The ground kept trembling under Arin's boots as if the earth itself struggled to breathe. Dust drifted upward in thin spirals, pulled toward the rift like strands of smoke caught in a hungry wind. Rhea stepped back, her eyes fixed on Arin — not with fear but with a sharp focus that froze everything else around her. Kael planted his blade to stabilize himself, muscles tightening in readiness.
The rift pulsed again.
Not outward — inward.
Like something inside was inhaling.
Arin felt his heartbeat syncing with it, each pulse pulling on the edges of his consciousness. It was not trying to talk. It was trying to choose.
A deep vibration passed through the air and HUD text flashed before his vision like cold lightning.
[System Notice — Resonance Detected]
[Candidate Ratio 1.3% and rising]
Rhea heard the faint chime even though it was meant for Arin alone. Her breath caught.
"It's choosing you again… stronger than before."
Arin didn't answer. Couldn't. His thoughts felt stretched thin across an invisible web. Every memory of dying, every second of the awakening, every fragment of the system echoed against the inside of his skull.
Then the rift cracked.
A sound like splitting stone tore across the ruins, sharp enough to slice through the ringing tension in their bodies. Light bled from the opening — not blinding but dense, heavy, as though each beam carried weight.
Kael moved first. "Arin get back—!"
The warning came a heartbeat too late. The rift spat out a shockwave. It didn't explode outward in chaos — it carved a perfect path straight toward Arin as if the blast had eyes.
Arin braced.
His vision shook.
His legs barely held.
But the shockwave didn't strike him.
It curved around him.
The blast slammed into the wreckage behind them, carving a clean arc through stone and metal, vaporizing entire rubble piles like chalk wiped off a slate. A concave crater spread behind Arin in a perfect half-moon.
Kael stared.
Rhea stared.
Even Arin stared.
The rift had spared him.
Rhea stepped closer, voice sharp and low. "It's protecting you."
Arin swallowed. "Or claiming me."
Another pulse.
Another flicker of the HUD.
[User Priority — Elevated]
[Sync Percentage — 22%]
[Warning — Mental Overload Proximity]
His breath hitched. A cold pressure pressed against his skull like a hand gripping his mind.
Kael's voice cut through the tension. "Arin if it pulls you in we might not get you back. You need to step away now."
Arin tried to move.
His foot didn't obey.
The rift tugged harder — not on his body but on the space around him.
Rhea grabbed his arm, grounding him with real warmth. "Stay with me. Don't look into it again."
Too late.
The rift opened fully.
A column of spiraling light burst upward, shooting past the broken towers like a beacon spearing the sky. The shockwave rippled through the air, scattering dust in concentric rings.
From inside the light
A shape emerged.
At first it was only a silhouette — tall, slender, edged in shifting patterns like symbols trying to take form. The figure stepped forward, but its feet never touched the ground. The air bent beneath it, curling like liquid metal.
Arin felt the pressure in his head spike.
HUD messages flickered uncontrollably.
[Threat Classification — Undefined]
[Entity Type — Unknown]
[Analysis Error]
[Warning Warning Warning]
Rhea stepped in front of Arin with her staff raised. "Whatever you are stay where you are."
Kael stood beside her, blade leveled, eyes narrowed. "It crossed through a controlled rift. That's not supposed to be possible."
The figure tilted its head.
Its voice drifted outward like layered echoes speaking at once.
Not loud.
Just inevitable.
"Arin Lirae. You survived the first threshold."
Arin froze.
That voice wasn't unfamiliar.
He had heard it before — faintly, distorted — the moment he awakened after death.
Kael's hand twitched on the hilt. "It knows his name."
Rhea whispered, "Arin… what did the system connect you to?"
Arin's heartbeat pounded. He forced his voice through the pressure gripping his chest. "Who are you?"
The figure stepped closer. The colors around it shifted like stained glass melting into new shapes.
"I am the Liaison," it said. "The one who judges the chosen."
Kael's grip tightened. "Chosen for what?"
The figure ignored him.
Its attention locked solely on Arin.
"You are syncing at a rate far higher than projected," it said. "That makes you an anomaly."
Arin's pulse hammered harder. "And what does that mean?"
"It means the world will either break around you," the Liaison answered softly, "or reshape itself because of you."
The rift behind it crackled, shedding arcs of light like sparks flying from a forge.
Then the Liaison raised a hand — slow, deliberate, as though every movement carried weight across dimensions.
The HUD flashed violently.
