The tunnels beneath the library seemed different on their return journey—narrower, more oppressive, as if the very stone was reacting to Kaelen's transformation. The crystalline fragments in his pouch no longer pulsed with the same allure; after consuming Captain Mercer, they felt like pale imitations of true power. The hunger within him had changed, evolved from a desperate, gnawing void into something more controlled, more purposeful—a cold flame that he could direct rather than merely endure.
Roland walked slightly ahead, his broad shoulders tense, his movements cautious. He had witnessed Kaelen's consumption of Mercer, had seen the transformation that followed. The wariness in his posture was unmistakable, a soldier's instinct recognizing a new and potentially dangerous variable in an already chaotic equation.
"You're afraid of me now," Kaelen said, not a question but a statement of fact. Mercer's tactical mind, now integrated into his own, recognized the subtle signs of combat readiness in Roland's stance.
The former guard didn't turn around. "Not afraid. Concerned." His deep voice echoed in the narrow passage. "What you did to Mercer... I've never seen consumption like that. Controlled. Deliberate." He paused, finally glancing back, his green eyes glowing in the darkness. "You're changing faster than any Anomaly I've encountered. And that tablet you absorbed... Thorne's going to have questions."
"And you think I might not like his answers," Kaelen finished the thought.
Roland's silence was confirmation enough. They continued through the tunnels, the tension between them a tangible presence. Kaelen's mind raced, processing the flood of new information from both the Entropic Codex and Mercer's memories. The tablet had contained records of previous unmakings, previous Towers, stretching back through countless realities. And Mercer... his memories revealed the military's desperate, doomed response to the Tower's appearance, but also something more disturbing—glimpses of Thorne in the early days, not fleeing the unmaking but observing it with scientific detachment, as if it were an expected outcome rather than a catastrophe.
As they approached the hidden entrance to the sanctuary, Kaelen felt a strange resonance—the Tower's presence, stronger here than it should have been given the supposed shielding of the chamber. He paused, extending his senses in the way the tablet's knowledge had taught him. There was something wrong. The entropic patterns were disturbed, chaotic.
"Wait," he said, grabbing Roland's arm. "Something's happened."
The former guard tensed, his makeshift weapon ready. "What do you mean?"
"The sanctuary... it's been compromised. I can feel entropic disturbances. Recent and violent." Kaelen's enhanced perception, further sharpened by Mercer's tactical awareness, picked up subtle traces in the air—the lingering resonance of conflict.
Roland cursed under his breath. "How? The location was secure, shielded from the Tower's perception."
"Unless someone led them to it," Kaelen said, the implication hanging heavy between them.
They approached the hidden door with renewed caution. Roland pressed his palm against the mechanism, and the stone slid away with a soft grinding sound. The chamber beyond was in chaos—
tables overturned, books scattered, equipment destroyed. And blood—dark, viscous fluid that pulsed with entropic energy, splattered across the walls and floor.
"Voss! Thorne!" Roland called out, rushing into the chamber, weapon raised. "Vex!"
There was no response. The sanctuary was empty, abandoned. But the signs of struggle were everywhere—scorch marks from entropic discharges, deep gouges in the stone walls from claws or weapons, and more of that strange, pulsing blood.
Kaelen moved through the wreckage, his enhanced senses cataloging the scene. "Multiple attackers," he said, Mercer's tactical assessment flowing through him. "At least five, maybe more. Not just twisted ones—these were coordinated, disciplined." He knelt beside a particularly large pool of the pulsing blood. "And this... this isn't human. Not anymore."
Roland examined the chamber's perimeter, his expression grim. "The resonance dampener is gone. And Voss's research, her stabilization equipment... all taken." He turned to Kaelen, fear finally breaking through his stoic facade. "What happened here? Who would attack us? The twisted ones hunt, yes, but this... this was targeted. Deliberate."
Kaelen closed his eyes, extending his perception further, seeking patterns in the entropic residue. The tablet's knowledge guided him, showing him how to read the echoes of what had transpired. "There was betrayal," he said softly, the images forming in his mind. "Someone let them in. And the attackers... they weren't just consuming. They were collecting. Harvesting."
