Reality twisted, and Astraeus felt his essence recoil as the fundamental laws of physics bent around the Ethereal's will. The air became thick, resistant, like trying to move through water. His teammates staggered, their movements suddenly sluggish and uncoordinated.
Move! Kha'Zul's voice cut through the disorientation. Don't let it lock you in place or you're dead!
Astraeus forced his essence to flow, pushing against the reality distortion. It was like swimming upstream, exhausting and inefficient, but it worked. He could move, barely.
"Scatter!" Darius shouted, his voice distorted by the warped space. "Don't give it a single target!"
The team split, each member diving in a different direction. The Ethereal watched with what might have been amusement, its too-perfect face showing no concern.
"Interesting. You have more will than most mortals. But will alone won't save you."
It gestured, and Thomas—who'd been moving toward the door—suddenly stopped mid-stride. His eyes went unfocused, his expression slack. He stood there, frozen, just like the civilians.
"Thomas!" Lyra screamed.
Don't look at it directly! Kha'Zul warned. Ethereal essence works through perception. The more you perceive it, the more influence it has over you!
Astraeus closed his eyes, relying on essence sense instead of vision. The Ethereal appeared as a blazing star of silver-white energy, overwhelming in its intensity. But at least this way, it couldn't trap him through eye contact.
"Clever," the Ethereal said. "But ultimately futile."
The reality distortion intensified. Astraeus felt his essence being pulled toward the rift, as if gravity itself had reversed. He anchored himself with earth essence, Lyra's specialty, creating a connection to the ground that kept him from being dragged away.
Kira was trying to reach Thomas, but the Ethereal raised its hand again, and she froze mid-step. Two down.
You can't fight it, Kha'Zul said urgently. Not directly. But you might be able to disrupt its connection to this realm. The rift—if you can destabilize it, the Ethereal will be forced back to its own dimension.
"How? That's not a void rift. I don't know how to seal Ethereal rifts!"
The principles are the same. It's a breach in reality's barriers. You seal breaches. Do it now, or everyone dies.
Astraeus gathered his essence and focused on the silver-white rift, trying to sense its dimensional frequency. It was completely different from void rifts—higher, more complex, almost musical in its resonance. But Kha'Zul was right: it was still a breach, still a wound in reality that could be sealed.
He began forming a Resonance Seal, matching the rift's frequency. It was harder than anything he'd attempted before, the pattern more intricate, the energy more volatile. Sweat dripped down his face as he worked, his essence depleting rapidly.
The Ethereal noticed. "Oh? You're attempting to seal my gateway? How ambitious. And how futile."
It moved toward Astraeus with impossible speed, one hand reaching for his face. If it touched him, he'd end up like Thomas and Kira—conscious but trapped in transcendent visions, his mind broken.
Darius intercepted, his sword swinging in a desperate arc. The blade passed through the Ethereal's arm without resistance, as if cutting through smoke. But the distraction worked—the Ethereal paused, turning its attention to Darius.
"Brave. Foolish, but brave."
Darius's eyes began to unfocus, and Astraeus knew he had seconds before losing his team leader too.
Now or never, Kha'Zul said. I'm going to help, but it'll reveal me. No choice.
Crimson-black essence erupted from Astraeus's shadow, Kha'Zul manifesting in his shadow form. The demon's presence was overwhelming, towering over Astraeus, his crimson eyes blazing with ancient power.
"You," the Ethereal said, its voice showing surprise for the first time. "A demon? Bound to a mortal? How... unusual."
Unusual? I'm a fucking Demon King, you pretentious light show. Now get out of my host's realm before I make you regret crossing over.
The Ethereal laughed. "A Demon King in shadow form, bound and weakened. You're no threat to me."
Maybe not. But I'm enough of a distraction.
Kha'Zul's essence merged with Astraeus's, and suddenly, the seal he'd been struggling to form clicked into place. The demon's three thousand years of experience guided his hands, corrected his technique, amplified his power.
The silver-white rift shuddered, its rhythm disrupted. The Ethereal's expression shifted from amusement to alarm.
"What are you—no! You can't—"
The seal completed, and the rift began to collapse. The Ethereal screamed, a sound that existed in dimensions Astraeus couldn't perceive, and reality itself seemed to crack under the strain.
The being's form became unstable, flickering between solid and translucent more rapidly. "This isn't over, mortals. I'll return, and when I do—"
The rift snapped shut with a sound like thunder, and the Ethereal vanished, pulled back to its own realm. The reality distortion collapsed, and suddenly, Astraeus could breathe again.
He dropped to his knees, his essence completely depleted, his body shaking from the effort. Kha'Zul's shadow form receded, but the demon's presence remained, a steady anchor in his mind.
