The sun rose over Crescent City like an apology—soft, filtered through smog and shimmering clouds. The rain had passed, but puddles lingered on every street corner like fragments of another world. Streetlamps flickered off in sequence as elemental grids switched to solar.
Alex sat alone at the far end of the RSA compound's rooftop terrace.
He wasn't in uniform. Just an old hoodie and jeans. The breeze tugged at his sleeves, but the cold barely touched him now.
He felt... charged.
Too charged.
The lightning within him didn't rest, even when he slept. The space power he had awakened bent things around him subtly—shadows, dust, even sound. It was like walking through a thin veil of folded dimensions.
And worse, his internal world was growing faster every day. The star inside it had taken root and had begun shaping structures—mountains of crystalized energy, cities of light in formation. He had no idea what the world would become once complete.
"If I lose control…"
"No," he muttered. "I won't."
He glanced down at his bracelet as it vibrated gently.
[Notification: Priority Mission Request – Immediate Deployment]
Mission Briefing Room, Sector 3
Kael tossed a datadisc onto the holo-table. "You're not gonna like this one."
Alex didn't sit. "What is it?"
"Urban-level breach. Tier 2 anomaly. One of the containment wards around the Old Rail District broke during the storm. Something's loose. We lost two probes and a scout team."
"Lost?"
"As in no signal. We're not sure what kind of entity it is yet, but there were… distortions. Same kind you triggered during your last spar. Spatial bends. Time flickers."
Alex frowned. "And you think I'm a good match for it?"
"I think you're the only D-rank who's shown spatial resistance. The others would get folded into spaghetti."
"And you're sending me alone?"
Kael smirked. "We'll drop a remote-link team for observation. You'll have drone cover and sensor feeds. But yeah—it's a solo op."
Alex took the disc, slid it into his bracelet. Mission parameters loaded instantly.
Objective: Identify and contain the source of the anomaly.
Location: Old Rail District – Sector C.
Authorization: Full elemental clearance.
Warning: Entity shows resistance to conventional magic.
Containment priority: Spatial Anchor Deployment.
RSA Response Time: Ten minutes max before heavy teams arrive.
"Ten minutes?" Alex asked.
"You get the first shot. Make it count."
The Anomaly
The Old Rail District was a maze of rusted tracks, collapsed train carriages, and overgrown scaffolding. Once a cargo nexus, it had been sealed off decades ago after a failed summoning ritual destabilized local ley lines.
Now, Alex moved through its wreckage, his lightning keeping a radius of light around him. Space shimmered near certain train cars—pockets of displacement like open mouths in the fabric of reality.
A sharp whine echoed from an overturned carriage.
Alex turned instantly, crouching.
Movement. Something… wrong. The shadows shifted but didn't align with the light. They stretched too long. Twisted.
Then it emerged.
A wraith, but not like those in textbooks.
It floated silently, humanoid in shape, but formed of cracked obsidian and veined with red lightning. Eyes like stars. Its presence pressed against his senses—not a spirit, not fully alien, but dimensional.
His pendant throbbed. The world inside him reacted violently. The floating cities quaked. Mountains cracked.
The wraith stopped five meters away.
"Origin-Blood," it said in a voice that echoed through space.
"You are forming... That is dangerous."
Alex summoned his lightning, crackling down both arms.
"You first."
The Clash
The wraith struck first, vanishing into a burst of gravitational inversion.
Alex stepped into space, flickered left—his body reappearing half a second later on top of a derailed train. Lightning surged beneath his feet, anchoring him.
He sent a bolt directly into the shadow—only for it to split into three clones, each leaping into different dimensions.
Alex clenched his fist.
The star inside pulsed.
A spatial lattice burst from his body—thin strands of force forming a grid. The clones snapped back into the center, recombining unwillingly.
"Nice trick," Alex muttered.
The wraith screamed, body crackling. It fired back, not with magic—but with compression.
The air folded inward. Space itself buckled.
Alex's body screamed in protest. His ribs ached. Blood trickled from his nose.
He extended his left hand.
"Collapse."
A pocket of space around the wraith folded—an ability he'd only read about but hadn't practiced.
The effect was crude—but it worked.
The wraith's form distorted, flailing, struggling to re-stabilize.
Alex dashed forward, lightning trailing in jagged arcs, and punched it directly through its chest.
The creature exploded into a storm of shattered shards, vanishing in a flicker of dimensional static.
Silence fell.
A Visitor in the Rain
As the anomaly dispersed, the world stilled.
But Alex didn't relax.
He felt her before he saw her.
A whisper in the rain. A chill in the air.
From the top of a rusted archway, she dropped down soundlessly.
The vampire woman. Dark coat, pale skin, eyes glowing crimson.
"You're not bad," she said softly. "For a child."
Alex raised a hand defensively. "You've been following me."
"Observing," she corrected. "You interest powerful people."
"I'm not interested in politics."
"You will be," she said. "Soon."
The tension between them crackled, half threat, half curiosity. Rain fell gently now, hissing as it touched Alex's lightning.
"What do you want?"
"To make an offer."
Alex's hand didn't lower. "I'm listening."
She stepped closer.
"I'm Rhaenys of the Sael'Var Family. One of the vampire clans that governs the night. We've seen what you're becoming. And we know it's... bigger than the RSA."
"I'm not a vampire," he said tightly.
"Not yet," she said, voice like silk. "But the blood I gave you—combined with the Origin Star inside you—will bring your body and soul to the edge of evolution. You will soon be more than human. The RSA may try to contain you."
Alex was silent.
"Join us. Learn our ways. Use our libraries. Understand the celestial bloodline you're awakening."
"And in return?"
"When the time comes—you fight for us."
He stared at her. "And if I say no?"
Rhaenys smiled faintly. "You won't. You're too curious."
Then she vanished in a streak of shadow.
Back at the RSA
Kael leaned on the edge of a mission board as Alex returned, soaked in rain and blood. His eyes narrowed.
"You saw her again."
Alex nodded. "Briefly."
"And?"
"She made an offer."
"Did you take it?"
"Not yet."
Kael exhaled. "Be careful. They're sharks. And you're leaking blood in open water."
Alex looked down at his hands. They were shaking—not from fear, but from power.
He'd tasted the void. Bent space to his will. Fought something from outside the world—and survived.
He knew it now.
He was changing. Rapidly.
And he was running out of time to choose what he would become.