[Forced Synchronization Attempt Detected]
[User Integrity at Risk]
[System Override Initiated]
Arin gasped and dropped to one knee. His vision split into shards of white noise. Rhea grabbed him instantly, shouting his name, holding him against the collapsing ground.
Kael lunged forward.
The Liaison didn't even look his way. A ripple of force erupted from its hand, slamming Kael backward into a broken pillar.
Rhea snarled and struck with a burst of energy, but the attack passed through the Liaison as if striking mist.
The being lowered its hand toward Arin's forehead.
The world dimmed to silence.
Arin tried to move. His limbs wouldn't obey. His thoughts felt like threads slipping through numb fingers.
The Liaison spoke quietly. Almost gently.
"You are not ready. But time has run out."
The hand touched his forehead.
The HUD exploded in white.
[System Lock Release Initiated]
[Core Access Level Granted]
[Protocol — VANGUARD]
[Awakening Phase Two Commencing]
Arin screamed — not from pain but from the overwhelming flood of something he could not describe, something raw and vast crashing through every part of him.
The ground split open beneath them.
The sky flared white.
And everything shattered.
The world did not return all at once.
It fractured.
Arin's senses came back in isolated shards — sound without shape, light without direction, motion without gravity. The ground beneath him felt like thin glass, humming with unstable energy. The sky above was no longer a sky at all, just layers of pale distortion swirling into a funnel of shifting color.
The shockwave of the Liaison's touch had dragged him into something else.
Not the rift.
Not the real world either.
Rhea's voice pierced the haze first.
"Arin!"
A hand gripped his shoulder, pulling him to his knees.
Shapes sharpened. Noise returned.
The ground stabilized beneath him — cracked stone, glowing faintly with blue veins as if alive from inside.
Kael stumbled upright nearby, coughing dust from his lungs. "What… what just happened? Did we get pulled inside the rift dimension?"
Rhea shook her head, eyes scanning the horizon. "No. This doesn't match any documented Riftspace zone." Her voice trembled. "This is new."
Arin pressed a hand against his forehead. The echo of the Liaison's touch still burned under his skin like a brand.
The HUD flickered again.
[Residual Sync Balance — 47%]
[Stability — Uncertain]
[Core Access — Locked Behind Trial]
A trial.
Of course.
The air trembled with another pulse.
From the swirling horizon, shadows began to take shape.
Dozens.
Then hundreds.
Their outlines wavered, like unfinished drawings given only partial form — humanoid silhouettes with jagged limbs and hollow centers where their faces should have been.
Kael raised his blade instantly. "Monsters. Riftborn, but… wrong."
Rhea stepped beside him, her staff igniting with a spiraling blue flare. "Arin. We need you focused. Whatever that thing unlocked in you might be the only reason we're still alive."
Arin forced himself upright, breath still unsteady. Something inside him pulsed in time with the strange new world — a rhythm not his own.
The figures began to move.
Slow at first.
Then faster.
Their bodies folded into impossible angles as they sprinted across the shifting ground, leaving streaks of warped air behind them.
Kael's tone hardened into pure combat instinct. "Positions. Now."
They formed a loose triangle without speaking — the pattern they always fell into when instincts took over. Rhea behind for ranged support, Kael at the right flank, Arin at the forward point.
Energy rippled through Rhea's staff. "I'm marking the first wave."
Arin tightened his stance, fingers flexing without a weapon.
But he felt power, raw and unsettled, rippling through his veins like molten current.
The first creature lunged.
Arin stepped forward automatically. His fist collided with the creature's shifting torso — and a burst of light rippled out from the strike, cracking the silhouette apart like stained glass breaking under pressure.
Kael blinked at him. "Since when can you do that?"
Arin stared at his own hand. "I… don't know."
The creatures surged in.
A wave of jagged forms descending at once.
Rhea pivoted. "Kael left side!"
Kael dashed, slicing through the first shadow, then the second. But each kill sent distortions spiraling into the air instead of corpses, fragments dissolving into the glowing ground.
Two more reached Arin.
He moved without thinking — a step ahead, a twist of the torso, a strike exploding with force he couldn't control. Each punch shattered another creature, sending waves of pressure rolling outward.
New HUD flashes filled his vision.
[Unassigned Skill — Manifestation Detected]
[Energy Output Increasing]
[Warning — Control Instability 82%]
The warning blurred as Arin pivoted into another strike.
His fist sliced the air — and a shock of light burst out in a clean arc, tearing through three creatures at once.