You did it, Kha'Zul said, his mental voice tired. Against all odds, you actually did it.
The civilians collapsed, their strings cut. Thomas and Kira fell as well, their eyes clearing but their expressions dazed and confused.
Lyra rushed to Thomas, checking his condition. "He's breathing. Conscious. But he's not responding to me."Darius staggered over to Kira, who was blinking slowly, her face pale. "Kira? Can you hear me?"
"I... what... where..." Her voice was distant, disconnected.
Ethereal essence exposure, Kha'Zul explained. Their minds were touched by something beyond mortal comprehension. They'll recover, but it'll take time. Days, maybe weeks. And they'll never be quite the same.
Astraeus forced himself to stand, though his legs felt like water. He moved to the civilians, checking their conditions. They were alive, breathing, but their eyes were empty. Whatever they'd experienced had broken something fundamental in their minds.
"We need to get them out of here," Astraeus said. "All of them. Back to Thornhaven, to the guild healers."
"How?" Lyra asked. "We can't carry twenty people thirty miles."
"We send someone back for wagons and reinforcements. The rest of us stay here and protect them until help arrives."
Darius nodded slowly, his tactical mind reasserting itself despite the trauma. "I'll go. I'm the fastest runner, and I'm still combat-capable. Lyra, you stay with Astraeus—you're our best defense if anything else shows up. Thomas and Kira... just rest. Don't try to move yet."
"What about..." Lyra hesitated, looking at Astraeus's shadow. "What about Shadow? Everyone saw."
Astraeus met her eyes. "Shadow saved our lives. That's all that matters right now."
"Agreed," Darius said. "Questions can wait until everyone's safe. Astraeus, can you hold this position?"
"Yes. Go. Fast as you can."
Darius left at a run, his footsteps fading into the distance. Astraeus sat down heavily, pulling out an essence restoration potion and drinking it. The liquid was bitter but effective, his depleted pool slowly beginning to refill.
[ESSENCE: 0/90 → 30/90]
Lyra sat beside him, her expression troubled. "That thing... what was it?"
"An Ethereal. A being from another dimension, like Voidborn but different. More dangerous."
"And Shadow fought it. Helped you seal the rift."
"Yes."
"Shadow is more than just a protective spirit, isn't he?"
Astraeus was too tired to lie effectively. "Yes. But he's bound to me, and he's kept me alive more times than I can count. That's all you need to know."
Lyra was quiet for a long moment. "Okay. I trust you. But Astraeus... that thing said it would return. And it mentioned other projects. This isn't over."
"I know."
She's right, Kha'Zul said. That Ethereal was testing something, experimenting. The three simultaneous rifts, the different types of breaches—someone or something is coordinating this. The dimensional crisis isn't random. It's planned.
"By who?"
That's the question, isn't it? Ethereal Lords? Void entities? Something else? I don't know. But whoever's behind this, they're powerful enough to open multiple rifts across different dimensional frequencies simultaneously. That's god-level capability.
Astraeus looked at the unconscious civilians, at Thomas and Kira's dazed expressions, at the empty space where the rift had been. They'd won, barely, but the cost was high. And this was just one rift out of seven.
How many more would there be? How many more impossible fights would they face?
One at a time, Kha'Zul reminded him. You can't save everyone. You can't fix everything. But you can survive, grow stronger, and eventually become powerful enough to matter. That's the path. That's all you can do.
"It doesn't feel like enough."
It never does. But it's what you have.
Astraeus closed his eyes and focused on recovering his essence. Darius would return with help in a few hours. Until then, he had to stay alert, ready to defend the survivors if anything else came through.
The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the waystation. In the growing darkness, Astraeus kept watch, his essence slowly regenerating, his mind replaying the fight.
They'd survived. Against an opponent far beyond their level, they'd survived.
But survival wasn't victory. The Ethereal had escaped, would return, had other projects in motion. This was just the beginning.
And somewhere out there, someone or something was orchestrating a dimensional crisis that threatened all of reality.
Astraeus had wanted to be strong enough to matter.
Now he was beginning to understand just how strong that would need to be.
[QUEST COMPLETE: SURVIVE THE ETHEREAL ENCOUNTER]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 500]
[LEVEL UP! LEVEL 6 → LEVEL 7]
[NEW SKILL ACQUIRED: ETHEREAL RIFT SEALING (BASIC) (1/100)]
[WARNING: PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA DETECTED IN TEAM MEMBERS]
[RECOMMENDATION: SEEK PROFESSIONAL HEALING AND COUNSELING]
He dismissed the notifications and kept watching the darkness.