"Harvesting what?" Roland demanded.
"Information. Equipment. And..." Kaelen's eyes snapped open. "Anomalies. They took Voss and Vex. Alive."
"And Thorne?"
Kaelen shook his head, moving to a section of the wall where the entropic residue was strongest. "There was a confrontation here. Thorne against multiple attackers. He... escaped. Created some kind of portal. But he was injured. Badly."
Roland processed this, his military mind assessing their options. "We need to find him. If he's injured, he won't last long out there. And he might know who attacked, why they took the others."
"I know where he went," Kaelen said, the certainty surprising even him. The tablet's knowledge, combined with his enhanced perception, had revealed a pattern in the entropic residue—a signature, a direction. "The university. His original laboratory. That's where the portal led."
"The university is deep in the entropic zone now," Roland warned. "Almost at the base of the Tower itself. The unmaking will be... intense there."
"We don't have a choice," Kaelen replied. "Thorne has answers we need. About the attack, about the Tower's origin... about everything." He looked around the devastated sanctuary, a sense of urgency building within him. "And we need to move quickly. Whoever attacked here, they might be tracking him too."
Roland nodded grimly, gathering what supplies remained—a few crystallized fragments, a more substantial weapon from a hidden cache, a tattered map of the city marked with stable paths. "The university is here," he said, pointing to a location disturbingly close to the Tower's base. "If Thorne
created a portal directly there, he must have been desperate. The entropic distortion in that area is extreme. Reality itself is... fluid."
"All the more reason to hurry," Kaelen said, feeling the hunger stir within him, eager for the challenge ahead. "If Thorne dies, his knowledge dies with him. And I need to know what he knows about the Tower, about the Court... about me."
They left the sanctuary, taking a different tunnel that Roland said would lead them more directly to the university district. As they traveled, Kaelen felt the Tower's presence growing stronger, more insistent. It was aware of him, of his consumption of Mercer, of his absorption of the Entropic Codex. And it was... pleased. The realization sent a chill through him. He was playing a role in some vast, cosmic drama, but the script remained obscure, the director's intentions unclear.
"Roland," he said as they navigated the increasingly unstable tunnels, "what do you know about harbingers? About what Vex kept calling me?"
The former guard was silent for a long moment. "Not much," he admitted finally. "Vex spoke of it more to Thorne and Voss than to me. Something from the transformed texts they found. A being that arrives at the moment of unmaking, marked by the Tower for some special purpose." He glanced back at Kaelen, his green eyes troubled. "They argued about it. Thorne dismissed it as mysticism, but Voss... she thought there might be truth to it. That the Court selects certain Anomalies as catalysts, as agents of change."
"And what did you think?" Kaelen pressed.
Roland's expression hardened. "I think labels don't matter. Harbinger, Anomaly, twisted one... in the end, we're all just trying to survive the unmaking. To hold onto whatever humanity we have left." His voice dropped, almost to a whisper. "But after seeing what you did to Mercer... I'm not so sure anymore. You're becoming something else, Kaelen. Something beyond a mere survivor."
The tunnel ended abruptly at a maintenance hatch. Roland pushed it open, revealing the crimson-lit chaos of the surface world. They emerged into what had once been a subway station but was now a cavernous space where gravity seemed optional—debris floated in lazy spirals, and the walls had become translucent, revealing glimpses of other spaces, other moments in time.
"The university is three blocks north," Roland said, orienting himself with practiced efficiency despite the surreal landscape. "Stay close. The twisted ones will be hunting, and after what happened at the sanctuary, there might be... other threats."
They moved through the transformed cityscape, Roland leading them along what remained of the stable paths. But the unmaking had accelerated in their absence. Reality was thinner here, more malleable. Buildings rippled like mirages, streets twisted into Möbius strips, and the very air seemed charged with entropic potential, shimmering with multi-colored particles of dissolving matter.
And everywhere, the Tower's presence loomed larger, more dominant. It had changed again since they'd last seen it—grown taller, more organic in appearance. The veins of crimson light that pulsed along its surface had multiplied, forming complex, almost mathematical patterns that hurt the eyes to follow. At its base, a swirling vortex of entropic energy had formed, a maelstrom of unmaking that consumed everything it touched.
