The sky above Dominion was no longer serene.
It twisted with streaks of unnatural colors—colors that had no name, no origin. The aetheric currents were unstable, coiling into invisible storms felt only by the arcane attuned. Magi and watchers across the dominion murmured their prayers, sensing a shift, a wrongness in the world's breath.
Far below the surface, in Sublevel K-XIV, Kaen Valcarys sat unmoving within a Void sigil circle.
The darkness around him wasn't merely absence of light—it pulsed. It breathed. Null Fragment, cradled in his left palm, throbbed in eerie rhythm, casting faint tendrils of anti-light across the floor. No wind blew, no candle flickered, yet the room felt as if it were tilting into a place that didn't belong to this plane.
Wraith stood at the edge of the circle, silent. Ever since Kaen returned with the shard from Vel Arcanum, the lab had changed. No spell had been cast, but the very walls vibrated under the weight of something unspoken. The runes etched into the stone glowed faintly—then dimmed, then flared again—unable to find balance.
"You're not the same," Wraith finally said, his voice dry and metallic.
Kaen didn't respond immediately. His eyes remained closed, but the fragment pulsed faster, reacting to a thought only he understood.
After a moment, Kaen exhaled slowly.
"I'm listening."
"To what?" Wraith asked, though he knew the answer wouldn't come.
Instead of answering, Kaen let the silence speak.
---
Three days had passed since Kaen returned from Vel Arcanum.
Since then, he hadn't left the sigil ring. He hadn't eaten. Slept. Spoke more than a few words.
Reven had monitored the aether levels, recording fluctuations that made no sense. Readings spiked and dipped unpredictably. Sigils that should've remained inert came alive near Kaen—some even tore themselves apart, unable to handle his presence.
"It's not just Void energy," Reven murmured to himself. "It's... something rewriting the rules around him."
He knew better than to interfere. This wasn't mere recovery. It was a transformation.
---
Meanwhile, deep in the heart of the Dominion capital, thirteen chairs sat in a blackstone chamber carved in concentric rings.
High Chancellor Vyrric stood in the center, hands raised, manipulating a floating crystal projection. The image it displayed sent silence rippling through the chamber: Kaen Valcarys, stepping out of Vel Arcanum's ruins, Null Fragment in hand, his body wrapped in a slow-churning shroud of dark energy.
"He's alive," Vyrric said. "And worse—he's changing."
A woman in an emerald hood scoffed.
"Impossible. We burned his body, sealed his soul. You saw the ritual."
Vyrric turned his gaze on her, calm but heavy.
"You can destroy flesh. You can trap a soul. But will—true will—is a different force."
Another councilor leaned forward. "And what of the fragment? Is that what's destabilizing the ley-lines?"
"Yes," Vyrric confirmed. "He has it. And it's responding."
A pause.
"If he has merged with it… Dominion's control of this continent is over."
The words hung like a sentence passed.
---
Back in K-XIV, Kaen opened his eyes.
Around him, the Void runes began to disintegrate—quiet, graceful, as if dissolving into dust that didn't belong to this world. He rose, cloak sweeping across the floor.
Wraith stepped closer. "What did you see?"
Kaen didn't answer directly.
"I saw the pieces they thought I wouldn't remember."
"The moment they turned their blades. The exact faces. The true betrayer."
His voice was calm, but each word weighed like iron.
---
He activated the illusion chamber.
This time, it wasn't a training exercise. Kaen re-created the exact day of his fall—the day he and twelve of his closest allies stood against the Dominion's twisted laws, only to be stabbed from behind.
Holographic visages appeared. His old comrades. The battlefield. The final conversation before everything burned.
And then he slowed time.
He watched the betrayal frame by frame, until the blade entered his back.
Then—he rewound. Again. Slower.
This time, the Void in him peeled back the illusion. And he saw what he hadn't before.
The betrayer's eyes. Their hesitation. Their fear. Their... satisfaction.
Kaen clenched his fists.
"I see you now."
---
Later that night, in the command chamber, he summoned Reven and Wraith.
"I need three things," he said.
"First: reawaken my old intelligence networks. Second: activate the failed avatars from Sector North."
"And third..."
He raised his hand.
Void cracked the air around his palm as he tore open a dimensional fissure.
"Prepare a living soul for binding. I'm done using corpses."
Neither Reven nor Wraith questioned him.
---
Elsewhere—far beyond Dominion borders—a snowy cliff overlooked a dying forest.
Two cloaked figures stood in silence. They were not part of the Dominion. Not even this world, some claimed.
"He's returned," said one, shrouded in ice and crystal breath.
"With the fragment?" the silver-haired one asked.
"Yes."
"And if he fully merges?"
A long pause.
"Then not even we can stop what follows."
"Will we act?"
"Not yet. But when the veil tears... we choose: aid him, or bind him with the rest."
---
Back in K-XIV, Kaen re-entered the simulation chamber.
This time, he summoned his enemies—not shadows of memory, but full combat constructs of the Dominion's greatest Arkanists.
He faced them alone.
The first barrage of spells screamed toward him.
Kaen didn't move. Void threads curled around his body like tendrils of smoke. Every spell touched him—and vanished. Devoured.
He advanced one step.
One gesture.
The first illusion shattered. Then another.
Within seconds, the entire chamber fell apart, unable to sustain the combat protocol. The system shut itself down to prevent collapse.
Kaen stood amid the dust.
He hadn't broken a sweat.
---
He exited the chamber and sat in silence beneath the ritual archway.
Null Fragment pulsed in his palm.
For the first time... it spoke. Not in words, but in layered thoughts Kaen understood without sound.
You are ready.
Kaen didn't answer.
But a small smile crossed his lips.
"Not yet."
"I still have one thing left to do."
---