The laboratory had gone quiet—eerily quiet.
Even the hum of ancient runes seemed to fall silent as Kaen stood alone before the resurrection pod of Subject Nine. The container, long cracked and partially corroded, held a figure that resembled both a man and a beast—clad in withered flesh fused with metallic growths and Void corruption.
Reven had stepped away hours ago to stabilize the outer wards. But Kaen remained still, his gaze never leaving the barely-breathing abomination in the pod.
> "Free will," he whispered again.
> "Let's see what you do with it."
He pressed his palm to the sigil pad, and black aether surged like veins through the crystalline matrix. The pod hissed. The glass peeled back. The figure inside convulsed once, twice… then opened its eyes.
They were wrong.
Not eyes. A single eye—a molten sphere of shifting light, deep within a mess of scars and exposed nerves.
It stared at him without fear.
Without confusion.
Just… awareness.
Kaen took a step back.
> "Speak."
The voice that emerged was broken, rasping—but coherent.
> "Where… am I?"
> "Who… are you?"
Kaen didn't smile.
> "Your new name is Wraith. And you're free."
---
Hours later.
Within the inner chamber of K-XIV, Kaen observed Wraith through a translucent barrier of Voidglass. The prototype's movements were erratic, twitchy. It examined its own hands as if seeing flesh for the first time. Occasionally, it would shiver violently, as if reliving pain embedded into memory.
But Kaen wasn't disturbed.
He had expected worse.
Reven stood beside him once more.
> "Its mind is fragmented," the construct said. "But there's clarity at the core."
Kaen nodded.
> "Let it explore. Don't restrain it."
> "If it becomes unstable?" Reven asked.
> "Then we learn something new."
He turned away.
> "Sometimes, monsters become prophets."
---
Elsewhere, far above the underground ruins…
Storms gathered over the western edge of the Dominion. Not natural ones. But storms of raw magic. The clouds churned not with rain, but with stray spells and surging mana currents that made the sky groan.
At the heart of it stood a spire blacker than the void—The Silent Pillar.
Inside, cloaked figures knelt in a spiral around a central platform. The smell of blood hung thick in the air.
An offering had just been made.
A woman approached the center. Robes of crimson. Veins glowing with inner light. Her face obscured behind a veil of pure energy.
She raised her arms, voice cold and certain.
> "The Eye has awakened."
> "Valcarys is rebuilding."
> "And he is not alone."
A hush fell over the circle.
Then one of the kneeling figures spoke.
> "Shall we act?"
> "No," the woman replied. "Not yet."
> "Let him rise. Let the world believe in him again."
> "Hope is the sweetest wine… before betrayal."
---
Back at K-XIV, three days later.
Kaen's project had expanded.
The first Void Avatar had completed its reconnaissance. Seven new coordinates had been retrieved—abandoned towers, ancient ruins, and forgotten shrines where Dominion's past sins festered.
Each location contained materials once lost—scrolls, core fragments, soulstones—enough to revive his forbidden arsenal.
But one site stood out.
> "The Obsidian Archive," Kaen muttered, eyes narrowed.
It had been a myth even during his peak. A hidden vault beneath the old capital—lost when the city fell during the Great Cleansing War.
Reven chimed in.
> "If it exists, it's buried beneath at least nine strata of collapsed leyline sediment."
> "Magical excavation would alert half the Dominion."
Kaen didn't hesitate.
> "Then we don't excavate."
> "We infiltrate."
---
That night, Kaen meditated before a pool of liquid aether—his cloak spread behind him like wings. From the pool rose faint visions. Faces. Names. Memories. Some were enemies. Some… once friends.
But all of them would bleed if necessary.
> "This world," he murmured, "still believes in lines."
> "Lines between good and evil. Dominion and rebellion. Order and chaos."
> "But power does not care."
> "And neither do I."
The pool flared—and in its reflection, Kaen no longer looked entirely human.
---
The infiltration began two days later.
The Obsidian Archive was sealed beneath the ruins of Vel Arcanum, once the capital of magical governance before Dominion.
Now, only rubble remained above ground.
But beneath…
Legends said the Vault still whispered.
Kaen arrived at twilight, accompanied only by Wraith.
The creature had changed—grown in shape and stability. It now moved with eerie grace, and its single eye glowed brighter.
> "Keep watch," Kaen ordered.
> "If I don't return in two hours, collapse the entrance."
> "And detonate the fallback sigils."
> "Understood," Wraith replied.
Kaen descended into the depths.
---
The old capital was a maze of collapsed stone and pulsing leyline cracks. Ghosts of old enchantments still lingered—traps long dormant that flared with sudden heat as Kaen passed. He disarmed them with casual flicks of Void-touched will.
He had walked these halls in dreams before.
Now he was home.
Deeper and deeper he went.
Until finally—he found it.
A door.
Or rather… a wound.
Not physical. Not magical. But spatial.
It shimmered like oil on water, pulsing in rhythm with Kaen's heart.
He reached toward it—and the world pulled him through.
---
On the other side was nothing.
Not darkness.
Nothing.
Kaen floated in a space of silence and stillness, where time had no meaning.
And yet… something existed there.
A whisper.
A presence.
Then—
> "You've returned."
A voice. Feminine. Ancient. Familiar.
Kaen turned slowly.
A figure formed before him. Not human. Not beast. A blend of both. Draped in stars. Eyes like collapsing galaxies.
> "Do you remember me?" she asked.
Kaen stared, unblinking.
> "You were the voice in the seal."
> "The one they warned me never to listen to."
She smiled.
> "And you listened anyway."
> "Because you're not like them."
> "You were born from death."
> "And in death… you will reign."
---
When Kaen emerged back into the real world, hours had passed.
But in the Void Between, centuries could've gone by.
He was changed.
Eyes darker.
Aura heavier.
And in his palm, he now held a shard of pure concept—a Null Fragment—the kind of artifact that could erase reality in a hundred-meter radius if unleashed.
Wraith approached.
Paused.
> "You're… different."
Kaen didn't answer.
He simply raised the shard toward the sky—and smiled.
---