"The Court is accelerating the process," Kaelen said, the tablet's knowledge providing context for what they were witnessing. "The final phase of unmaking is beginning."
"How long?" Roland asked, his voice tight.
"Hours. Maybe less." Kaelen felt the hunger stir within him, responding to the concentrated entropic energy. "The Court has found what it was looking for. Worthy vessels. The transformation is proceeding."
They pressed on, navigating the increasingly chaotic landscape. Twice they encountered twisted ones—former citizens transformed by the unmaking into predatory husks. But these creatures fled at the sight of Kaelen, sensing the power he now radiated after consuming Mercer. The hunger urged him to pursue, to consume, but he controlled it, focused on their mission.
The university campus, when they finally reached it, was a nightmare of academic horror. The once-stately buildings had been transformed into grotesque parodies of educational architecture. Libraries where books bled actual text onto the floors. Lecture halls where phantom professors taught equations that rewrote reality as they were solved. Laboratories where experiments continued without human guidance, producing results that defied the laws of physics.
"Thorne's lab was in the Physics building," Roland said, pointing to a structure that seemed to exist in multiple states simultaneously, its form shifting between construction, completion, and ruin in a continuous cycle. "If he came back here, that's where we'll find him."
They approached cautiously, Kaelen extending his senses to scan for threats. The entropic distortion was intense here, reality so thin that he could almost see through it to the spaces between universes—the void where the Court existed. But there was something else too, a pattern within the chaos, a deliberate structuring of the entropic energies.
"Someone's controlling the unmaking here," he said, surprised. "Directing it. Containing it."
"Thorne," Roland confirmed. "This was his domain before the Tower appeared. If anyone could impose order on the chaos, it would be him."
The Physics building's entrance was a shimmering portal of pure mathematics—equations and formulas swirling in three-dimensional space, forming a barrier that separated the relative stability inside from the chaos without. Roland hesitated before it.
"I can't read this," he admitted. "The patterns... they're beyond me."
But Kaelen could. The tablet's knowledge, combined with Klein Moretti's scholarly mind, recognized the complex theorems—dimensional boundary equations, calculations for maintaining stable reality bubbles within entropic zones. "It's a filter," he said. "Designed to admit only those who understand the principles behind it. Thorne's security system."
He reached out, mentally rearranging the equations, solving for the variables that would grant them passage. The mathematical barrier rippled, then parted like a curtain, revealing a corridor beyond that seemed impossibly normal compared to the chaos outside—clean, well-lit, untouched by the unmaking.
"How did you do that?" Roland asked, clearly impressed despite his wariness.
"The tablet," Kaelen explained. "It contained knowledge of entropic manipulation, of the mathematics underlying reality itself. And Mercer... his memories include briefings on Thorne's research, security protocols for the university's sensitive areas."
They entered the corridor, the mathematical barrier sealing behind them. The contrast was jarring—outside, reality dissolving into chaos; inside, an oasis of ordered space, preserved through what must have been an enormous expenditure of will and entropic control.
"Thorne's laboratory should be at the end of this hall," Roland said, moving forward cautiously despite the apparent normality of their surroundings. "But be ready for anything. If he was injured in the attack..."
They didn't have to go far. The laboratory door stood open, revealing a vast space filled with equipment both familiar and alien—conventional scientific instruments alongside devices that pulsed with entropic energy, that bent light and gravity around them in impossible ways. And there, slumped in a chair at the center of it all, was Professor Elias Thorne.
He looked... diminished. The commanding presence, the scholarly confidence, had been replaced by exhaustion and pain. His pale skin was now almost translucent, the network of amber veins beneath pulsing weakly. A deep wound in his side leaked not blood but a viscous, golden fluid that evaporated into shimmering particles as it hit the air.
"Roland," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "You made it. And Mr. Moretti... or should I say, the harbinger." His amber eyes fixed on Kaelen, narrowing slightly. "You've changed. Consumed. Evolved. Good. You'll need that power for what comes next."
