or effort. The heaviness that usually lived in my joints was just gone. Nothing dragged. Nothing held. Whatever had been carved into me before—it wasn't there now.

The air bit hard. Metal, chemicals, something sharp that burned its way through my senses. It made my nose twitch and left a chemical sting on my skin that refused to settle.

The sky looked wrong. Stained with unnatural blotches of purple and yellow, it stretched above me in uneven swirls. The ground didn't spread outward, it curled, spiraling from where I stood like it had been spun into place instead of laid down.

I was at the center of it.

The blast had torn through this place. Whatever stood here before had been wrecked completely. Ash moved slowly through the air in wide, lazy rotations. Bones were scattered across the field, none of them human. Too long, too thick, shaped in ways that didn't belong in any biology class. A few of them still steamed.

Chunks of armor bigger than transport trucks lay collapsed inward, like something massive had pressed down on them until they folded.

I looked down. My boots were gone. The robes too. My bare feet pressed against fractured stone. Heat radiated unevenly from the cracks.

A hospital gown hung from my shoulders, thin and worn, torn open down the middle like someone had started to remove it and never finished. The limbs underneath were thin and undergrown. My arms hadn't filled out. My skin looked too pale.

Next, I noticed the markings. They weren't tattoos or painted sigils. These sigils were engraved into little girl's skin. Dozens of lines etched along both arms, some fresh, some faded, some still pulsing faintly. None of them were accidental.

Faint bruises ran where tubes had been ripped out. Silver glinted at my wrists and collar, where ports were still embedded beneath the skin. My body hadn't fought them off. It had adapted around them.

When I raised my hand, something tagged to my wrist shifted. I couldn't read it, but I knew what it was.

I hadn't come into the world naturally. Someone had put me together.

Now this body is dying.

The sword didn't match the scene. It looked like a toy, golden, too light to matter. I swung it once.

The world stopped responding.

Sound vanished. My breath caught mid-diaphragm and never came back.

The air didn't resist me. Nothing pushed. The moment I moved, everything obeyed. The world warped from the path of the small blade.

And I felt joy. Pure and loud. It settled into my chest like it belonged there, unfiltered and sharp. I didn't know how to explain it. I just knew I didn't want it to end.

Someone stood behind me.

They didn't speak or approach. Their presence reached out carefully, just close enough to register.

Another memory surfaced from this girl. One that genuinely haunted me.

She had only Awakened two days ago.

I stepped forward. The ground shifted beneath me, not with weight or violence, but with preparation. The sword lifted again, light in my hand. It vibrated faintly, waiting for an order I hadn't given.

Then everything turned white.

I gasped.

It felt like surfacing from water that didn't want to let go.

My body crashed back into place all at once, lungs gasping like they'd forgotten how to breathe, muscles locking in half-response. My knees slammed into the platform, sharp and sudden. I would've gone down completely if Chronos hadn't grabbed my shoulder.

The chain hadn't released me.

I saw Selena's mouth move. Probably calling my name, but no sound reached me. My hearing lagged behind, still somewhere in that other place. My aura jittered along my spine, twitchy and off-balance, like it didn't know how to settle into itself again.

Every part of me felt slightly out of place, like I'd been dropped back into the wrong frame by half a second.

The image of that child was still burned behind my eyes. Her laugh. That sword. The look of a body too small to hold what was inside it.

I opened my mouth to speak, to say anything at all, then froze. The chain pulled me back in.

My aura twisted, recoiling too late. The bridge beneath me flared in warning, a ripple of light firing out from the point of contact, then stopped.

I didn't even manage to get a word out this time. Then everything blinked out again.

Darkness didn't crash in this time. It crept.

It felt like the world was pulling itself inward and I just happened to be part of the collapse.

I couldn't tell if I was upright or suspended. Direction stopped mattering. The space around me warped in silence, everything curving inward with a kind of quiet insistence. My aura tightened, not from fear, but from something external trying to fold it smaller, denser. Like it was being compressed just to see how much pressure it could take without unraveling.