Kael stared. "What— what was that?"
Rhea's breath caught. "Arin you're not just syncing with the system anymore. You're drawing from the rift's core energy. That's not supposed to be possible for anyone."
More shadows poured out from the horizon — an entire tide now, sweeping toward them like a moving wall.
Kael spat out a curse. "We can't hold that many!"
Rhea's staff trembled with rising power. "Arin you need to try the new access the Liaison forced into you. See if you can reach it."
Arin nodded, steadied himself, and pulled inward — into the burning pressure beneath his skull.
The HUD responded immediately.
[Core Access — Boundary Test]
[Initiate?]
Arin whispered through clenched teeth, "Do it."
Light surged around him.
The ground cracked beneath his feet.
Air distorted.
The shadows halted mid-charge, suddenly cautious.
Kael stepped back instinctively. "What is happening to you?"
Arin felt something opening — a gate inside his own consciousness. Not painful. Just vast. Endless. Ancient.
Words formed on the HUD.
[Protocol — VANGUARD]
[Stage 1 Activation]
A pulse erupted from Arin's body, wide and dome-shaped, sweeping across the approaching swarm. Every shadow it touched convulsed violently, their forms glitching and splintering.
Rhea shielded her eyes from the brightness. "Arin stop that or you'll tear the entire plane apart!"
Arin tried.
He couldn't.
The energy was pouring out faster than he could control, pulled from the world around him.
More HUD text spilled through his vision.
[Overflow — Critical]
[Conduit Load — 96%]
[User Risk Level — Severe]
Kael sprinted toward him. "Rhea help me shut it down!"
They reached for Arin just as the next surge came.
Too late.
The world shook violently, cracks spiderwebbing through the sky itself. The ground lurched upward in plates, splitting into floating slabs.
The shadows dissolved completely.
A massive rupture formed in the distant horizon — a wound in space itself.
And through that tear
Something colossal began to emerge
A shape too large to understand at once
A presence that made the Liaison feel small
The HUD flickered violently.
[Awakening Escalation Detected]
[Phase Two — Interrupted]
[Emergency Transfer Required]
Rhea's voice pierced through the blinding light. "Arin hold on!"
Arin reached toward her hand — everything shaking around him — the world collapsing into spirals of distortion — the Titan-like presence dragging itself through the fracture — Kael shouting something he could no longer hear —
And the world blinked out.
Everything vanished.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Arin did not wake gently.
He snapped into awareness like someone dragged from deep water.
Cold air struck his lungs, sharp and metallic. His hands scraped against stone — smooth, polished, unnaturally perfect. The world around him was silent. Not quiet. Silent.
No wind.
No breath of earth.
No echo.
A soft glow pulsed from beneath him, casting long shadows across a vast, circular platform of pale silver. The air shimmered faintly, as if the space itself struggled to hold shape.
Arin pushed himself onto his elbows, heartbeat hammering from the memory of collapsing worlds and the monstrous presence pulling through the rift. For a moment he expected to see Rhea or Kael lying beside him.
They weren't.
He was alone.
A faint hum vibrated under the floor.
HUD text drifted into view, slower than usual, as if the system itself was cautious here.
[Emergency Transfer Completed]
[User Status — Stabilizing]
[Location — Undefined Zone]
[Designation — Holding Lattice]
Arin stood, legs unsteady. "Where… is this?"
His voice didn't echo.
The sound simply fell away, swallowed by the stillness.
A shape materialized several feet ahead — not abruptly, but like fog condensing into a form. A tall figure, robed in shifting layers of light, its face a mask of smooth silver.
Arin stiffened instinctively.
It wasn't the Liaison.
This presence felt older. Heavier.
A stillness that made the air tighten around him.
The figure's voice flowed like water beneath stone. "You survived the breach."
Arin braced himself. "Who are you?"
The figure tilted its head slightly. "Names are constructs for closed worlds. I do not inhabit one." It paused. "But you may call me the Warden. I maintain the thresholds between what you call realities."
Arin's pulse quickened. "Did you bring me here?"
"No," the Warden said. "Your own awakening forced the transfer. The Liaison overreached its authority, and the energy reacted." A flicker of disapproval crossed its tone — subtle but sharp. "You are not supposed to be brought into this space yet."
"Yet?" Arin whispered.
The Warden stepped closer. Its movements left faint streaks of light in the air, like afterimages carved in time. "Your growth is accelerating beyond any recorded sequence. That is not entirely your fault."
