The cabin groaned under the hum of the engines. Shadows shifted across the walls, broken only by a faint light spilling through a narrow panel seam.
Ash sat alone, the weight of a wakizashi resting across his lap.
It was no ordinary blade. The steel curved short and cruel, its edge catching the dim light like a sliver of black stone cracked from the earth itself. Fissures ran along its surface, not marks of damage but the strange birthright of its forging.
It was the one thing his mother had left behind. The only shape of her he could still touch.
Ash was no longer the boy who had knelt in the mud before her grave. His body had grown lean, his shoulders broader, but his face carried the stillness of someone who had forgotten what warmth looked like. Black hair hung messily over darker eyes, and his plain shirt clung to his frame as though it too had been worn past its time.
His gaze lingered on the blade, hollow and far away, as if it contained the answer to a question the world refused to speak.
A sudden slap struck his back.
The wakizashi clattered against the floorboards. Ash snapped upright, eyes wide. He had thought himself alone. He had been too lost in the blade to notice footsteps enter the room.
He turned.
Beside him stood another young man. Slightly older, slightly taller, his face a mirror of Ash's if not for its expression. Where Ash's features sharpened with cold indifference, this one carried an arrogant curve, a frown and a smile drawn together. His black hair caught the light, but a single red streak burned through the centre, as if marked by fire itself.
Ash's voice cut through the silence.
"Kael? What are you doing here? I thought you and Max were still talking over the mission."
Kael stretched, his yawn loud enough to seem careless.
"Oh, that. We already came to a conclusion. Max says we're doing it the boring way. Stealth. He thinks drawing attention would be suicide in a place like this."
Ash pushed himself up from the chair, his movements heavy, deliberate.
"Yeah. Makes sense."
He bent, retrieved the fallen wakizashi, and lowered himself back into the seat. The steel lay across his hands again, and his eyes sank into it, as if the world beyond had no colour left.
Kael's sigh filled the room.
"That face. Don't tell me—you were thinking about Mom again."
Ash froze. His grip tightened on the hilt.
"No. I mean… maybe a little. I was just remembering. The first time I stepped into my soul space, four years ago. And…"
His voice caught. His gaze slipped lower, until the words dragged out of him.
"And the day we buried her."
Kael's jaw tightened. A growl rumbled out of him.
"Two years, Ash. Two years of rampaging, bleeding, breaking yourself apart, and you still cling to it. Mom's dead. She's not coming back. You have to live with that, or it'll eat you alive. Just forget her."
He turned, striding for the door. The panel hissed and slid aside with a low mechanical sigh. Before stepping through, he glanced back, his voice clipped, stripped of softness.
"Oh, right. The real reason I came. Max said to remind you, check your soul space. Those creatures we fought last mission might've tampered with your Soulcores. Make sure they're stable before we reach the site."
Ash gave a small nod. Kael vanished beyond the door, leaving silence in his wake.
The cabin seemed heavier without him.
Ash looked down at the blade across his lap. His thumb brushed the cracked steel.
"How could I forget her? That idiot…"
He closed his eyes.
When they opened again, the world was gone.
Black water stretched in every direction, a vast stillness without end. It lapped around his ankles, swallowing his reflection, swallowing light itself until the surface became a mirror carved from night.
He stared down.
The reflection stared back.
Same black hair hanging loose, same dark eyes, same clothes. But where Ash breathed, shifted, lived, the other did not move. Its gaze cut into him, steady, unblinking, touched with a faint curl of disdain, as if the very act of Ash's existence offended it.
Ash did not flinch. He had grown used to this other self.
Beyond the water, the horizon trembled.
Three suns burned in the dark.
One blazed with fire, spilling molten orange waves that hissed and sizzled against the endless sea.
Another cracked with stormlight, veins of blue lightning writhing inside a sphere of glass.
And the last was shadow itself—a spiraling black sun that devoured the light of the others, a wound torn open in the sky.
Ash lifted his head. Above him, the same three orbs glared down, fixed and eternal, as though the heavens themselves had been shackled in their orbit.
He had seen them countless times before. They no longer surprised him.
The calm pressed in, thicker than silence, until it felt heavier than sound itself.
Then a voice stirred across the water. It was his voice, yet not his own.
Ash's eyes lowered. The reflection's lips moved, and the words it shaped were words he already knew, as if carved into his bones.