Roland rushed to Thorne's side, examining the wound with grim expertise. "What happened? Who attacked the sanctuary? Where are Voss and Vex?"
Thorne coughed, more of the golden fluid speckling his lips. "The Crimson Court happened, Roland. They sent their agents—not twisted ones, but true servants. Anomalies who have fully embraced the Court's purpose." His gaze returned to Kaelen. "They came for the harbinger, but found only me and the others. Voss and Vex were taken. To the Tower. For... processing."
"Processing?" Kaelen asked, though the tablet's knowledge whispered the answer before Thorne could respond.
"Evaluation. Assessment of their potential as vessels." The professor's voice grew weaker. "The Court is accelerating its timetable. The final phase of unmaking has begun. Soon, this reality will be completely dissolved, and the Court will select its new members from among the surviving Anomalies."
"And the rest?" Roland demanded. "Everyone else in this world? What happens to them?"
Thorne's expression was a mixture of scientific detachment and genuine regret. "Consumed. Integrated into the entropic matrix that fuels the Court's existence. It's not death, not exactly. More like... redistribution. Their essence becomes part of the greater whole."
"That's monstrous," Roland growled. "And you speak of it like it's some fascinating experiment."
"Because it is, Roland." Thorne straightened slightly, a spark of his old intensity returning. "The most fascinating experiment in cosmic history. The recycling of entire realities, the selection and elevation of worthy vessels, the continuous evolution of the Court itself... it's beautiful, in its way. Terrible, yes, but beautiful."
Kaelen stepped forward, the hunger within him responding to Thorne's words, to the entropic energy that surrounded them. "You knew," he said, the accusation clear in his voice. "Before the Tower appeared. You knew what was coming."
Thorne's amber eyes met his, unflinching despite his weakened state. "Yes. Not the specifics, not the timing, but the general process... yes, I knew. My research into dimensional boundaries revealed echoes, traces of previous unmakings. I found... communications. Messages left by previous researchers who had made the same discoveries, who had faced the same choice I now face."
"What choice?" Kaelen pressed, though again, the tablet's knowledge whispered the answer.
"To resist or to serve," Thorne said simply. "To fight against the unmaking, knowing it is inevitable, or to facilitate it, to guide it, to ensure that something of value survives the transition." His gaze intensified. "I chose to serve. To understand. To prepare worthy vessels for the Court's selection."
Roland's expression hardened into disgust. "You betrayed humanity. Your own reality."
"I saved what could be saved," Thorne countered. "The unmaking cannot be stopped, Roland. It is a cosmic constant, a necessary phase in the evolution of the multiverse. But it can be influenced. The selection process can be guided. Worthy vessels can be prepared." His gaze returned to Kaelen. "Like our harbinger here. A transmigrated soul, uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between realities. The perfect vessel for the Court's purpose."
The hunger within Kaelen surged at these words, a wave of anticipation that was not entirely his own. The Court was listening through him, watching through his eyes. "What purpose?" he demanded, fighting to maintain control. "What does the Court want with me?"
Thorne smiled, a thin expression that didn't reach his amber eyes. "Evolution, Mr. Moretti. The Court seeks to evolve, to incorporate new perspectives, new patterns of thought. And you... you are something new. A consciousness that has already transcended the boundaries between realities. A mind that can conceive of existence beyond the limitations of a single universe." He leaned forward, intensity overriding his pain. "You are not just a vessel, harbinger. You are the next stage in the Court's evolution."
The implications were staggering. Kaelen felt the weight of cosmic destiny pressing down on him, a role he had never asked for in a drama he barely understood. "And Voss? Vex? What role do they play in this?"
"Secondary vessels," Thorne said dismissively. "Valuable for their unique adaptations to entropic energy, but not... transformative. Not like you." He coughed again, more violently this time, golden fluid spattering the floor. "The agents who attacked us... they were sent to collect all potential vessels for final evaluation. But they were particularly interested in finding you."
"Why didn't you tell them where I was?" Kaelen asked. "If you serve the Court..."
"Because the choice must be yours," Thorne replied. "That is the one constant in all the records I've studied. The harbinger must choose freely. Must come to the Tower of their own volition, with full understanding of what awaits." His voice dropped to a whisper. "And because I have my own agenda, my own vision for what the Court might become with the right influence."
