Silence.
Then—breath.
Kael gasped awake, but there was no air to breathe. Only liquid light—thick, weightless, and red as dawn. The Core surrounded him, endless and pulsing, like he had fallen into the heart of a star. Symbols drifted past him in slow orbits, each one whispering fragments of thought.
> Resonance identified. Consciousness stabilizing.
Subject: Kael Ardyn.
Threshold connection: active.
His body refused to move. Every nerve burned, but his mind—his Sight—was wide open. He saw everything at once: the Academy far above, Aria fighting through collapsing halls, and Valen shouting orders as containment fields shattered. Yet all of it felt distant, like a memory replaying underwater.
A voice formed within the light. Neither male nor female—just infinite. Calm. Knowing.
> "You've come farther than the last one."
Kael turned—or thought he did. A figure emerged from the red light: a silhouette built from shifting symbols and fractured reflections.
He recognized it instantly.
The man in the mist.
Kael's pulse thrashed. "You. You've been in my visions since the trials."
The figure tilted its head slightly. "Not visions. Invitations. You kept answering."
"Why me?" Kael demanded. "Why the Sight? What do you want from me?"
> "Choice," the entity said simply. "Every generation, one is born who can bridge the gap between what is real and what was erased. You are that bridge. But the bridge must decide which side to hold."
The red around him flickered—half of it bright and alive, half of it turning black and cracked.
Kael clenched his fists. "You mean destroy or become you?"
> "No. Evolve or repeat."
The voice trembled through him, ancient and tired.
> "The Crimson Sight was never meant to be a weapon. It was memory—a way to keep what mattered alive after the first world burned. But your kind made it power. Chains. Control."
Kael's vision blurred, his pulse syncing with the Core's rhythm. For a heartbeat, he saw flashes of the past—ancient figures standing before a burning sky, wielding the same eyes he now carried. Then the image warped into soldiers, laboratories, and Valen—rebuilding what was never meant to return.
The entity extended a hand.
> "Merge with me, and I'll show you everything they buried."
Kael hesitated.
For the first time, the Sight didn't feel like power—it felt like truth.
Then a voice cut through the light.
"Kael!"
Aria.
The Core rippled violently. Through the distortions, he saw her at the chamber's edge, reaching for him through a breach in the containment field. Energy arced between them like lightning.
> "If you merge," the entity warned, "you'll lose yourself. The boy will vanish. The bridge will stand—but empty."
> "If I don't?" Kael shot back.
> "The Academy burns."
The world around him split. Half red, half white.
One pulsed with raw knowledge. The other—Aria's outstretched hand.
Kael closed his eyes.
The Sight flared—deep crimson, fierce, alive.
> "Then I'll find a third way."
The entity paused. Then—softly—laughed.
> "Just like the first one."
Light exploded.
---
When Kael opened his eyes again, he was lying on the cracked floor of the Core Chamber. The containment sphere was gone—replaced by a faint, red aura swirling quietly around him. Aria knelt beside him, exhausted but alive.
"You're insane," she breathed, half-laughing. "You actually stabilized it."
Kael looked down. His hands glowed faintly, symbols etched into his veins. "No. I didn't stabilize it."
He looked toward the ceiling—toward the layers above where alarms still echoed faintly.
"I became it."
---