The Vault didn't sleep.
Even after the energy surge passed, Kael felt its pulse echo through the walls like a second heartbeat. The black crystal was gone, shattered into a thousand threads of soul-code and shadow data. But something had nested inside him now — he could feel it, alive beneath his ribs, like his Soulvein had grown an eye.
He didn't tell Lira everything.
Not the visions.
Not the voice.
Not the feeling that something ancient had just recognized him.
He wasn't ready to speak that truth aloud.
Not yet.
⸻
They spent the next hour scavenging the vault's data pylons. Most were dead or corrupted. Lira recovered a half-burned scroll embedded with layered glyphwork. Kael found a pair of soul-thread cuffs — relics designed to stabilize uncontrolled energy during flare meditation. They were cracked, but Lira said they'd be useful.
"You'll need them soon," she muttered, checking the edges. "Your Soul Mode's not going to stay quiet for long."
Kael sat on a collapsed console and flexed his fingers. His whole body buzzed. Not in pain. Not in power. Something in between.
"I can feel threads now," he said.
Lira looked at him. "You mean people's Soul Threads?"
He nodded. "Yours… this place… everything."
She let out a low breath. "That's advanced sensory. Rare, even in trained Soulweavers. That usually requires unlocking Phase Two."
"So I skipped?"
"No," she said. "You're not skipping. You're spiraling."
Kael frowned. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means your Soulvein isn't climbing like a normal Origin. It's folding inward. Pulling everything toward itself, like a gravity well. If you don't figure out how to steer it—"
"It'll devour me?"
"No," she said flatly. "It'll remake you into something you can't come back from."
⸻
They left the Vault before midnight. The stars outside were bloodshot and cold. Lira sealed the door behind them using a shard of fire-seared glyphstone. Whatever lived in that Vault, it wasn't theirs to keep. Just theirs to learn from.
They camped beneath the skeleton of a collapsed colossus — a massive rusted Vein Armor suit, ancient and war-burned. Its cockpit was hollow, and moss grew over the spine like time itself had tried to bury it.
Kael sat in silence for a long while.
Finally, he asked, "Do you believe the Nine Origins were created?"
Lira didn't look up from her knife. "Created? No. I think they were unleashed."
"By what?"
She glanced over. "You really want to go that far down the rabbit hole already?"
Kael nodded.
She sighed. "The First Vein. That's what old records called it. A pulse that existed before time. Before the world. They say everything that came after — the Nine Origins, the Seeds, even the Veinlords — all of it's just residue. Fragments of a single, perfect pulse that split itself apart."
Kael's gaze dropped to his hands.
"Where does Void fit in?" he asked.
Lira paused.
Then: "It doesn't."
⸻
That night, Kael dreamed again.
But it wasn't like before.
He stood in an endless field of obsidian grass under a sky that moved like ink in water. In the distance, nine towers floated in a ring — one blazing with fire, another humming with wind, others crackling with ice, stone, storm, and more.
In the center of them all… was nothing.
Just a void. A hollow.
And it called to him.
Not with sound.
But with hunger.
Kael stepped toward it.
And the moment his foot touched the center—
Pain.
His chest split. His arms burned. The world shattered.
And from the pieces, a shape began to rise.
Tall.
Armored in black bone.
Veins of light pulsing beneath skin that looked like smoke given form.
And it wore Kael's face.
⸻
He woke gasping, drenched in sweat, body humming like a struck bell.
Lira was already up, watching from across the camp.
"You saw something."
He nodded, still catching his breath. "A version of me. Bigger. Stronger. Wrong."
"Shadow forms," she said, standing. "They're projections of what your Soulvein could become if it loses balance."
"So it's a warning?"
"It's a blueprint. One you get to accept or reject."
Kael stood, shaking out his arms. "Then I'll reject it."
Lira looked at him. "Don't be so sure. Sometimes power doesn't offer choices. Just doors."
⸻
By dawn, they were back on the trail. West again.
Lira said the next settlement was two days away — a neutral zone called Greyreach, built over an old battlefield. Kael had heard stories. A city that didn't care what Vein you carried, only how you used it.
Sounded like a place worth bleeding in.
But they didn't get that far.
Because by midday, the sky split.
Literally.
A high-pitched whine tore through the air, followed by a crack of thunder that didn't come from any cloud. A rift opened midair — like glass being peeled back — and something fell through it.
A figure.
Armored.
Heavy.
It slammed into the ground half a mile ahead, sending up dust and shattered rock.
Kael and Lira froze.
"That wasn't natural," Kael said.
"No," Lira muttered. "That was a riftwalk. Only high-tier Veinlords can do that."
They moved forward slowly.
Kael felt his Soulvein pulsing, tugging.
As they approached the crater, the dust cleared.
A man stood there.
Seven feet tall. Skin marked with glowing red glyphs. His armor shimmered like obsidian mixed with flame. His eyes were like lit coals.
But his most striking feature was the symbol burned into his chestplate — a jagged spiral breaking through a circle of the Nine Origins.
Lira's eyes went wide.
"That's a Herald."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Of what?"
"Of the Black Spiral."
The man looked up.
And smiled.
"Voidborn," he said.
Kael stepped back. "How do you know—"
The man raised a hand.
And the world cracked.
A wave of pressure slammed into them, sending both Kael and Lira flying. Kael hit the dirt, rolled, and coughed blood.
The Herald didn't move.
He just waited.
Kael stood slowly, veins screaming.
Lira stumbled beside him. "We can't fight him. Not yet."
Kael looked down at his hands.
Then back at the Herald.
"You're the echo," the man said. "The soul that wasn't supposed to return. The hollow that breathes."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You will," the man said. "In time. For now—"
He blurred.
Suddenly he was right in front of Kael.
Kael reacted on instinct.
The Void flared.
His eyes shifted—dark lines spreading from his pupils.
Soul Mode: Phase One – Threadsense Active.
Everything slowed.
Kael saw lines coming from the Herald's body — threads of movement, pressure points, patterns.
He dodged the strike by inches and countered with a knee to the ribs.
It barely made the Herald blink.
But Kael moved again — now reading the flow. Every attack predicted seconds ahead. His feet felt lighter. His awareness sharp.
Lira joined in, her blade cutting arcs of silver flame. She carved glyphs midair, launching short bursts of pressure.
The Herald blocked both. Effortlessly.
Then he caught Kael's punch midair.
And smiled.
"Good. You're waking up."
He released Kael and stepped back.
"I'll be watching," he said. "The Spiral opens for you soon."
Then—
He was gone.
Not rifted.
Not walked.
Just… gone.
Kael dropped to his knees.
The Void inside him didn't burn.
It boiled.
⸻
Lira knelt beside him.
"That was a test."
Kael nodded.
"But from who?"
She didn't answer.
Neither did the sky.