The air shimmered as Kael, Elyra, Nyssa, and the Marauder stood before a black expanse that pulsed like a living heart. The freed Echoryn surrounded them, whispering blessings in a language that felt more like vibration than sound.
"The Sleeper," murmured Elyra. "The master the Echoryn spoke of. Do we even know what we're walking into?"
The Marauder's crystalline eyes gleamed faintly. "You stand at the edge of the Liminal Abyss—the foundation of consciousness itself. Beyond lies a being not bound by time or form. It dreams, and creation follows. When it wakes, reality shifts."
Kael gripped the fragment tightly. Its glow synchronized with the rhythmic pulses of the abyss, as though something vast on the other side was answering him. "If it's dreaming creation into being, then the predators, the storms, the Confluence—are they… dreams gone wrong?"
Nyssa's gaze darkened. "Or nightmares that gained will."
They stepped forward together. The moment they crossed the veil, the universe inverted. Space dissolved into cascading waves of light and shadow, each pulse echoing a different memory—Kael's past, Elyra's childhood, the Marauder's wars, even Nyssa's hidden fear of being forgotten.
Each vision tried to pull them apart. But Kael's mind, strengthened by the fragment, anchored them. "Stay with me! It's trying to test us—see what we truly are."
Through the maelstrom, a colossal figure emerged—its form shifting between stars, storms, and oceans. Eyes like galaxies opened and focused on them. A voice filled their minds, both distant and intimate:
"You trespass in the depths of my slumber. Speak, fragments of a fading dream. Why do you seek the root of all things?"
Kael felt his knees weaken. "Because the worlds are collapsing. The balance is breaking. If you are the source—then you can stop it."
A rumbling laughter echoed, not cruel but ancient. "Stop it? Creation demands balance. For every light, a shadow must breathe. I birthed the Void to contain the overflow of thought… but it learned hunger."
Elyra stepped forward, her voice trembling but firm. "Then help us stop it. Help us restore what was lost."
The Sleeper regarded her with eyes that spanned galaxies. "Mortals asking the creator to undo creation… fascinating."
For a moment, silence stretched through eternity. Then the Sleeper raised its hand—a constellation forming in its palm. From it descended an orb of condensed essence, swirling with both dark and radiant energy.
"This is the Core of Reflection," it said. "With it, you can reshape reality within a limited sphere. But beware—the more you use it, the more you become part of me. My dream will remember you."
Kael accepted the orb, feeling its weight press into his mind like liquid gravity. Visions flashed—new worlds being born, civilizations rising and collapsing, stars dying and rekindling.
When he looked up again, the Sleeper's form began to dissolve back into starlight. "Awaken the balance, Kael of the Aetheric Line. But know this—something else stirs beyond my sight. A power not of creation nor void… but of defiance."
Then everything went white.
When Kael awoke, he was back in the crystalline city—but the sky above was no longer purple. It burned gold, and fragments of unknown constellations drifted like living embers.
Nyssa helped him up. "You did it… we crossed the veil."
Kael looked at the orb in his palm, pulsing with the same rhythm as his heart. "No," he whispered. "We woke something greater. The Sleeper wasn't the end. It was just the dreamer. Now we have to face whatever dares to wake it."
The Marauder's voice resonated in their minds. "Then the true journey begins. The war of reality itself."
And as they stood beneath the glowing skies of the reborn city, the stars themselves shifted—forming a new symbol Kael had never seen before. A sigil that pulsed with both creation and destruction.
The mark of The Awakened War.
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