I was descending, though I didn't know how I knew that. The space around me curved downward, walls of obsidian stone etched with pulsing sigils. They shimmered faintly, nothing showy, just enough to prove they were still working. Still containing whatever this place was holding.

The trench kept going. The pressure didn't let up.

I passed markings I didn't recognize.

Etched into the dark, some glowed faintly, others barely at all. A few shifted when my eyes lingered, edges crawling just enough to remind me they didn't like being watched.

One of them pulsed, not with color, but with quiet. The space around it thinned. Every time it throbbed, the noise in my head dulled. I couldn't hear footsteps anymore. Couldn't hear breath. Like the mark was swallowing every sound before it existed.

I kept walking. The impressions I was getting from this person was causing my heart to race.

At the very bottom, surrounded by restraints that didn't look made so much as declared into existence, was a figure.

At first they didn't look out of the ordinary. Until I got closer.

Their eyes were open.

They weren't glowing or anything, but they were locked on to me. A stillness that cut through the dark. They didn't react with surprise. There was no shock. Only certainty. They saw me. And that was enough.

Chains wrapped around their body, thick and rigid, etched with sigils that pulsed in slow intervals. Some marks on the metal pulled at the edges of my awareness, distorting sound and pressure around them. The air refused to flow properly near the bindings. The space itself bent toward stillness.

Is this place a prison?

Their form remained steady beneath it all. Robes clung to their frame, torn in places, pinned under loops of reinforced metal. Whatever they were, whatever this was, they weren't waiting. They were surviving. Deep beneath layers of pressure, they simply endured.

My aura began to twist at the edges. Something in me wanted to turn away. It wasn't fear, it was instinct. It knew I didn't belong here.

Then their head tilted. Not fully. Just enough to register acknowledgement of my presence.

Until he spoke. "You're not supposed to be here."

His tone, it didn't make sense. He was clearly talking to who I was watching through, but this person didn't react. I was confused so I didn't pay it any mind.

"How are you here?"

Again, I didn't react, but something was off with his tone again. I don't know why he's speaking to me and the person I was spectating wasn't replying to—

"I know you're watching. I asked you, how are you here?"

My heart stopped. He wasn't talking to this person I was inside. He was talking to… me.

The tension in my chest spiked. My aura caved inward, retreating into itself. The trench deepened. The silence held everything in place.

And then I was gone.

I came back choking on air that didn't belong to me.

Everything slammed into place. My body jerked, once, hard enough to tear me free from the chain. I hit the floor on one elbow, shoulder screaming, vision still lagging behind.

My right hand slapped the surface.

And then I saw it.

My palm was severely cracked and distorted. It looked like I placed my hand on a hot pan and buried it under sand. The skin wasn't bleeding, but it pulsed, dim streaks of light coiling beneath the surface.

Selena moved first. She was already reaching for me. Chronos stayed behind her, one hand hovering near my back, just in case I dropped again.

I wasn't panicking. My body wasn't shaking. But something inside me shifted.

THUMP.

My heart hit harder than it should've. As if I'd been holding my breath for years and it finally decided to keep going.

I stared at my hand.

THUMP.

It should've hurt more. But the light around my palm began to move. It was a steady stream of light engulfing my hand. My realm stirred. It was healing me.

The cracks in my skin started to smooth. Faint lines faded as the pressure around my aura tightened and settled. My body did resist the warm light.

THUMP.

I started laughing.

Low, quiet at first.

Selena froze. "Rai…?"

Chronos didn't speak. He didn't need to.

I kept laughing.

Those visions they were, no not visions, memories. Proof that power on that scale existed. That it was out there.

THUMP.

"I want it," I said, still grinning. "All of it."

My aura stirred behind my ribs, steady and sharp. It didn't surge or lash out. It just agreed. Awakening was the first step. That goal's behind me now. What comes next is bigger. I want that kind of power. The kind that splits worlds. The kind that warps the ground just by being there.

That level of strength isn't some dream to sit around waiting for.

It's out there.

And I'm chasing it.

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