The morning over Base City was pale gold and deceptively calm. From the cliffs, Aiden could see the faint shimmer of the dome and the geometry of its defense towers catching light. The air smelled of ozone and salt, clean enough to fool anyone into thinking the world had healed.
It hadn't. It had simply grown quiet while waiting for someone to ask it questions again.
He stood at the cliff's edge until the System's display settled into focus.
[Synchronization: 59% → 60%][Physique: 838,860.8 → 1,677,721.6][Spirit: 838,860.8 → 1,677,721.6][Spatial Step: Active – Stable][Gate Fragments: 2 / 9][Next Resonance Cycle: 22:41:03]
One step, one doubling, and the world would no longer have the gravity to hold him. His bones thrummed with the slow pulse of stored power; air bent faintly around him even when he was still. The Aegis Loop pulsed a steady, grounding rhythm at his wrist, keeping his presence from distorting everything nearby.
"Sixty percent," he whispered. "And still the System says I'm only at the start."
Below, the road that wound back into the city was already busy. Transport skimmers moved in lines like beads of light. People were living the same day they'd lived yesterday. Somewhere among them, his parents were probably making breakfast again. He could walk down and step into that rhythm, pretend he was ordinary.
But he could feel the Span behind his eyelids when he blinked—those black corridors filled with the ghosts of forgotten worlds.
A sound like static brushed his ears. He turned.
The air beside him bent, shimmered, and resolved into a slim, translucent panel. It wasn't the System; it was communication—a private link opened across layers of encryption only the Martial Alliance used.
The face that formed in the light belonged to Captain Nyra Voss.
Her tone was clipped, professional. "You vanished for seventy-two hours. When you reappeared, orbital sensors recorded a gravitational pulse that nearly collapsed two satellites. You want to tell me where you were?"
Aiden considered how to answer. The truth would sound like madness. Lying to Nyra would be useless; she'd been reading subtext since before he was born.
"I found something," he said finally. "Something that shouldn't exist."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "The Wild Zone again?"
"The sea," he said. "There's a trench—west shelf. It leads somewhere."
She didn't speak for several seconds. When she did, her voice was lower. "We know. We've been trying to send probes through it since last night. They vanish at thirty meters. No signal returns. You walked out of that hole alive, which makes you the only data point we have."
Aiden looked back toward the horizon, where the sea shimmered harmlessly. "Then maybe stop sending things through until you understand what it is."
"You understand it?" she asked.
"Not yet," he said. "But I'm learning."
Her gaze flickered. Behind her, the light of her command room glowed cold blue. "Cross… whatever you're doing, you're past the line where the Association can protect you."
"I know."
"Then listen carefully. There's talk upstairs—Martial Council, Interbase Command. They're calling this a potential 'dimensional incursion.' They're preparing to isolate the western region. If they do, they'll lock everything down, including your family."
He felt a small tightening in his chest. "They won't need to."
"Aiden—" she began, but the link dissolved. The projection shimmered and died with a soft hum.
He stood alone again.
The walk back into the city was long enough for the sunlight to warm the cliffs and drive the mist away. By the time he passed the perimeter checkpoint, Base City was fully awake. Markets opened. Banners flashed news about the latest hero rankings and university placements. Nobody looked at him twice.
Inside his apartment, everything was as he'd left it. The window still half open, the datapads blinking with unread notifications. On the desk sat the fragment—quiet now, its glow dim and steady.
He touched it lightly. "So they're watching already."
The System answered, voice low and calm.
[Observation confirmed – Multiple planetary-level sensors directed toward host.][Countermeasures: Aegis Loop and Silence Spindle sufficient.][Advisory: Increase Spirit capacity to maintain concealment.]
He sat on the floor and crossed his legs, exhaling slowly. "Then we keep growing."