The HUD blinked with distorted text.
[Sync Irregularities Detected]
[Warning — Monitoring Adjusted]
Arin clenched his fists. "My friends—Kael and Rhea—are they safe?"
The Warden did not answer immediately. Instead, a ripple passed through the air as if the world inhaled.
Finally it said, "They remain in the collapsed field. Alive. For now."
"For now?" Arin stepped forward, frustration rising. "Send me back!"
"I cannot."
The words fell without emotion.
"Your current state poses an existential risk to any host zone you reenter."
Arin's heart slammed against his ribs. "Then stabilize me. Do whatever you have to. I need to get back."
The Warden lowered its hand, touching the air. Light expanded outward like a blooming flower, forming a shimmering sphere between them. Inside the sphere — a projection of the broken battlefield.
Rhea kneeling beside the fractured ground, searching desperately.
Kael pushing himself upright, fury in his posture as he scanned for Arin.
The titan presence still struggling through the distant tear.
Arin's breath trembled. "They're still fighting…"
The Warden's voice softened by a fraction. "You care for them."
"They're my team," Arin said. "Of course I care."
The Warden watched him with unreadable stillness. "Emotional anchors strengthen mortals. But they also destroy them." Its tone sharpened. "Your path will demand sacrifice. You must understand that."
"I don't accept that," Arin said immediately.
For the first time, the Warden paused as if evaluating that response.
Then: "Very well. Defiance is a trait common among Vanguards."
Arin frowned. "Vanguard… what does that mean?"
The Warden extended a hand.
Light spiraled upward, forming glyphs without sound — symbols shaped like living architecture, rotating slowly around a central pattern.
"This is the classification the system forcefully initiated within you. Vanguard. A conduit of raw dimensional force. A being capable of shaping thresholds rather than merely crossing them."
Arin felt something stir in his chest. Recognition without memory.
He swallowed. "Why me?"
"You were not intended," the Warden said. "You were chosen by interference."
"Interference from what?"
Silence.
The Warden's mask shifted slightly, like an unreadable expression.
"Your next test approaches."
Arin stiffened. "Test?"
The glyphs surrounding the Warden flared, casting spirals of light across the floor.
[Trial Construct Initiated]
[Purpose — Stabilize User Core]
[Outcome — Determines Future Access]
The platform beneath Arin trembled as rings of light lit up one by one, spreading outward in a massive pattern. The space around him darkened, revealing outlines of colossal shapes moving within the void — like statues half-formed, watching him from the shadows.
Arin raised his hands instinctively, energy crackling around his fingers without command.
"What kind of trial is this?"
"A trial of restraint," the Warden replied. "You have already proven your power. Now you must prove your control."
The floor split into six sections.
Each descended slowly into the dark.
Arin remained on a single raised platform, isolated.
Shapes emerged from the surrounding void — humanoid figures made of pure light, faceless but radiating pressure like compressed storms.
Six of them.
Equal distance apart.
Waiting.
Arin felt his pulse quicken. "I'm supposed to fight them."
"Yes," the Warden said. "But not with strength. If you strike them with full force, the trial ends in failure."
Arin blinked. "Failure meaning… what?"
"Your energy will collapse. And you will never return to your world."
Arin's chest tightened.
Kael's voice echoed in his mind.
Rhea's warning.
Their faces in the vision.
He set his stance.
The first luminous figure advanced.
Its footstep rippled the platform.
Arin inhaled sharply, trying to pull the raging energy inside him downward, into stillness, into grounding.
The HUD warned him again.
[Instability — High]
[Control Threshold — Inadequate]
Light erupted from the first figure's arm as it swung, creating a slicing arc that cut through the air with enough force to split stone.
Arin dodged, barely.
The second figure moved instantly, attacking from behind.
Arin pivoted, palms raised, trying not to release too much power — but the energy surged anyway, jumping out of his hand in a sharp burst that sent the second figure skidding back.
It cracked.
Not broke.
But cracked.
Arin's stomach sank.
[Warning — Output Exceeded]
[Trial Integrity — 8% compromised]
"Damn it—" Arin hissed, forcing himself to breathe.
The Warden spoke from the void, calm and absolute. "Control is not suppression. It is direction."
Arin dodged again, but the third figure was faster, slamming a fist toward his ribcage. He blocked with his forearm, the impact ringing through his bones.
Another attack.
Another strike.
Six figures now moving in brutal synchronization.
Arin's muscles screamed as he ducked under a glowing blade of light, sliding across the polished floor.
