The jungle greeted Tavin with heat and eyes.
From the threshold of the clay hut, he stepped onto a dirt path that cut through clusters of domed homes. The structures were simple—clay, thatch, bone. But more than that, the village felt... worn. Like it was holding its breath. Like it had waited so long for salvation that it had forgotten how to hope.
Villagers paused mid-task. Miners with soot-smeared faces, women pounding herbs into paste, children crouching near charcoal fires. All of them watched in silence. No one knelt. No one cheered.
"They don't know what to think," Niah said beside him, her voice flat. "Most stopped believing decades ago."
"And you?" he asked.
"I never stopped," she replied. "That's why they think I'm a fool."
They walked deeper into the village.
Tavin passed a forge with no fire, a storehouse with broken locks, and a line of men dragging ore carts down a trench. One of them glanced at him with sunken eyes—not hatred, but expectation.
Do something.
Tavin looked away.
Eventually, they reached a purple-draped tent—the elder hall. It shimmered faintly in the light, embroidered with sigils and small feathers stained violet-black.
"Come inside," Niah said. "It's time you learned why the world is the way it is—and why you might be the only one who can change it."
The interior of the hall was cool and scented with dried leaves, resin, and ink. Scrolls lined the curved walls. Totems dangled from the ceiling, each marked with symbols Tavin couldn't begin to understand. At the center of the room sat a wide black slab of polished stone veined with violet light.
Ema'Tari knelt behind it, her milky-white eyes closed in meditation. When she opened them, the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees.
"Sit. Let me show you how the world broke itself."
Tavin sat.
The slab came to life with a faint hum, and seven glowing sigils rose above it, rotating slowly in mid-air before settling on the surface:
"The map of the Seven," she said quietly. "This is what the world looked like before the Gates changed everything."
Tavin stepped closer. The continent was shaped like a cracked ring — seven regions circling a central mountain range.
"Lucian, to the west, marked by a tower of light."
"Wodr, on the southern coast, with crashing waves and deep rivers."
"Fyr, a jagged volcanic region."
"Aifer, windswept cliffs and airborne creatures."
"Erpo, the Earth Kingdom, full of canyons and stone."
"Phusis, lush and overgrown with jungle canopies. And next to Phusis"
Skotos — the shadowed northeast, a swirl of black stone and forgotten ruins.
In the center of each region, a symbol: a Gate.
"Four hundred years ago, the world bled. Each of the Seven Nations—guardians of elemental domains—waged endless war. Not for evil. But for survival. Territory. Balance."
The images flickered. Armies. Magic. Collapsing cities.
"And then… a proposal. The Lucians—masters of structure and rune—called for peace. They revealed knowledge from an older age. Gate Magic."
The image shifted—massive stone arches, dormant and ancient.
"Each nation would build one. To end war, the Gates would summon beings of power—Guardians. Deities. Champions. In return, each nation would pour its lifeforce, its mana, into their Gate. A sacrifice… for peace."
Niah's voice interjected quietly.
"We call it the Long Sleep. Because when the nations gave up their power, they lost the ability to wage war. No magic. No conquest. Only waiting."
"And so the Gates remained sealed. For centuries."
"Until thirty years ago... one Gate opened."
The slab pulsed violently. An image formed: a towering figure of light stepping from a Gate in a stone jungle.
"The Wodr Gate activated first," Ema'Tari continued. "Then the Lucian. Then the others. One by one, the nations' gods arrived—radiant, divine, terrifying."
"All… except ours."
Tavin's eyes narrowed. "Why didn't yours activate?"
There was a pause. A heaviness.
Ema'Tari's voice was thin, almost trembling. "We do not know."
"Some said our Gate was flawed. Others claimed the old priests betrayed the ritual. And then…" She turned her milky gaze toward Tavin, "there were those who believed you had abandoned us. That the Pōwehi had turned away—that you saw what we were… and decided we were not worth saving."
Tavin swallowed. He felt the heat of the brand flare on his arm.
"That's insane. I'm just… a guy. I didn't even know any of this existed until yesterday."
Niah's voice was tight, controlled. "And yet your name was carved into the altar a hundred years before you were born. Your arrival foretold in every Skotos temple since the Age of the Gates."
She pointed to the seven symbols still floating above the crystal slab.
"Six nations summoned Champions. Six nations made themselves vessels. But we?" She shook her head. "We got silence. Silence… and ruin."
Tavin's eyes narrowed. "So the other nations invaded yours?."
"Crushed," Niah said. "Our land was seized. Our people were enslaved. Those who remain live only because we produce ore. And because we keep the gate shrine hidden."
He looked down at his arm.
"…So this thing on me. The brand. Why now?"
Ema'Tari's hands trembled as she pointed to the crystal table. "Because something woke your blood. Somewhere, the ancient seal cracked. And the Gate responded."
"You are the first spark," Niah said. "The Pōwehi. The Darkness of Unending Creation. Not a god. But something… we created."
That didn't make him feel better.
"…So what do I do now?"
Niah tossed a folded cloth at him—black, etched with violet glyphs. "Get dressed.
We train."
Outside, the jungle clearing behind the elder hall radiated pressure—like the air itself was coiled, waiting to snap.
Stones etched with runes marked the boundary, each one glowing faintly as Tavin stepped in. Niah followed, barefoot and focused, as if stepping onto sacred ground.
"This space is saturated with resonance; it was used to develop the priestesses abilities decades ago" she said. "It will amplify whatever power your mark allows. Just don't lose control."
She motioned for him to stand in the center.
"Close your eyes. Focus on the brand. Let it speak to you."
Tavin inhaled deeply. The pain in his arm faded—not gone, but transformed, like a quiet vibration in his bones. He slowed his breath. Focused.
And then… he felt it.
Collapse. Consume. Converge. What falls inward cannot fall again.
Something stirred inside his core—heavy, dense, wrong. The weight of a thousand forgotten names. The chill of endless gravity. His chest tightened as pressure pulled around his hand, not heat, but suction, an eerie stillness.
He opened his eyes.
Air shimmered in his palm. Light bent. Dust particles slowed, spiraling inward. A small depression formed in space itself, dark and dense and quietly pulling everything toward it—not an orb, but a pocket of nothing that devoured everything.
"What the hell—" Tavin stumbled, the force pulling at his feet.
Niah's expression snapped from observation to alarm. "Stop! Cut the flow—close it, now!"
"I don't know how!"
The pull grew stronger. Loose stones lifted off the ground and drifted toward the anomaly. Leaves from the jungle trees swirled inward. Even light itself seemed to bend at the edges of the effect.
Desperation took over. Tavin wrenched his arm down and focused on pushing—not power out, but in. Collapsing it. Burying it.
The pressure broke.
With a sudden whump of displaced air, the anomaly vanished. A ripple knocked him back. He landed hard, his heart pounding like war drums.
Smoke curled off his skin. The air was eerily still.
Niah slowly approached. Her eyes darted from his arm to the scorched ground, then back to his face.
"…That wasn't elemental magic," she said carefully.
Tavin coughed. "No kidding."
"That was… gravitational pull. Space compression. The beginning of something that shouldn't exist."
She knelt beside him, voice low. "You weren't just marked. You were implanted with something ancient. Something older than the gods."
Tavin tried to laugh. Failed.
"…Lucky me."