The sanctuary trembled.
It wasn't an earthquake.
Not wind.
Not pressure.
But something deeper — like the air itself was remembering fear.
Kaien stepped out from the meditation ring, his body still sore from the Rift-Echo battle. He knew the feeling in his chest wasn't just adrenaline.
Something had arrived.
Something ancient.
Varen appeared beside him without a sound.
"The Nullhound," he said.
Kaien nodded. "How close?"
"Already breaching the fold." Varen stared at the horizon, eyes glowing faintly. "We have minutes."
Kaien tightened his gloves. "You said I wasn't ready."
"You're not," Varen said. "But I never was either."
☼ Riftfront – Sanctuary Perimeter
The sky cracked like broken glass, then peeled outward.
Through the rip surged a thing — not entirely beast, not entirely machine. It crawled on six reverse-jointed limbs, each step distorting space beneath it. Its body was blacker than void, coated in shifting, anti-light scales. Where a head should be was a floating shard — a fractured mirror that reflected Kaien's worst fears back at him.
The Nullhound had no eyes.
It didn't need them.
It saw Riftsignatures — and Kaien burned like a beacon.
Varen stood still, hands behind his back.
"This is your trial," he said. "Your core must choose: fight, fold… or fall."
Kaien stepped forward.
The Nullhound screamed — a sound that twisted the folds of space like they were paper.
⚔️ Rift Combat Initiated – Kaien vs Nullhound
Kaien folded sideways, dodging the creature's initial pounce. He countered with a spatial blade, slicing at its flank — only for the blade to unravel, unmade by the Nullhound's aura.
"It erases structured energy," Varen called. "Don't give it form. Give it chaos."
Kaien closed his eyes for half a second.
Space wasn't a weapon — it was a current.
He opened a tear above himself and fell upward to dodge the next strike, reappearing behind the hound. He let his own weight become a weapon, condensing gravitational pressure around his fist.
CRACK!
The punch landed. The Nullhound reeled, but didn't bleed.
Instead, it split in half — not dead, but duplicating.
Kaien's eyes widened. "It's adaptive?!"
"No," Varen said grimly. "It's hungry."
Kaien dropped low, arms coated in distortion fields, trying to suppress structure and become formless like the Rift.
The Nullhounds circled him.
Too many angles.
Too little time.
He touched the Riftcore — not to draw power, but to submit.
For one instant, he let himself collapse into space.
And space answered.
He reappeared above the battlefield in a scatter-fold, raining fragmented versions of himself downward in a spiral. Each echo struck one Nullhound — a barrage of unpredictability.
The creatures shrieked and folded inward, unable to find a pattern.
Kaien landed again, hands burning.
The last Nullhound twisted, wounded — then lunged.
This time, Kaien didn't dodge.
He opened a rift inside the creature.
A perfect collapse.
BOOM.
The beast crumpled — not killed, but sent into a permanent loop of folding space where it could never reform.
The sky rippled shut.
Varen finally stepped forward.
"Well done," he said.
Kaien dropped to one knee, panting. "I almost died."
"Yes," Varen said. "And next time, you might. But now the Rift trusts you."
Kaien looked at his hands. The tremble was gone.
Replaced by something deeper.
Anchor.
Varen crouched beside him. "Your Core has awakened its second trait."
Kaien blinked. "What trait?"
✦ [Riftcore Evolution: Voidwalk Unlocked]
Voidwalk – Allows Kaien to momentarily exist outside dimensional time, slipping between folds where attacks cannot follow. Requires focus and rapid re-anchoring, or risk complete spatial desync.
Kaien looked to the horizon — to the Council's distant towers beyond this fold.
"They'll send worse, won't they?"
Varen stood, his voice colder now.
"Yes. And not all of them will be beasts."
End of Chapter 6.