The air before Wonko's smoky form began to warp more intensely, the distortion growing violent and chaotic. What had started as gentle ripples now churned like the beginning of a storm, the gray atmosphere twisting and folding in on itself with increasing aggression.
Elijah took an involuntary step back as the warping intensified, resembling nothing so much as a miniature tornado forming in mid-air. The vortex spun faster and faster, pulling wisps of the surrounding gray light into itself, creating a funnel of energy that hummed with barely contained power. The sound was low and resonant, vibrating through Elijah's chest, making his teeth ache and his bones feel like they were resonating in sympathy.
Then, with a sudden *snap* of released tension, the tornado stabilized and transformed.
The chaotic spinning resolved into a clear, stable projection window—larger than before, perhaps eight feet wide and six feet tall, hovering in the space between Elijah and Wonko with perfect steadiness despite having no visible means of support.
And within that window, imagery began to play.
The first scene materialized with crystalline clarity: a vast training ground, its boundaries indistinct and fading into darkness at the edges, the kind of space that suggested either a massive indoor facility or somewhere that existed outside normal physical constraints.
At the center stood a single practitioner—a man, though his features were indistinct, more suggestion than detail, as if the projection cared more about the essence of what was being shown than specific identity.
Around him, circling like predators sensing weakness, were a dozen opponents. They moved with clear hostile intent, weapons visible in some hands—swords, staffs, knives—while others relied on empty-handed techniques, their postures aggressive and ready.
But the master—because that's clearly what he was—did not react with fear or heightened alertness. His breathing remained perfectly steady, visible as faint movements of his chest and shoulders, the rhythm unhurried and controlled. No quickening of pulse, no tension in his muscles, no widening of eyes or defensive hunching of shoulders.
Around his body, barely visible at first but becoming clearer as Elijah's eyes adjusted to what he was seeing, particles of light vibrated. They were tiny—motes of brilliance no larger than dust particles—but they were everywhere, forming a cloud that extended perhaps six inches from his skin in all directions.
And they pulsed. In. Out. In. Out. The rhythm perfectly synchronized with the master's heartbeat, visible in the gentle throb of his neck veins, creating a harmony between internal biology and external manifestation.
When the first opponent attacked—a woman lunging forward with a blade aimed at the master's throat—his response was immediate but seemed to occur in slow motion despite being faster than normal human reaction time could account for.
He shifted his weight, minimal movement, and the blade passed through the space where his throat had been a fraction of a second earlier. Not a dodge so much as a relocation, as if he'd simply chosen to be somewhere else without the messy intermediate step of traveling between positions.
His counterattack flowed from that same motion—his hand moving in a perfect arc, palm striking the woman's extended elbow with precise force. The impact was soundless, or nearly so, producing only the faintest whisper of contact. But the effect was immediate: her arm folded, her momentum redirected, and she tumbled past him, falling with the boneless collapse of someone whose nervous system had been temporarily overridden.
More opponents rushed in, their attacks coordinated, coming from multiple angles simultaneously to prevent any single-focus defense.
And again, the master moved—or rather, *existed differently*—allowing strikes and slashes to pass through spaces he no longer occupied while his own responses emerged from pure, focused intent. No emotion colored his movements, no anger or fear or even satisfaction. Just perfect, crystalline clarity of purpose and action.
The world around him seemed to slow—not for the opponents, who moved at normal speed relative to themselves, but from the master's perspective. Time itself appeared to dilate in his immediate vicinity, giving him infinite space to observe, calculate, and respond to threats that would overwhelm anyone operating at normal temporal perception.
Colors muted in his presence, everything taking on a slightly washed-out quality except for the white shimmer that surrounded him—that cloud of vibrating particles that condensed and intensified with each movement, each breath, each heartbeat.
He fought not through anger or fear or any emotion at all, but through perfect equilibrium—a state of being that transcended normal human psychology, achieving something closer to the dispassionate awareness of a natural force like wind or water.