The Primordial Breathing began as a whisper, slow and balanced. Energy rolled in from the air, from the metal walls, from the tiny gap under the door. It gathered inside him, aligning with the Pattern Sigil's geometry. The apartment filled with a soft hum that only the atoms noticed.
Hours passed unnoticed. When he opened his eyes, his veins glowed faintly silver, and the System's numbers had climbed again.
[Physique: 1,677,721.6 → 3,355,443.2][Spirit: 1,677,721.6 → 3,355,443.2][Cycle Complete.]
He stood, muscles fluid, energy balanced, and for a moment it was easy to believe the world really was infinite.
Then the building trembled.
Aiden's head snapped up. The tremor wasn't natural—too even, too deliberate. Windows shivered, walls flexed, lights dimmed. Outside, a single pulse of energy rolled across the city like invisible thunder.
[Alert: Spatial Fluctuation Detected.][Origin: Base City 5 – Central Sector.]
He moved.
The balcony door burst open as he stepped into the air. The world folded; the next instant he was above the central district. Below, the Association's tower blazed with blue-white light. A ring of energy expanded from its roof, rising into the sky like a halo trying to turn itself inside out.
He could see people on the street craning their necks, pointing upward. They didn't understand what they were seeing. Neither did most of the warriors rushing to contain it.
Aiden hovered above the tower's apex. The ring was a portal, raw and unstable, its edges unraveling in real time. Something on the other side was trying to push through—something made of shadow and geometry and cold intention.
He recognized the signature.
"The Verse is looking back," he whispered.
The System confirmed, voice tense now.
[Dimensional breach: confirmed.][Source: External Verse – Class Undefined.][Containment probability (without interference): < 0.01%.]
The Aegis Loop tightened. The Obsidian Edge burned through his chest, answering the call like a heartbeat.
He dove.
The tower's roof cracked under the weight of the portal's pressure. Energy screamed upward; the barrier shields buckled and tore. Aiden thrust both hands into the storm, pouring Spirit into the breach. The world turned white.
[Energy Output: 3.5 × 10⁶ kg equivalent → 7.0 × 10⁶ kg equivalent.]
The edges of the rift resisted, then began to contract, folding inward like fabric burned by fire. For a heartbeat, the thing beyond looked at him—a pair of eyes made of distance and memory.
"You carry its mark," it said, a voice too large for sound. "Then the Sequence begins again."
Aiden didn't answer. He drove power into the breach until the voice cut off, the light collapsing inward like a dying star. The roof went dark.
Silence fell.
He stood amid the ruin, chest heaving once, twice. The Aegis Loop flickered, cooling from orange to pale blue. His hands trembled faintly. Around him, soldiers stared up from the street, faces pale in the aftermath glow.
He looked down at them, eyes calm, then turned toward the sky.
"If the Verse wants to play," he said quietly, "it can start by sending someone who understands what it's asking for."
The System hummed, soft as breath.
[Synchronization: 62%.][Adaptive Threshold breached: Planetary Scale exceeded.][Classification: Transitional Entity — Human-Prime.]
He felt it like a change in pressure, the shift from one gravity to another. The planet seemed smaller. The horizon closer.
Below, alarms wailed, the city rushing to categorize what it could not yet name. Above, in the thin layer where space becomes verse, the watchers logged the new reading, uncertain whether to fear or to follow.
Aiden turned his gaze west, where the sea lay beyond the horizon. He could still feel the Lightless Span like a pulse under his skin. The next step was obvious.
He smiled faintly, tired and calm. "The Sequence begins again," he echoed. "Then I'll see how far it runs."
He stepped forward and vanished into the air, leaving only the faint shimmer of folded light.
Miles above the city, a probe recorded the energy spike, tried to label it, failed. In its log it wrote a single line before its circuits burned out:
Anomaly persistent. Human designation: Aiden Cross. Category — Infinite Comprehension.
And in the quiet between Verses, where ancient eyes had opened to watch, one voice whispered into the dark:
"At last, another one remembers."