---
Kael's steps echoed down a narrow service tunnel, forgotten beneath the slums. Pipes overhead dripped black coolant, and the air smelled of static and metal rot.
The Void Engine guided him.
> [ Anomaly: Subterranean energy field. Origin: Pre-Empire. Access level: Redacted. ]
> "Good," Kael muttered. "Even I tried to bury this place... in my last life."
He followed the flicker of entropy deeper, past collapsed ducts and rust-eaten platforms, until he stood before a massive sealed door. Once sleek and silver, it was now cracked, half-swallowed by the earth. On its surface, a symbol long erased from history:
🔻A triangle encased in a ring of stars — the insignia of the Void Research Division.
His division.
---
> "Open," he said.
The Void Engine pulsed.
[ Biometric bypass initiated. Neural imprint match: 76% compatible. Access granted. ]
The door groaned open.
Inside: darkness.
And power.
---
He stepped into a wide chamber lined with shattered containment pods and broken data cores. Holographic screens flickered with corrupted images — diagrams of energy maps, ancient cultivation models, blueprints of tech too advanced for this era.
> "This is where it began…" Kael whispered.
> "Where I proved that entropy can be shaped. That Void isn't absence… it's potential."
---
He moved to a central console, wiping away dust.
> [ Memory core partially intact. Reconstructing...]
A flicker of light shimmered above the console — a grainy holo-recording played:
> "Subject 13-A: Kael Vire. Progression exceeds baseline by 200%. Void threads responding to marrow-binding protocols. Recommend full neural merger—"
> "—Negative. It's too unstable. You'll kill him."
> "He's not just a test. He's the key to Ascension."
The recording cut.
Kael stared at the fading image of his own body strapped to a table.
> "They were trying to ascend without permission. That's why they killed me."
He turned back to the console.
A sealed compartment opened with a hiss.
Inside: a black crystal, pulsing faintly — like a heartbeat.
---
> [ Relic identified: Proto-Void Core. Cultivation focus. Incompatible with standard qi systems. ]
Kael lifted it.
The moment he touched the crystal, energy surged through him. Memories of lost techniques, forbidden formations, shattered theories — all rushed back in waves.
The crystal dissolved into his palm.
His spine arched. Light flared through his veins. Symbols etched themselves into his bones — not runes, but Void Script, ancient letters that reshaped his body's cultivation pathways.
> [ Evolution triggered. Core Structure: Reformed. ]
[ New Tier Achieved: Void Ascendant — Phase 1 ]
[ Traits Gained: Reality Perception +20%, Void Pressure Field, Memory Echoes ]
Kael dropped to one knee, gasping.
Then rose.
> "They buried power here because they feared what it could become."
He turned toward the exit.
> "Let them fear again."
---