[SOUL RECORD]
Name: Ashley Burns
Origin: Middle Realm
Race: Human
Soul Type: [Fire], [Lightning], [Dark]
Soul Stage: 1st
Vessel Tier: 5th
Soul Pool: 89% (3000 / 3000)
Soulroots: [4]
Soulbound: [0]
Soul Skills: [7]
Vessel Traits: [0]
The litany dragged through his mind like chains rattling underwater. Familiar, unchanging, unbroken. He had heard it too many times to need it spoken. If he wished, he could carve every word from memory alone.
There was no glowing panel. No holy seal. Only his reflection and the endless black sea.
He breathed in.
And let it slip away.
"What was I expecting…" His voice was low, thin against the void. "I'm still trapped. Not a single change in this place."
His eyes rose, fixing on the black sun spiralling above. For a moment, he thought it shifted, the sky breathing with it. Then he closed his eyes.
And when he opened them again, he was back in the cabin.
The wakizashi still lay across his lap, weight steady, unchanging. The cushioned chair pressed against him, narrow armrests on either side. Beneath his feet the ship's engines murmured, deep and ceaseless, a sound like a beast carrying them through the void.
For a long moment, he did not move. The silence of the soul space had followed him out, a hollow echo in the cabin's hum. He was adrift between two voids—the one within and the one without. The memory of Kael's words and his reflection's disdain coiled in his chest, a familiar, cold knot. This was the feeling that usually lingered for hours.
A soft beep cut the stillness.
Ash glanced at his wrist. The metal band there pulsed once, then spilled its pale shimmer upward, folding into a floating pane of light. The glow cast sharp edges across the dim cabin.
One name blinked.
[Evy. 3 messages]
He tapped it. The words poured out, each tagged with small hearts that softened the screen, though they only seemed to deepen the shadow in his chest.
[Ashley… how was it? Your first mission? Tell me everything. Was it fun? You didn't get hurt, did you?]
[You're too slow. I told you to always message me back.]
[Ashley… come on, answer me.]
[Are you avoiding me now?]
Ash's mouth curved. Not a smile, not fully, but something close enough to remember what it felt like.
"She hasn't changed. Still clawing me out of the dark. And… damn it… it's working."
Ash tapped the last message. A keyboard shimmered into being, the pale light flickering across his eyes. His fingers hovered for a moment before he began to type.
"Oh, sorry about that. I didn't know the last mission would drag this long. Right after, we were sent into another. The first… what can I say? It was rough. Even getting into the region would've been impossible without Kael. Cartooncall birds everywhere. Should've expected it, with the mountains.
"When we reached the settlement, it only got worse. The target was a Tier 5. Spitting out Tier 2 spawn like rot splitting a carcass. A lot of people died. But not my brothers. And I'm still standing, even after falling off a mountain. So you don't need to worry."
He paused, then continued.
"We're on our second mission now. This one's in space. Not the big operation my father went to, just a scout run. Headquarters picked up Apex scouts near a massive asteroid, almost moon-sized. We're supposed to find out why they're there. Max says stealth. If we're careful, it'll be nothing."
He hesitated, then ended it simply.
"Hope you're well back in the city. I miss you all."
The message slipped away. The glow dimmed, leaving him in the low hum of the ship.
Then another pulse.
[Evy. 1 message]
Ash exhaled. His mouth tilted faintly.
"Didn't think she'd still be awake."
He opened it. Hearts bloomed across the screen, their glow spilling warmth against the cabin's dim walls.
[Finally. I thought you were ignoring me. I didn't even read your long message yet, it's funny how you always write like that. Don't stop, I like it. Oh, and guess what? I finally awakened my Soul Space. I know, I'm a late bloomer… but isn't it good news that I finally did it?]
Ash's eyes widened. His fingers struck the keys at once.
[That's… good. No, that's great. Now you can finally enter the Ascended Academy.]
Her reply came quick, impatient, alive.
[Yeah. And most importantly, I'll be able to protect you now. I can't wait to join Team Vortex and fight beside you.]
His lips curved again, faint but real.
[Protect me? I don't need protecting. Just focus on your future. And yes, if you finish the Academy, you'll get into Team Vortex.]
[Yeah… maybe. Good thing I took sword lessons from you. Mom still wants me to learn the spear, but I want to fight like you. Damn it, speak of the devil, she's making me join her private class right now.]
[Right now? Isn't it too late for that?]
[It's a late-night online session. She says discipline can't wait. I'm being forced. I'll talk to you later. Love you, Ashley.]
The words lingered on the pane.
Ash sat there in the hum of the ship, the wakizashi across his lap, her last words echoing against the silence.