Wonko's voice emerged from everywhere and nowhere, narrating over the imagery with the tone of a teacher explaining fundamental concepts.
"This is the Quantum Veil Realm," the smoky figure said, its cartoonish features arranged in an expression of satisfaction at having a captive audience. "The state where emotion is released from combat, where the practitioner achieves perfect separation between feeling and action. The particles you see—those are quantum filaments, the practitioner's own bioelectric field made visible and controllable through discipline and training."
The projection showed the master finishing his engagement—the last opponent falling, all twelve scattered across the training ground, none dead but all thoroughly defeated—and the scene began to fade.
"In this realm," Wonko continued, "time perception dilates not through supernatural means but through absolute mental clarity. When the mind is free from emotional interference, it processes information exponentially faster. What appears to be superhuman speed is actually the removal of psychological barriers that normally slow decision-making."
The projection shifted, the previous scene dissolving like watercolors in rain, bleeding away to reveal something new.
This new practitioner—a different figure, gender indeterminate, features again indistinct—stood in what appeared to be a meditation chamber. The space was minimalist, empty except for the figure, with smooth walls that reflected sound and light in complex patterns.
And the figure was *humming*.
Not vocalizing deliberately, but emanating sound simply by existing. Each movement of their body produced a tone—low bass frequencies when they executed a powerful kick, the leg moving with controlled force. High, crystalline resonance when their palm struck forward in an open-handed technique, the vibration traveling up their arm and emanating from the point of contact.
The air around them became visible—not as particles like with the previous master, but as wavefronts, concentric circles of disturbance that pulsed outward from their body with each motion. The waves were faint but unmistakable, like dropping stones in perfectly still water, the ripples spreading in perfect geometric patterns.
When opponents entered the scene—three of them, approaching from different directions with clear aggressive intent—something remarkable happened.
The practitioner didn't touch them. Didn't need to. As the opponents came within range of those pulsing wavefronts, their movements faltered. They staggered, balance disrupted, their attacks losing coordination and power. Not from physical impact, but from something deeper—their internal rhythms thrown into chaos by the dissonance between their own frequencies and those being emitted by the practitioner.
The practitioner's skin began to glow softly, not with light exactly but with some quality of visibility that made them more present, more solid, more *real* than everything around them. And from that skin, circular wavefronts pulsed outward more powerfully now, visible distortions in the air that carried that humming resonance.
"The Internal Concord Realm," Wonko narrated, its tone carrying notes of appreciation for the technique being displayed. "Here, the body itself becomes an instrument—a living tuning fork that can resonate with or disrupt the natural frequencies of everything around it."
The practitioner in the projection moved through a kata—a formalized sequence of movements—and each technique produced its own distinct tone, building into something that resembled music but was clearly more than mere aesthetics.
"Every material object," Wonko explained, "every living thing, vibrates at specific frequencies. When a practitioner achieves Internal Concord, they learn to match those frequencies—or to deliberately clash with them. You saw how the opponents staggered? That was their own bioelectric fields being thrown into discord by vibrations calculated specifically to disrupt human nervous system function."
The practitioner's breath synchronized perfectly with every vibration emanating from their body—inhale producing one frequency, exhale producing another, creating a binary pulse that felt somehow fundamental, like the rhythm of existence itself.
"In this realm, sound is not merely heard—it is felt, experienced, *become*. The practitioner and their environment are no longer separate entities but parts of a single resonating system."
Again the scene faded, colors bleeding away, shapes dissolving.
The third projection formed differently. Where the previous two had appeared in ordinary spaces, this one emerged within something artificial—a large dome structure whose walls glowed with subtle illumination, lines of light tracing complex geometric patterns across the curved surface.
A simulation chamber, clearly, though far more advanced than any training facility Elijah had ever seen or heard of.
Within that dome, figures of pure light materialized—humanoid shapes composed entirely of luminescence, their features and forms clearly artificial but their movements unnervingly natural. They were projections, Elijah realized, hard-light constructs or holograms designed to mimic real opponents.