Roland, who had been silently seething during this exchange, finally exploded. "Enough riddles and cosmic philosophy! People are dying out there. Being unmade or twisted into monsters. And you sit here, playing games with forces you can't possibly understand!"
Thorne regarded the former guard with something like pity. "Oh, Roland. Always the soldier, seeing only the battle before you, never the war beyond." He turned back to Kaelen. "He doesn't understand. Can't
understand. But you do, don't you, harbinger? You've consumed the Entropic Codex. You've integrated Captain Mercer's essence. You've glimpsed the pattern behind the chaos."
And he had. The tablet's knowledge, combined with Mercer's tactical mind and his own scholarly intellect, had revealed glimpses of a cosmic cycle beyond human comprehension. Realities born, evolved, and eventually unmade. The Court selecting worthy vessels from each, incorporating new patterns, new perspectives. An eternal process of cosmic evolution, neither good nor evil but simply... necessary.
"If what you say is true," Kaelen said slowly, "if the unmaking cannot be stopped... then what choice do I really have? Serve the Court or be consumed by it?"
"There is always choice, harbinger," Thorne replied, his voice growing weaker. "The Court needs you more than you need it. Your unique nature, your ability to transcend realities... these make you valuable. Potentially transformative." He leaned forward, his amber eyes intense despite his failing strength. "The Court is not monolithic. It is a collective of entities, each with their own agenda, their own vision for cosmic evolution. Some seek mere consumption, the absorption of dying realities into their own pattern. Others seek true synthesis, the integration of diverse perspectives into a greater whole."
"And which do you serve?" Kaelen asked, though he suspected the answer.
"I serve the future," Thorne said simply. "A future where the unmaking becomes not an end but a transition. Where worthy vessels are not merely absorbed but elevated. Where the Court itself evolves beyond mere consumption into true cosmic stewardship." His voice dropped to a whisper. "But to achieve that future, the Court needs a harbinger who understands both sides. Who has experienced both the dying reality and the Court's perspective. Who can bridge the gap not just between universes, but between opposing cosmic philosophies."
The laboratory trembled suddenly, dust cascading from the ceiling as another wave of unmaking pulsed through the university. The stable bubble Thorne had created flickered, the equations maintaining it momentarily destabilizing before reasserting themselves.
"We're running out of time," the professor said urgently. "The final phase is accelerating. Soon, the Tower will complete its function, and this reality will be fully unmade. You must decide, harbinger. Will you go to the Tower? Will you face the Court's evaluation? Or will you hide here, in the last stable corners of a dying world, until even they are consumed?"
Roland stepped between them, his expression fierce. "Don't listen to him, Kaelen. He's manipulating you, using your hunger, your confusion, to serve his own agenda."
"Perhaps," Thorne acknowledged. "But I'm also offering the only path forward. The only chance to influence what comes after the unmaking." He fixed Kaelen with a penetrating stare. "The Court will remake reality according to its vision. Wouldn't you rather have a say in what that vision entails?"
The hunger within Kaelen surged again, but it was different now—not a desperate craving but a purposeful drive. The void at his core, once a terrifying emptiness, had become a source of strength, of potential. He could feel the Tower's attention on him, waiting, evaluating. And beyond it, the Court itself, a vast, collective intelligence that existed in the spaces between universes.
"If I go to the Tower," he said slowly, "if I face this evaluation... what happens to the others? To Voss and Vex? To Roland?"
Thorne's expression softened slightly. "That depends on you, harbinger. On the influence you wield with the Court. On the vision you champion." He gestured weakly to Roland. "He has potential too, you know. All the Anomalies do. But without guidance, without purpose... they will be consumed or twisted, their unique patterns lost in the greater whole."
Another tremor shook the laboratory, more violent this time. The equations maintaining the stable bubble visibly strained, reality beyond the walls growing thinner, more chaotic.
"We need to move," Roland urged. "This place won't hold much longer."
