To be born with nothing in a world where power is everything… Is that not the cruelest curse?
Kael Virex, The Zero-Rank
The stars above the Vortex Realm never moved. They hung motionless like dead gods watching a cursed planet from above. Beneath that unmoving firmament floated a shattered kingdom of skyborne islands massive iron rings drifting around the husk of an ancient world.
And at the very bottom of this world, where broken things were buried and forgotten, a boy knelt.
His knees bled upon rusted steel. His breath came in ragged gasps. Around him stood armored men in obsidian exosuits, their circuit-blades humming with blue fire. The Purifiers of the Core.
Kael Virex, born Zero-Rank, a voice boomed, distorted through a nexus mask. You are hereby condemned to execution for corruption of system order and failure to Awaken.
The boy raised his head. His hair was ashen gray, matted with grime. His eyes were strange not fierce, but... haunted. And yet, when he opened his mouth to speak, his voice was unshaken.
Then strike me down, he said. Let the system feast on your obedience.
Gasps rippled through the circle. One of the Purifiers stepped forward. His blade thrummed louder.
No Core. No worth. No future, the masked man snarled. You were born Zero-Rank, a glitch in the divine Nexus. Your soul was rejected by the Aether. That makes you a curse.
Kael didn't flinch. His eyes rose to the sky above a sliver of light filtered through the junk above the execution pit.
Even curses have roots, he whispered. They just grow in dark places.
AETHER STATUS: OFFLINE
> ⚠ No Core Detected
⚠ Skill Panel Inactive
⚠ Ascension Rank: NULL
Above the pit, high within Ring 1's dome, nobles and technocrats watched through floating screens. One old man in gold-trimmed robes, Lord Vael of the Rank Council, sneered.
Pity. The boy had the look of a fighter, he said. But one cannot bloom without Aether.
He's dangerous, muttered a younger woman beside him, her hair braided with digital beads. He survived the Core Trial longer than anyone without a Core. It shouldn't be possible.
That's exactly why he must die, Lord Vael said. A Zero that resists the system is a threat to order itself.
Back in the pit, the Purifier lifted his blade. The humming grew louder, resonating like a screaming star.
Any last words, anomaly? the Purifier asked.
Kael smirked a bitter, broken thing.
Yeah, he said. You might wanna move.
The Purifier paused. What—?
The floor beneath Kael exploded.
Not from his hands he had no power. Not from his voice he had no magic.
But from something deeper. A ripple in the data. A scream in the Nexus itself.
The execution field lit up with violet static. Circuit-lines across the steel cracked and surged. One of the observers shrieked, their system panel suddenly melting into corrupted runes.
The Purifiers staggered back, systems flashing red.
Kael stood.
And floating before him… was a fragment of glowing, blackened crystal.
A shattered Aether Core.
It pulsed like a heartbeat.
Kael blinked. The air around it warped. Then without any code or chant the core merged into his chest.
The system screamed.
AETHER SYSTEM: GLITCH DETECTED
> INITIATING… CORE ABSORPTION
STATUS: CORRUPTED
Rank Assigned: UNDEFINED
Skill Panel Unlocked: MANUAL OVERRIDE
PRIMARY CORE: GLITCHWEAVER
Kael fell to one knee. A surge of light and pain crawled through his veins like fire stitched with knives. Images flashed memories not his own. Faces, wars, circuits cracking.
The Purifiers cried out. One of them lunged.
But Kael's hand moved before his mind caught up.
A blast of black-violet data exploded from his palm a raw circuit line, unshaped, unstable.
It hit the Purifier in the chest and sent him flying into the pit wall. Sparks danced across his armor as it shorted out.
Kael blinked.
I… I have a panel, he whispered.
Then he laughed.
The sound echoed through the pit wild, raw, beautiful.
In the control tower above, alarms blared. Nexus windows shattered in midair.
He's fused with a corrupted core! one technocrat screamed.
But that's That's impossible!
Lord Vael stood in silence, eyes wide.
A Zero-Rank just absorbed dead Aether, he murmured. This shouldn't be…
He clenched his fist. Sound the purge. Kill him before the Glitch spreads.
Back in the pit, Kael stumbled, still trembling with the aftershock. But his system panel floated before his eyes, blinking erratically.
> SKILL CIRCUITS: OFFLINE
SYSTEM STABILITY: 18%
RANK: ZERO (Modified: NULL+)
FUSION OPTION: UNLOCKED (Experimental)
Kael smiled at the flickering screen.
Let's see what the system does… when it meets something it can't classify.
He turned as the Purifiers regrouped, rage in their voices and blades.
But Kael was already sprinting through the broken wall, into the rust tunnels beyond.
He vanished into the darkness, leaving only chaos behind.
☁ INTERLUDE: In the Depths of Code...
In a realm where code bled and memory floated like dust, a voice stirred.
…He activated the Glitchweaver Core.
After all this time…
The last Zero rises again.
And far away, in a place where light and logic refused to obey, a digital ghost opened her eyes.
Kael Virex, she whispered. Welcome to the breach.