At the center of the chamber stood the practitioner—this one's features slightly more distinct, showing a face that suggested youth, perhaps early twenties, though the expression carried the gravity of someone far older.
And they were *glowing*.
Their veins were visible through their skin, not in the disturbing way of severe illness or injury, but as pathways of brilliant light—gold mixed with electric blue, creating a network that mapped their circulatory system in luminous detail.
When they moved, something extraordinary happened.
Filaments of light—thin strands like spider silk made from pure radiance—were drawn from the air itself into the practitioner's body. They entered through skin, through breath, through the eyes, converging on the practitioner and being absorbed into that glowing network of illuminated veins.
And from those absorbed filaments, patterns emerged. Geometric shapes manifested in the air around the practitioner—perfect hexagons arranged in honeycomb structures, spirals that followed the golden ratio with mathematical precision, fractals that repeated their patterns at every scale from microscopic to meters wide.
When the hard-light opponents charged—five of them attacking in coordinated sequence—the practitioner raised one hand in a gesture that was part defensive and part something else entirely.
The opponents' bodies began to distort. Their smooth, humanoid forms became pixelated, breaking down into component blocks of light that flickered and struggled to maintain coherence. Reality itself seemed to stutter around them, their movements becoming jerky and uncertain, as if the very code defining their existence was being corrupted.
The practitioner didn't touch them. Didn't strike or grapple or evade. Just *existed* with sufficient intensity that the artificial constructs couldn't maintain themselves in proximity to his biofield—the invisible but clearly powerful electromagnetic signature his body was projecting.
"The Bio-Orrhion Alignment Realm," Wonko said, and now its voice carried something approaching reverence. "The state where body, mind, and environmental energy form a living synthesis. What you're seeing is a practitioner who has learned to interface directly with Orrhion—the fundamental energy that exists between matter and consciousness."
The patterns around the practitioner grew more complex—hexagons connecting into larger structures, spirals interweaving with fractals, creating forms that hurt to look at directly because they suggested dimensions that human perception wasn't equipped to process.
"At this level," Wonko continued, "the distinction between self and environment begins to break down. The practitioner doesn't merely exist within reality—they become a node that reality must route around, a living equation that rewrites local physical laws through nothing more than trained awareness and will."
The scene showed the hard-light opponents collapsing entirely, their forms dissolving into formless luminescence that was then absorbed into the practitioner's glowing network of veins, adding their energy to his reserves, creating a feedback loop of power that seemed both beautiful and deeply unsettling.
The projection began to distort then, the stable imagery fragmenting. The edges of the window grew fuzzy, then pixelated, then started to break apart entirely. The scenes within flickered—the Bio-Orrhion practitioner appearing, then vanishing, then reappearing in a different position, their form stuttering like corrupted video data.
Colors bled into each other, the clear distinctions between different visual elements blurring into an impressionist smear. The sound—which had been accompanying the imagery, the hum of the Internal Concord practitioner, the whisper of the Quantum Veil master's movements—became distorted, pitching up and down randomly, creating an auditory mess that grated against Elijah's ears.
And then, with a final pulse of that gray withering light that permeated this constructed reality, the projection dissipated completely. The window collapsed inward on itself, shrinking to a point before vanishing entirely, leaving only the empty gray space and Wonko's smoky form hovering before Elijah.
Elijah stood silent for a moment, his mind struggling to integrate what he'd just seen, to fit it into any framework of understanding that made sense with the world he thought he knew.
Finally, he spoke, his voice carrying a mixture of incredulity and sarcasm that he didn't bother to suppress.
"Wait, so let me get this straight. There's some kind of martial arts mysticism bullshit out there—people who can slow time through 'emotional equilibrium,' who can emit disruptive sound frequencies from their bodies, who can *rewrite local reality* through force of will and some kind of energy manipulation. And you're telling me—" he gestured at himself, at his exhausted, confused, hunted self, "—that I'm connected to all of this? How? Why?"