He needed control.
He needed to center himself.
But the energy inside him felt like a storm with a mind of its own.
The fourth figure lunged.
Arin caught its arm — held it — felt the pressure spike —
He forced a whisper through clenched teeth. "Slow… down…"
And for a heartbeat
the energy obeyed.
He redirected it, not outward, but inward — letting the force flow through his body instead of out of it.
The attack redirected itself, the figure's momentum carrying it off balance. Arin twisted and sent it sliding across the floor, not shattered, not destroyed.
The HUD flickered.
[Control Increase Detected]
[Stabilization +2%]
Arin exhaled.
Okay.
Good.
He could do this.
Then all six figures charged at once.
Arin's eyes widened.
"So much for pacing—"
He moved.
Faster than before.
Cleaner than before.
He bent beneath a sweeping arm, struck pressure points on glowing limbs without overloading them, redirected force with the smallest bursts of energy he could manage.
Each movement felt like walking a knife edge.
Too little energy and he'd be hit.
Too much and the trial would collapse.
The fifth figure slammed its palm toward his chest. Arin caught it with both hands, dropped into a low crouch, and used the momentum to swing the figure over his shoulder, sending it tumbling across the platform.
The sixth figure went for his throat. Arin deflected its arm with the back of his wrist, guiding the strike into empty space.
The HUD flashed again.
[Stability Increasing]
[Sync Balance Improving]
Arin's breath came in harsh bursts. Sweat rolled down his forehead. His arms felt heavy, his muscles burning. But something else burned too — something inside him aligning piece by piece, like a long-broken mechanism finding rhythm.
The figures circled him again.
But now he stood taller.
More centered.
More sure.
When they rushed him again
Arin didn't panic
He didn't overstrike
He didn't unleash
He guided.
A palm strike redirected.
A kick softened to a pushing motion.
A burst of energy compressed to a spark instead of a blast.
The Warden watched silently, the void swirling behind it.
Arin leapt, spun, redirected another attack, his motions flowing smoother with each passing second. The platform trembled as he slid under a glowing blade, pushed upward, and sent a controlled burst that flipped the attacker without breaking it.
The HUD surged with new light.
[Stabilization 62%]
[Critical Threshold Passed]
[User Condition — Improving]
Arin's chest heaved. "Is this… enough?"
The Warden raised a hand.
The six figures froze instantly, dissolving into streams of light.
The platform steadied.
The void settled.
Only Arin remained standing, trembling but alive.
The Warden stepped forward. "You have passed the first half of your trial."
Arin's eyes widened. "Half—?"
The Warden pointed behind him.
Arin turned.
A doorway of pure radiance had formed at the edge of the platform — tall, ancient, pulsing with deep rhythmic light like a heartbeat.
"Enter," the Warden said. "The second half awaits."
Arin swallowed hard, heart pounding.
But he stepped forward.
Because every step brought him closer to Rhea
Kael
And the world he refused to lose.
The Hollow Zone seemed to pull them inward as if the tunnels themselves wanted the intruders to keep going. The deeper they walked the more the walls shifted in quiet pulses of dull red light. A faint tremor shook through the ground every few steps and each tremor felt stronger than the last. Arin could feel something tightening around his awareness like invisible threads waiting for him to take one more step.
Rhea moved ahead slightly her eyes sharp and her breathing steady. "We are close. Whatever is resonating with you Arin is right beyond this bend."
Kael gripped his weapon tighter and scanned the ceiling. "I do not like how this place is watching us."
Nyra lifted her hand letting a soft flame hover above her palm as she whispered, "The mana flow here is unstable. It is not natural. It is reacting like a living thing."
Arin nodded but he could not shake the weight pressing against his chest. The HUD flickered at the edge of his vision as if preparing itself for something enormous. Each flick carried short flashes — distorted code shapes like shards of broken glass.
He took one step forward and the ground beneath them suddenly shifted with a deep groaning noise. Dust poured down from the ceiling. The walls pulsed once in a violent surge of crimson light.
Then everything snapped open.
The chamber ahead widened into an enormous circular hollow. At its center stood an immense obsidian pillar cracked with jagged red fissures spreading like veins. The air around it twisted in spirals. Tendrils of shadow slithered along the ground curling and uncurling.
Rhea whispered, "That is not a natural artifact."
Kael raised his weapon. "We should not be this close to it."
Nyra stepped back. "Do you feel that mana pressure? It is suffocating—"
Arin staggered as the HUD burst fully to life with a flash of light.
