The landscape around them shimmered in hues that defied earthly comparison—dark lavender skies swirled with threads of molten gold, and the air itself seemed to breathe, pulsing like a living entity. Kael stood at the threshold of a world he never knew existed, yet something deep within him responded as if it had always been waiting.
This was the Boundary of Fractured Realities, a dimensional nexus whispered about even in the archives of the Ancients—where timelines collapsed into themselves, and the dreams of long-dead civilizations bled into the present.
Beside him, Lira adjusted the tuning prism embedded in her gauntlet. "We're not supposed to be here," she said, her voice strained but firm. "This place was sealed by the Architects during the Fall. They feared what it might release."
Kael's gaze swept over the spiraling ruins ahead. Some structures floated in the air, tethered by glowing vines of energy. Others seemed to phase in and out of existence. He felt the Protocol stirring inside him, reacting violently—fluctuating between layers of commands, some of which weren't even written in a language he recognized.
"This is where I was pulled to… during the second Trial of Echoes," Kael muttered. "But it was fragmented, like glimpses from a dream I couldn't hold onto."
Lira gave him a sharp glance. "You never told me that."
"I wasn't sure it was real," he admitted. "Until now."
They pressed forward cautiously. With each step, the very ground beneath their feet shifted—solid one moment, liquid the next. Sounds echoed oddly here, delayed and sometimes reversed, like time itself couldn't make up its mind.
Suddenly, a sharp chime rang out from Lira's gauntlet. "Resonance spike. Something's stabilizing… or waking up."
Kael looked up—and froze.
Hovering above them was a colossal sphere of obsidian, cracked down the middle, with light leaking from within like divine plasma. Inscribed around it were countless glyphs—some matching those burned into Kael's spine during the Ascension Rite.
And then the voices began.
Not spoken—felt. Thoughts projected into their minds from something ancient and broken.
"You bear the key… the core fragment… the corrupted seed…"
Kael's knees buckled. The words drilled into his skull like fire. The Protocol activated defensively, erecting mental barriers, but they crumbled as fast as they were formed.
"The Order betrayed us… We were the architects of Ascension… until they bound us here…"
"Stop!" Kael roared, his voice cutting through the psychic onslaught. The glyphs on his body ignited with a blinding white flame. Lira grabbed his shoulder, grounding him.
The sphere cracked further.
Out of it fell a figure—humanoid, barely. Cloaked in shadows, with glassy crystalline skin and no visible eyes, the entity hovered inches off the ground.
Lira stepped forward, blade drawn, but Kael raised his hand. "No. He's… not hostile."
The being spoke—not in words, but through resonance. It felt like a memory playing inside their hearts.
"You are Kael of the Broken Sigil… carrier of the Fragmented Protocol… I was once High Executor Zareth of the ProtoOrder. We built the first stairway to godhood. And we were punished for it."
Kael swallowed hard. "Why show yourself to me now?"
Zareth's outline flickered. "Because you are not like them. Your Protocol is not bound by the Fail-safes. You have bled across timelines. You remember what they made you forget."
Kael's mind flashed—images he didn't understand. A child screaming under blue lightning. A woman's face, erased by fire. An army of faceless warriors bowing before a broken star.
"I don't understand," he said, trembling.
"You will," Zareth responded. "But know this: The Ascension you seek is not singular. It is not a destination—it is a war. And your choices will either shatter the multiversal chain… or bind it anew."
A deep rumble shook the sky. Cracks spread outward across the dimensional horizon. Reality was destabilizing.
Zareth turned his gaze toward the sphere. "This prison is breaking. I have one truth to offer before I fade."
He touched Kael's forehead. A surge of raw data flowed into him—memories, blueprints, forbidden equations, and a name:
The Devourer of Threads.
Kael staggered back. "What is that?"
Zareth's form unraveled, like ash on a stellar wind. "It wakes, Kael. It remembers you. Run."
The moment Zareth disappeared, the ground screamed—a sound that had no right to exist in any universe. Lira yanked Kael's arm. "We need to move—now!"
They sprinted through collapsing corridors of shifting architecture. Debris hovered midair, frozen by temporal anomalies. Kael gritted his teeth as the Protocol realigned his physiology on the fly—adapting to keep him whole.
They burst through the dimensional gate they had entered through just as the entire realm imploded behind them, sucked into itself like a dying star.
Panting on the other side, Kael stared into the void. "The Devourer… it's real."
Lira didn't respond immediately. She looked at him, eyes fierce. "And it remembers you."
Kael nodded slowly. "We need to find the rest of the Fragments. Before it does."
Behind them, the sigil on his back glowed ominously.
The next war wasn't just across realms.
It was within every version of reality ever written.And Kael had just re-opened its first chapter.