Wonko's cartoonish face arranged itself into an expression that might have been amusement or might have been pity—it was hard to tell through the constantly shifting smoke.
"Boy," it said, and the word carried that condescending weight that made Elijah's jaw clench with irritation, "the only thing I can tell you about what I just showed you is that those are the original fundamental arts of the ancients. What you saw—those realms, those techniques—they're fragments of knowledge that predate modern civilization by millennia. They represent what humanity once knew and has largely forgotten."
The figure paused, its form consolidating slightly, becoming more present, more solid.
"But there is another force out there in the world," Wonko continued, its tone shifting to something darker, more ominous. "A force that is very ambitious and very dangerous, because they want to gain the power of immortality and access to pure energy unrestricted by physical form. And they've already taken steps toward achieving that goal. Significant steps."
The gray space around them rippled in response to Wonko's words, as if the environment itself was reacting to the gravity of what was being said.
"Through this—"
Another projection began to form, smaller than before, perhaps three feet square, appearing directly in front of Elijah at eye level. But instead of showing complex scenes of practitioners and combat, this one focused on a single object.
An orb.
It appeared to be made of silver, or something with silver's luster, its surface impossibly smooth and reflective. The orb pulsed once—a visible contraction and expansion, like a heart beating—and from that pulse, motes of light emerged.
The light was colorless, or rather, it contained all colors and none, existing in some state that made it visible without having definable hue. The motes began to thread together, weaving into visible patterns that suggested structure and intentionality.
As Elijah watched, transfixed, the orb released more of its essence—a stream that shimmered between phases of matter. It looked simultaneously like gas (translucent, flowing freely), like liquid (coherent, forming droplets and streams), and like something else entirely (thought made visible, consciousness given form).
The stream was primarily silver, the same hue as the orb, but shot through with violet—deep purple threads that spiraled through the silver like DNA helixes, creating a double-helix pattern that pulsed and breathed as if alive.
Every particle within that stream pulsed in perfect rhythm. And as Elijah focused on it, he realized with a start that the rhythm matched his own heartbeat. *Thump-pulse, thump-pulse, thump-pulse*. His biological processes somehow synchronized with this projection, this artificial construct, creating a feedback loop that made the boundary between observer and observed feel dangerously thin.
Wonko's voice emerged again, taking on the quality of a priest delivering sacred liturgy, reverent and weighted with significance:
"Behold, the Orrhion Condensate—the eternal breath that binds will and substance. Where essence meets perception, Orrhion flows, giving weight to the invisible and voice to the unseen."
As the words were spoken, as if responding to some cue, the condensate stream flowed toward a projected figure—a generic humanoid form that had appeared in the corner of the display. When the silver-violet stream made contact with the figure, effects rippled outward.
The air around the figure distorted, bending like light passing through varying densities of atmosphere. The ground beneath—or rather, the projection of ground—transformed into something resembling rippling glass, a mirror-like surface that reflected not just images but possibilities, showing multiple versions of the same space overlaid and flickering.
Threads of light—golden and white and every shade between—emerged from both the ground and the space above, connecting heaven and earth through the figure, making it the conduit, the bridge between fundamental forces.
The figure's body began to glow from within, the Orrhion Condensate spreading through its system, illuminating it from the inside out until it resembled nothing so much as a living star, a being composed more of light and energy than flesh and bone.
"This," Wonko said softly, "is what bridges consciousness and matter. This is the substance that exists in the space between thought and reality, the medium through which will becomes action without the intermediate steps of mechanical force. This is what they seek. This is what they've learned to create, to manipulate, to weaponize."
The projection held for a moment longer—the glowing figure, the connecting threads, the rippling ground-mirror—then began to fade. The colors dulled, the luminescence dimmed, and the entire display collapsed inward until nothing remained but that gray, withering light that seemed to be the default state of this constructed reality.
Silence fell. Heavy, weighted silence that pressed down on both of them—or on Elijah, at least; it was unclear if Wonko experienced such things as oppressive quiet or psychological weight.