[Warning — Core Entity Detected]
[Resonance Level: 87 percent and rising]
Rhea froze. "Resonance with what? Arin what is happening?"
Arin tried to answer but a wave of force exploded from the pillar throwing all four of them backward. The shock slammed Arin into the ground but his body reacted on instinct. He rolled up trying to regain balance while the chamber shook under the pressure.
A shape rose behind the pillar.
A massive corrupted beast uncoiled itself. Its body formed from writhing tendrils and broken fragments of ancient armor floating around a skeletal frame. It had no face only a pulsing red core hanging inside its chest like a suspended heart.
The air cracked as it roared.
Kael shouted, "Formation now — Arin stay behind—"
But the creature lunged with impossible speed.
Arin did not think. He moved.
The HUD pulsed again.
[Skill Activation Suggested — Unknown Ability: Burst Step]
Arin felt something ignite behind his legs like compressed force exploding outward. He dashed sideways with speed he had never felt before the world blurring as he narrowly avoided the sweeping tendril that shattered the stone where he stood.
Rhea fired a bolt of shimmering energy that struck the creature and made it stagger but the beast recovered almost instantly.
Nyra raised her flames sending a burning spiral around the monster. Kael followed with a powerful strike that cracked part of its shell.
But the reaction was immediate.
The corrupted beast expanded its tendrils outward knocking the attacks aside and slamming Kael brutally into a wall. Arin sprinted forward catching his arm and pulling him to safety just as another tendril pierced the ground where Kael had fallen.
Kael grunted in pain. "That thing learns our movements."
Rhea gritted her teeth. "It is analyzing us."
Nyra clenched her fists. "How do we fight something that adapts faster than we attack?"
Arin stepped forward eyes locked on the pulsing core inside the beast. The resonance was overwhelming now pulling him toward it as if the creature were calling him.
The HUD responded.
[Core Synchronization Threshold Reached]
[Hidden Ability Unlocked: Echo Vision]
Arin's view shifted for a split second. Lines patterns and trajectories appeared like faint ghost-light tracing the creature's movements a heartbeat before it made them. Every tendril every pulse every shift in weight appeared in his mind as predictions.
Arin whispered, "I can see its attacks."
Rhea stared. "What do you mean—"
The creature lunged again but this time Arin moved before it attacked. He grabbed Rhea pulling her down just as a tendril sliced the air above her.
Nyra blinked. "Arin how did you—"
Arin did not answer. He dashed forward again weaving through the creature's chaotic movements as if he had rehearsed them a thousand times. The HUD kept guiding him with faint outlines of future motion.
He jumped onto a raised stone fragment and used it to leap toward the beast's chest. The core inside its ribs pulsed violently in response.
"Arin no it is too dangerous—" Rhea shouted.
But Arin was already midair.
The creature swung three tendrils toward him. Arin twisted just in time slipping through the predicted trajectory and landing directly in front of the glowing core. His fist clenched with every ounce of strength he had.
He struck the core.
A shockwave exploded outward hurling both him and the monster backward.
Dust filled the chamber as the ground split open beneath them. The beast shrieked in a distorted screech as cracks spread across its armor. The red glow inside it flickered violently.
Kael forced himself up. "Arin do it again finish it—"
But before Arin could move the pillar behind the beast blazed with overwhelming light.
A second resonance pulse erupted.
Arin's vision went white.
The chamber echoed with a deep voice that did not belong to any living thing.
[World Fragment Identified]
[Candidate Chosen]
[Initiating System Link Stage Two]
Arin fell to one knee clutching his head as new lines of code spiraled across the HUD. The corrupted beast convulsed violently and turned its full attention toward him again sensing the shift.
Rhea shouted his name. Nyra called for him. Kael tried to reach him.
But the beast was faster.
It charged at Arin with all its remaining strength the tendrils ripping open the ground as it launched forward in a final desperate assault.
Arin forced his eyes open. Echo Vision flickered unstable but still gave him one clear trajectory.
He prepared to dodge—
—but the ground collapsed beneath him.
The floor of the chamber crumbled away and Arin plummeted into a dark abyss as the corrupted beast roared above him.
Rhea's scream echoed through the collapsing cavern as Arin disappeared into the depths of the Hollow Zone.
And the last thing he saw before the darkness swallowed him was the HUD flashing violently:
[System Link Unstable]
[Core Candidate Falling]
[Proceeding with Synchronization]
The world faded.