The Veyruun Archaea stretched outward like a spiral web suspended in starlight, layered in concentric rings of power and pressure. These layers — or Strata — determined not just geography, but destiny. From the First Strata, where reality barely shimmered with energy, to the Third Strata, where even ambient wind whispered arcane secrets, each tier housed those strong enough to survive the burden of their own existence.
Access was brutal in its honesty:
Tiers 0–3 could survive the First to Third Strata.
Tiers 4–6 reigned from the Fourth to Sixth.
And Tiers 7–9? They bent existence itself in the Seventh to Ninth Strata, places where even the laws of causality begged for mercy.
But today, amid the chaos and sanctity of the Third Strata, a woman had once again proven that cosmic order had very little control over bad decisions.
"I swear on my great-grandmother's claws, I was this close to winning back the pot!"
A metallic boot cracked against the rocky edge of a ruined rooftop, sending pebbles skittering into the wind as Xena Vael'thari vaulted over the side, landing with a thud that echoed up the street. Her braid flared behind her like a tail of dark fire, trailing shards of sapphire light — a trait common among her kin, the Ryvalis, a nomadic race evolved from war and blood-rites, blessed with strength and cursed with compulsion.
Gambling, unfortunately, was Xena's favorite compulsion.
Behind her, a horde of irate debt collectors — half of them wielding broken scrolls, the other half swinging molten blades — tore down the alley after her.
"You bet a Leviathan fossil! A real one!" one of them screamed.
"I thought it was a replica!" Xena yelled back, hopping onto a half-sunken statue, ricocheting from its head to a signboard, and then crashing through a tailor's awning with all the grace of a tipsy lightning bolt.
"You can't just pawn off mythical relics and run, Vael'tari!"
Xena tucked into a roll and came up with a smirk, dusting off her crimson jacket — more patches than fabric at this point.
"Technically, I didn't run. I tactically retreated."
The air shifted. Her pursuers had split. One dropped from a rooftop just behind her, swinging a crescent axe. She ducked low, grabbing a rusted pipe from the ground and smashing it into the attacker's knee.
"Also, that guy owed me ten sovereigns for elbowing me during dice night," she muttered, knocking him into a wall.
Her escape route was narrowing. The skyline trembled with spiritual pressure. The longer she lingered in the Third Strata, the more the Realm seemed to tighten around her. Even her Ryvalis blood, attuned to combat, was beginning to hum with warning pulses. She needed to leave.
Now.
Bleeding from a cut above her brow and limping from a twisted ankle, Xena reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a small obsidian triangle, etched with glowing green veins.
A dimension slip-shard.
One-time use. Anchored to the Second Strata.
"…This is gonna suck," she sighed, crushing the shard in her palm.
Reality cracked like glass under her boots.
Elsewhere — near the Anchor Gate that shimmered with trials endured — Aarav stood silently.
He had survived three brutal trials. Solved a rune-path labyrinth that bent time, fought shadow beasts bred for ruin, and watched an ancient memory of a cosmic war unfold inside his mind — a memory that wasn't his but felt like it always had been.
Now, at the center of a carved stone platform veined with ancient script, stood a portal. Its borders shimmered with both spiraling starlight and writhing flame — echoing the two powers that now resided within him. They hadn't stopped fighting since he made his choice.
Inside, Aarav could feel his body change, and he could feel it hurt.
Every cell was at war. Every breath tested his will. And now, he had to take the next step into a deeper strata of this realm — the place where survival wasn't a matter of skill, but of identity.
His foot hovered above the portal's threshold.
"…No turning back now."
The moment before he stepped through, the skies above the Second Strata shimmered violently.
Unseen to him, Xena tore through the layered clouds in a plummet of flame and fractured light, the echo of a sarcastic scream echoing into the clouds:
"IF I SURVIVE THIS, I'M NEVER GAMBLING A DRAGON TOOTH AGAIN!"