Seconds passed. Then more. The silence stretched uncomfortably, begging to be filled, demanding that someone speak, that the tension be broken before it became unbearable.
Finally, Elijah found his voice. It came out quieter than he intended, uncertain, the sound of someone afraid of the answer but needing to ask anyway.
"Wait. This Orrhion Condensate... isn't that the weird orb thing I—or should I say you—made me create in the Biogenics lab? The thing they're now claiming I stole?"
Wonko's smoky form rippled, the movement suggesting either amusement or annoyance or perhaps both simultaneously.
"Boy," it said, and the condescension was back in full force, "there is much you shouldn't know now. Ignorance, in your case, is a form of protection. Even if you knew too much, it wouldn't do you any good—in fact, you would die quickly. Knowledge, at your current level, is a vulnerability more than an asset."
The figure consolidated further, becoming almost solid in its presence, its cartoonish features arranged in an expression of grim seriousness.
"The forces that want to use this Orrhion Condensate aspire to become almost deity-level beings. Though I doubt they can truly reach that level—only one person in thousands of years of recorded history has ever achieved genuine divinity through Orrhion mastery. And when that person succeeded, when they reached that transcendent state, the world should have entered an age of unprecedented prosperity."
Wonko's tone shifted, taking on notes of genuine sadness, of loss that felt personal and profound. The figure actually seemed to sag slightly, its smoke-form losing some of its coherence, wisps trailing off into the gray surroundings.
"Unfortunately," it continued, and now that sadness was overwhelming, filling each word with grief, "some beings ended up taking out that person before prosperity could ever reach this land. They killed enlightenment itself because it threatened their power, their control, their carefully constructed hierarchies. And the world has been lesser ever since."
The last words were delivered with a sigh—an exhalation of smoke that rippled through Wonko's entire form, a visible manifestation of ancient sorrow.
Elijah processed this, tried to fit it into any historical or mythological framework he knew, and came up empty. "What do you mean by that? What are you even saying? If this enlightened person was taken out by these 'beings,' then why aren't the current forces afraid of suffering the same fate? Why would they pursue the same path if it led to the last person's death?"
Wonko's expression flickered—the sad features transforming in an instant to pure rage. The smoke churned violently, darkening from reddish-black to almost pure black, the form expanding and becoming more threatening. The cartoonish eyes blazed with light that carried heat, and for a moment Elijah thought he'd pushed too far, asked the wrong question, triggered some violent response.
But then, just as quickly, the anger drained away. The smoke lightened, the form contracted back to its normal parameters, the features smoothed into that neutral approximation of calm. The transformation was so fast it might have been imagined, except Elijah had definitely seen it, had felt the temperature of the gray space spike during that moment of fury.
"Where," Wonko asked, its voice carefully controlled now, each word measured and precise, "do you think this Orrhion Condensate came from? What do you believe is its origin?"
Elijah opened his mouth, then closed it. Opened it again, understanding dawning with sick certainty. "Don't tell me—"
"Yeah, that's right," Wonko interrupted, and now satisfaction colored its tone, pleasure at Elijah reaching the correct—and horrifying—conclusion on his own. "Without those beings, this Orrhion Condensate would have never come to be. Never existed. Never been even theoretically possible."
The smoky figure began to pace, its form gliding back and forth across Elijah's field of vision without actually moving its limbs—just the position shifting while the form remained static, creating an unsettling effect.
"The Orrhion is power that is not of this world," Wonko continued, building its explanation piece by piece. "It originates from outside your reality, brought here by entities whose existence predates humanity by eons. And if those beings were good, if their intentions were benevolent, then yes—the Orrhion could have been used to elevate this world to genuine prosperity. Health, longevity, abundance, enlightenment—all possible through proper application of Orrhion energy."
It paused, letting that hypothetical paradise hang in the air for a moment.
