Chapter 41 – Shadows of Aetherfall
The chamber trembled beneath Aaron's boots as the translucent dome of the bunker flickered between flickering blue and red pulses. The holographic overlay of the RS-I system rebooted itself after the critical overload from the final clash in the lower Rift sector. His HUD was still stabilizing.
> Reality Sync Interface: Recalibrating...
Symbiotic Feedback Core Leveling... Success
Subconscious Strain Detected. Recovery Protocols Initiated.
Aaron didn't blink. He couldn't. Not yet.
The aftermath of the A-rank incursion into the pseudo-realm of Aetherfall had been more than just another test. The entire mission had been an intentional exposure—an experiment.
And Aaron? He had been the subject.
He wiped the edge of his cracked visor, pushing past the subtle sting of dried blood on his cheek. Around him, the squad members from Recon Delta-Six were scattered, some unconscious, some groaning, and others—like Karis and Juno—scrambling to secure the breach's re-entry node.
But Aaron remained still.
Not because he lacked energy.
Because something had changed.
Something irreversible.
> [Symbiotic Code: Reality Authority Node (RAN) UNLOCKED]
New Directive: Interface with Fractured Aether Core.
Warning: Successor-level Authority may trigger dimension bleed.
"What... the hell did they do to me?" he muttered.
Karis limped over to him, half her exo-suit singed away. "Velcris! We need to close the portal before this place collapses!"
He stood. His vision pulsed faintly red as his left eye—an artificial RS-integrated implant—flashed.
"Don't close it yet," he said, his voice low. "I need to step through. There's something... pulling me."
Juno, the medic, narrowed her eyes. "You're not serious. We barely survived that side. Whatever's pulling you might be the thing trying to kill you."
Aaron smiled slightly. "Maybe. But it's also the only thing offering answers."
Before they could protest further, he walked straight into the core shimmer of the Rift, ignoring the alarms going off in his suit and in Karis's panicked voice behind him.
Everything went black.
Then white.
Then… it shattered.
---
He woke standing.
In a forest that wasn't a forest.
The trees were crystalline, each branch humming like a tuning fork. Light bent at strange angles, and the ground beneath him pulsed with silver energy.
A voice echoed—not aloud, but inside him.
> "You are the vessel of code and will. The Sync does not bind you—it obeys you now."
A figure emerged through the bending light. It wore no armor, no face, just a shape of light and fractured data threads.
"You've unlocked the first Authority Node," the being said. "But this realm exists in pieces—each echoing the memory of forgotten Symbiotes and Ascendants alike."
Aaron raised his hand instinctively, the Symbiosis glyph across his palm pulsing.
"You're one of them?" he asked.
"No. I am what's left of one."
Then it touched him.
And the world around them cracked.
---
Meanwhile, in the real world, Karis was slapping Juno awake. "We can't leave him in there! That Rift is destabilizing!"
Juno coughed, her ribs clearly broken. "Then we need backup. Call Command. Now."
Back in the Ascended Realm, Aaron saw visions—of other timelines, of soldiers like him failing, dying, fracturing. Then, finally, he saw one succeed. A future version of himself standing in a city of glass and war, leading armies of hybrid-coded Symbiotes into battle against world-devouring Rift Lords.
He gasped.
He was the anomaly.
> [New Reality Directive Acquired: "Command the Fall to Stop the Collapse."]
When he woke again, it wasn't back in the forest.
It was in a command cell, within a classified orbital base known as Phantom Spire—the RS-I Authority's hidden station.
Commander Dravik stood over him, arms crossed. "Welcome back, Ascendant. We've been expecting you."
Aaron blinked. "How did I—"
Dravik interrupted. "Because we brought you here. You weren't just exposed to the Rift. You were chosen by it. We activated your final Sequence."
Aaron's heart pounded.
This wasn't just about missions anymore. This was about a war that no one had the guts to speak aloud.
A war between Symbiotic Awakened and Rift-Born Monarchs.
Dravik handed him a new combat module. "Congratulations. You're now classified as an S-Class Operative. Your Symbiosis Core is no longer restricted."
> [New System Access: Reality Shift Class "Apex Node" Granted.]
[Loadout Expanded: Dimensional Layering, Command Threads, Phantom Channeling Available.]
"But that also means," Dravik said, "you've been enlisted into Operation: True Collapse."
Aaron looked up. "What is that?"
"The final plan to destroy the root of the Rifts. But it only works… if you lead."
Aaron stood.
For the first time, he wasn't just reacting to the world.
He was about to bend it.