Thorne nodded weakly. "He's right. My strength is failing. The bubble will collapse soon." He reached out, grasping Kaelen's wrist with surprising strength. "But before you go, there's something you should know. Something about your arrival in this reality, about Klein Moretti's body..."
"What about it?" Kaelen asked, sensing a final revelation.
"It wasn't random," Thorne whispered. "Your transmigration, your arrival at the exact moment of unmaking... it was orchestrated. By me. By the Court. By forces beyond even my understanding." His amber eyes burned with feverish intensity. "You were chosen, harbinger. Called from your reality to this one for a specific purpose. To be the bridge. The catalyst. The seed of change."
The laboratory shuddered again, cracks appearing in the walls as the entropic energies outside pressed against Thorne's failing defenses. "Go," the professor urged. "To the Tower. Save what can be saved. Influence what comes after." His grip on Kaelen's wrist tightened. "And remember—the Court is not monolithic. There are factions, perspectives, competing visions for cosmic evolution. Find allies. Make choices. Shape the becoming."
With a final, violent tremor, the laboratory's defenses failed. Reality rushed in like a tidal wave—chaotic, entropic energy that dissolved everything it touched. Thorne released Kaelen's wrist, a look of acceptance crossing his features as the unmaking reached him.
"The Observatory," he said, his final words barely audible above the roar of dissolving reality. "Beneath the Tower. Find it. Understand it. Use it."
And then he was gone, his form dissolving not into the multi-colored particles of the unmaking, but into a stream of golden light that swirled around Kaelen for a moment before dissipating into the chaos.
"Run!" Roland shouted, grabbing Kaelen's arm and pulling him toward a door at the far end of the laboratory—a door that hadn't been there moments before, that pulsed with entropic energy in a pattern Kaelen recognized from the tablet's knowledge. A portal. An escape route Thorne had prepared.
They lunged through it just as the laboratory collapsed entirely, reality folding in on itself behind them. They emerged onto a rooftop somewhere in the university district, with a clear, unobstructed view of the Tower. It had changed again—grown taller, more complex, the veins of crimson light now forming intricate patterns that seemed to spell out equations, formulas, cosmic truths in a language beyond human comprehension.
And at its base, the vortex of entropic energy had expanded, consuming entire city blocks in its swirling maelstrom. The unmaking was accelerating, reality dissolving at an exponential rate. Soon, there would be nothing left but the Tower itself.
"What now?" Roland asked, his voice tight with suppressed fear. "Where do we go? What do we do?"
Kaelen stared at the Tower, feeling its pull, its invitation. The hunger within him responded, not with desperate craving but with purposeful anticipation. This was what he had been becoming since his arrival in this dying world. This was the role he had been prepared for, whether he understood it fully or not.
"We go to the Tower," he said, decision made. "We find Voss and Vex. We discover this Observatory Thorne mentioned. And we make choices that will shape what comes after the unmaking."
Roland's expression was a mixture of disbelief and resignation. "You're actually considering what he said? About serving the Court? About influencing its evolution?"
"I'm considering all possibilities," Kaelen replied. "Including the possibility that Thorne was right about one thing—the unmaking cannot be stopped. But perhaps it can be directed. Perhaps something can be saved from this reality before it's gone entirely."
The former guard studied him for a long moment, then nodded grimly. "I don't trust Thorne. Never did. But I trust you, harbinger. If anyone can navigate this cosmic mess, it's the man who consumed Captain Mercer and lived to tell about it." He managed a tight smile. "Besides, I've got nowhere else to go. Might as well face the end of reality with someone who might have a say in what comes next."
Together, they stood on the rooftop, watching as the world unmade itself around them. The Tower pulsed with entropic energy, calling to Kaelen, to the hunger within him, to the void at his core that had saved him from the initial unmaking and now promised something more—not mere survival, but transcendence. Becoming.
The path ahead was uncertain, fraught with cosmic dangers and choices beyond human comprehension. But for the first time since awakening in Klein Moretti's body, Kaelen felt a sense of purpose, of direction. He was the harbinger, the seed of change, the bridge between dying reality and whatever came after.
The becoming had only just begun. And he would shape it, for better or worse, with every choice he made from this moment forward.