"But unfortunately, the agenda behind its introduction to this world is one of pure evil. The forces you're tangled with, the organizations and families and secret societies that have pursued Orrhion mastery—they're consumed by greed. Blinded by their desire to reach the level of those beings, to achieve that deity-status immortality. They've become puppets without even realizing it, dancing on strings held by entities they think they're learning from but are actually serving."
Wonko stopped its pacing, turning to face Elijah directly, its presence somehow more imposing despite not having changed size.
"The deal that was struck between those beings and certain human bloodlines, made centuries ago in secret rituals that most of history has forgotten—that deal was for nothing less than the enslavement of humanity itself. The forces would provide human sacrifices to these beings for as long as they demanded. And in exchange, these forces would be given command of the Orrhion Condensate, access to its power, the knowledge to manipulate it. A trade: human lives and autonomy for personal power and the illusion of control."
The implications settled over Elijah like a heavy blanket, suffocating in their scope. Centuries of manipulation. Hidden masters pulling strings. His entire world—everyone's entire world—shaped by agreements made by people long dead for purposes that served only a tiny elite and their inhuman masters.
He struggled to find his place in this vast, terrible tapestry. "How is this connected to me? Why am I involved? I'm nobody—just a researcher who—" he stopped, the memories of his actions as Azaqor flooding back with fresh clarity and shame, "—who killed people. Who committed murders for revenge. But that was my choice, my actions. What does any of this have to do with ancient deals and entities from outside reality?"
Wonko's face arranged itself into an expression of contempt so profound it was almost painful to witness even on those cartoonish features.
"Fool," it spat, the word carrying more venom than should have been possible from a voice that had no physical source. "Those Azaqor manuscripts you used to commit your senseless murders, to gain your petty revenge against people who wronged you—do you really think you just found them? That your adoptive parents just happened to discover ancient texts that perfectly suited your psychological needs and emotional wounds?"
Elijah's stomach dropped, ice flooding his veins.
"That was an evil spell," Wonko continued, relentless, each word a nail being driven into Elijah's understanding of himself. "A curse placed on you, probably when you were too young to understand or resist. The more murders you committed under the Azaqor identity, the more blood you spilled in pursuit of your revenge, the more that spell would have fed on your actions. It was transforming you—converting your life energy, your essence, into something else. Some weird amalgamation of consciousness and power that would eventually have become fully autonomous."
The smoky figure leaned closer, and Elijah could swear he felt heat from it despite knowing it wasn't truly physical.
"The spell would have fed on the despair and murderous aura you generated and the despair of your victims. It would have grown stronger with each kill, each traumatized survivor, each broken family. Eventually, when you'd killed enough, when the spell had accumulated sufficient energy, it would have consumed what was left of Elijah Marcus entirely. And in your place would have been an evil entity—a construct of condensed negative emotion and death-tainted Orrhion, feeding on suffering and spreading more suffering in an exponential cycle."
Elijah's face underwent a transformation. His expression, which had been moving between confusion and shock as Wonko explained, suddenly twisted into something ugly—a contortion of features that combined horror at what he'd almost become with rage at having been manipulated so completely.
His mouth pulled into a grimace that showed teeth, his eyes going wide then squinting almost shut, his eyebrows drawing down and together in sharp angles. His skin flushed red, blood rushing to his face with emotion too powerful to be contained. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, trembling with the urge to strike something, anything, even though there was nothing physical to strike at.
"You're telling me," he said through clenched teeth, each word forced out with visible effort, "that everything I did—William's death, framing Viola, the entire Azaqor identity—all of it was part of some spell? That I was just a puppet being transformed into a monster to serve purposes I didn't even know about?"
Wonko's response was a simple, devastating confirmation: a slow nod of its smoke-formed head, the cartoonish features arranged in something that might have been sympathy but looked more like the pitying expression one might give a particularly dim child who'd finally grasped an obvious truth.
And Elijah stood there in that gray, withering wasteland, surrounded by impossible entities and revelations that destroyed every assumption he'd ever made about himself, his choices, his autonomy, and felt something inside him crack.
Not break—not yet.
But definitely, irrevocably, crack.