The Silent Bastion was true to its name.
Cold, grey stone towers loomed over jagged cliffs that overlooked the Hollow Sea—a lifeless, black expanse of water that churned without wind. The walls were smooth, seamless, and built with anti-teleportation wards. No door existed without a guard. No hallway went unwatched.
Yet in all its security, none of it was for keeping things out.
It was built to keep one thing in.
Riven Darion.
---
The week after his containment began, Riven's schedule became rigid: observation, experimentation, meditation. No friends. No instructors. Only mages and artificers who whispered behind glass and took notes while avoiding direct eye contact.
He slept in a chamber laced with hundreds of null-spells, each woven to dampen his presence. Even so, faint anomalies were already appearing. Magic circles flickered when he walked past. Enchanted items dimmed when he got too close.
He was becoming a living void.
---
On the eighth day, they brought him into a chamber with a single chair and a table covered in enchanted items.
A silver ring. A cursed dagger. A memory crystal. A feather carved from starlight. All saturated with magic.
"Sit," said the observing mage—an old man with silver tattoos on his forehead.
Riven did.
"You will not use your skill unless instructed. You will attempt to suppress your aura. If anything disappears, you will inform us immediately."
Riven glanced at the table. "I didn't ask for this, you know."
"No one asks to be born cursed."
The mage nodded toward the ring.
"Begin."
Riven reached for it.
The moment his finger grazed the metal, it flickered… and then stabilized.
No disappearance.
"Interesting," the mage murmured.
He moved to the dagger. It pulsed with crimson light—an artifact forged from a Demon Prince's fang.
When he touched it, the light sputtered and went out.
But the dagger remained.
Riven frowned. "It's… dull."
"That weapon has never dulled."
He picked it up.
It felt light. Meaningless. Like paper.
"I don't think I'm erasing things," Riven said softly. "I think I'm… nullifying their meaning."
The mage looked up sharply.
"What did you say?"
"I didn't delete the dagger. I deleted what made it cursed."
The mage wrote furiously, hands shaking.
> "This is not Destruction," he muttered. "This is anti-reality…"
---
Later that night, Riven was escorted back to his room by two guards. Unlike before, they no longer walked too close to him. They maintained a five-foot radius—just enough to stay within control range, but far enough to feel safe.
He heard their whispers.
> "He's not human anymore."
"They say he'll become a world-ending anomaly by 20."
"They'll kill him before that, right?"
He said nothing.
But something inside him was listening.
---
That night, as he lay on his cot staring at the ceiling, the voice returned.
> "You are not alone."
He sat up.
The room was empty.
But the shadows in the corners… moved.
Slowly.
Intentionally.
One detached itself.
Not a creature. Not a person.
Just… shape.
Like a man-shaped absence of light.
> "They study you. But they cannot bind what they do not understand."
"Who are you?" Riven whispered.
> "I am the echo of what you will become."
The shadow leaned in, a face forming—a silhouette of his own, flickering like a mirror made of voidstuff.
> "You are the flaw in their perfection. The endnote in their song. You are not power. You are possibility."
Riven's mouth went dry.
"Why me?"
> "Because only nothing can become everything."
The shadow merged with the wall.
Gone.
---
In the morning, the guards found Riven sitting calmly in the meditation room, surrounded by three shattered mana crystals.
He hadn't touched them.
They'd cracked simply by being in proximity.
---
By the fifteenth day, panic had begun to spread among the researchers.
> "He's growing stronger without absorbing mana."
"His Class is evolving on its own."
"That's not supposed to happen!"
They tried to restrict his access to testing rooms.
They reduced interaction time.
They canceled skill training altogether.
But it didn't help.
Because Riven wasn't just awakening to his power.
He was awakening to the truth.
---
That afternoon, Riven stood at the edge of the Bastion's northern wall, staring out across the Hollow Sea.
No one else was there.
The ocean churned unnaturally—its black waves roiling like a beast in slumber. And yet, it matched how he felt.
Unquiet.
Empty.
Dangerous.
He took a breath.
His palm twitched.
He felt the [Erase I] skill inside him, dormant but pulsing.
> Cooldown complete.
He slowly reached down and touched a loose stone near his feet.
"Don't exist," he whispered.
The stone vanished.
But this time, he felt something more.
Like a door creaking open inside his mind.
---
> Skill Evolution Unlocked
[ERASE I] → [ERASE II]
Target expanded: non-living + ambient mana threads
Radius extended to 0.5m
Cooldown: 8 hours
> System Message: Voidwalkers do not level. They evolve.
> Next Condition: Touch a sentient being.
Riven stiffened.
Touch a person?
He remembered what the headmaster had warned.
> "Don't touch another person while using your ability."
And yet…
He couldn't stop staring at his own hand.
---
Back inside, as he returned to his room, he crossed paths with a girl.
A servant, maybe—young, pale-skinned, dressed in grey.
She dropped a tray of food near his door, her hands trembling as she turned to leave.
He bent to help her.
Their fingers brushed for an instant.
Just an instant.
And the tray exploded into black dust.
She screamed.
He staggered back.
Not because she vanished—she didn't.
But something in her changed.
She looked at him, eyes wide… then slowly collapsed.
Unconscious. Alive—but drained.
Alarms blared. Magic surged. Guards stormed in.
They dragged him to the lower levels—this time not a cell, but a pit.
Steel walls. No magic. Just ancient anchors and obsidian bindings.
The high inquisitor of the Tower arrived that evening.
Eyes like dying suns.
Voice like frost.
"You touched her."
"She's not dead."
"Not yet."
"She still breathes."
"She also has no memory of her name."
Riven looked up, jaw clenched.
"I didn't mean to."
"That's what makes it terrifying."
---
That night, Riven sat alone in the pit.
And for the first time, he asked a question:
"Am I… still me?"
---
The void inside him didn't answer.
But the air grew colder.
And the walls began to hum.