Varkai: Arc I — Ashes of the Shatterworld
The wind bit into his skin like the gnawing of dull teeth. For two days, Vrakon had wandered without rest, dragging his feet through the dust-choked spines of an unfamiliar land. The sky above was pale and cracked, hanging like a broken mirror with its edges glowing faintly red. He had eaten nothing. Drunk nothing. Yet his steps never slowed.
There was something in him—something deeper than reason or hunger—that kept him moving.
The broken spear clattered against his back with each step. Its head was missing, shattered in the Bonebeast fight, and now it served more as a memory than a weapon. His hands were scraped, his cloak torn, and shadows clung beneath his eyes. But there was no fear in them. Only forward.
Dead trees bent like old men across his path. Black moss crawled up their bark, whispering the Pulse-death that lingered across Varkai. No birds. No insects. Only the echo of breath.
Then—water.
A glint between two scarred ridges. He stumbled toward it, disbelieving, but it did not vanish. A lake. Perfectly still.
The air around it buzzed faintly, as if the Genesis Pulse itself vibrated through the roots and the wind. Vrakon fell to his knees at the bank, his reflection staring back at him—hollow, gaunt, but alive.
He did not drink. Something in his core refused it.
The surface rippled.
He stood.
From the shallows, a shape emerged. At first, it looked like a fallen tree rising on its roots, but then it stepped forward—its limbs twisted with bark-flesh, thorned joints creaking. Vines coiled like muscles, and from its spine bloomed curved spears of bonewood.
A Verdant Pulse creature. Core-Born.
Its eyes—two glimmering seeds of green—locked onto him. Not hunting for food. Hunting for something deeper. Pulse.
Its mouth unfurled. Roots snapped.
Vrakon moved.
He barely rolled aside before a Verdant Lance ripped through the earth where he'd stood, thudding into the dirt with a pulsing hum.
He had no weapon. No real power. His Genesis Pulse still flickered unsteadily within him.
But he had the Spiral.
The creature advanced with brutal elegance, vines lashing forward like whips.
He twisted under one, narrowly avoiding the barbs, and countered with a broken shaft jab—useless. Another Thorn Coil erupted from the soil, snaring his ankle. Vrakon fell hard, breath knocked from him.
As the creature loomed above, preparing to skewer him, something shifted inside his mind. Not a voice. Not a memory. A reaction.
Spiral Instinct.
He spun on the ground, forcing his leg free with a snap of Pulse-force that cracked the vines apart. He launched upward, twisting, slamming his shoulder into the beast's torso.
It roared—not in pain, but fury.
Vrakon leapt back, panting. His eyes flicked to the terrain. A low ridge. Loose stones. One chance.
The beast raised both arms, vines writhing.
He charged it.
Too fast.
A misstep. His heel skidded.
The Verdant Lance shot forward, grazing his ribs and hurling him back toward the lake.
The world spun.
He landed in the shallows, gasping. The water was colder than death.
The creature didn't pause. It surged after him.
He rose, chest heaving, blood soaking his side.
And then the earth gave way.
Both combatants fell into the lake's depths.
---
There was no sound beneath.
Only the weight of thought, unraveling.
Vrakon sank, eyes wide, limbs weak.
The lake was more than water. It was Soul Echo—a dreamwell forged from ancient Pulse remnants, left behind by fallen wielders. A place where the lost came to be forgotten.
Images flared around him: a battlefield of white fire; a child standing atop a spire; hands soaked in starblood.
Not his memories. Not fully. But echoes.
He fought to breathe, but there was no air. Only silence.
And within that silence, a spiral pulsed. Not a shape—but a truth. A path.
He reached for it, even as his limbs failed.
---
The surface broke.
Vrakon gasped, thrashing, lungs burning.
The lake spat him out, as if rejecting his soul.
He dragged himself to shore, skin pale, eyes glazed.
The creature did not surface.
He lay there, half-dead, until the Pulse inside him surged like fire through his veins.
Then came the pain. The burning. The reformation.
His body seized. His chest glowed. Something inside him cracked—
—and solidified.
A Genesis Core, faint and spiral-marked, now pulsed behind his sternum.
Vrakon had crossed the veil.
He was no longer just a spark.
He was Core-Born.