The Forge pulsed like a living star.
A massive column of spiraling light towered above Rourke, its surface carved with shifting Solarii runes that drifted like molten glass. Each pulse rippled through the broken world, bending the ground and warping the shattered sky.
Seren pulled Rourke back by the arm.
"No. Not again. Every time you walk into something glowing, you nearly die."
But Rourke's eyes were locked on the Forge.
"It's calling me."
The Memory Core hovered behind him, glowing with solemn importance.
"The Forge recognizes the Heart within you.
It is ready to test your resonance."
Seren pointed sharply at the Core.
"And what if the Forge decides he's unworthy? Does it… explode him? Crush him? Vaporize him?"
The relic paused.
Its silence did not help.
Rourke gently removed Seren's hand from his wrist.
"I have to do this. If the Hunters finish the Engine, I need full control of the Heart."
Seren's jaw tightened, but she didn't argue.
She only whispered:
"Come back to me."
He nodded once.
And stepped toward the Resonance Forge.
The First Touch
The moment Rourke's foot crossed the ring of swirling runes at the Forge's base, the entire structure ignited.
A column of white energy shot upward, smashing into the fractured sky and lighting up every floating shard.
The force tore Rourke off the ground—
lifting him into the air—
suspending him in the Forge's center.
Seren screamed, "ROURKE!"
The guide held her back.
"Do not interrupt the forging—
or you will kill him."
Inside the Forge, Rourke spun slowly, weightless. Light wrapped around him like ribbons, scanning his bones, muscles, nerves. His chest burned—
the Heart pulsed wildly.
The Memory Core's voice echoed all around him.
"Lesson Four:
Know what you are made of."
The Echo of Blood
Light pierced into Rourke's chest—not painfully, but with an overwhelming intensity. His vision blurred.
He saw his childhood.
His father's rough hands placing tools in his palms.
Nights under a clear sky.
The accident at the dig-site where he first felt gravity shift.
And deeper—
visions he did not recognize.
A silver-skinned woman with eyes like dying suns, holding a child wrapped in a blue veil.
Soldiers with spiraling armor.
Solarii rituals powered by sunfire.
A hallway of light leading to a throne—
empty.
Rourke gasped.
He wasn't just inheriting the Heart.
He was inheriting a legacy.
Seren's muffled voice echoed from outside:
"Rourke! Please—say something!"
But he couldn't speak.
The Forge wasn't done.
The Solarii Within
A sphere of light formed around Rourke's chest—
the Heart's resonance crystallizing into a visible shape.
The Memory Core spoke:
"You are human by birth.
But the Solarii blood in you was no accident."
Rourke's eyes widened.
"What do you mean—?"
The Forge intensified, spinning faster.
The relic whispered:
"Long before your parents met…
your lineage was chosen.
A Solarii fragment survived the collapse of our sun.
It fled—
hidden in human form."
The tiles beneath Rourke spun.
He saw flashes—
a man with dark hair and silver eyes hiding among humans decades ago, injured, weakened.
His father?
"…No," Rourke gasped.
"No, that's not possible."
"Your father was not fully human,"
the relic said.
"He carried the last spark of our race."
Rourke's heart stopped.
Seren stared from outside the field, unable to hear the words, but seeing his terror.
"Rourke? ROURKE?!"
The Breakpoint
The Forge suddenly locked onto Rourke's chest—
gravitational force pressing into him so hard his ribs creaked.
He screamed.
Seren lunged forward—
The guide threw itself in her path.
"Do NOT enter the field!"
Seren shoved it. "He's dying!"
"If you step inside, the Forge will kill him instantly."
She froze, trembling.
Inside, Rourke claws at the invisible pressure crushing his lungs.
He felt the Heart inside him beating unevenly—
too fast.
Too strong.
The Memory Core spoke urgently.
"You must survive the Breakpoint!
Align your breath to the Heart!"
Rourke tried.
But the spiral increased—
gravity ripping him apart from the inside.
The light around him darkened—
turning black, swirling like ink.
Seren pounded on the invisible wall.
"ROURKE! Don't you dare leave me!"
He curled forward in agony.
The relic's voice echoed sharply:
"Rourke Talon—BECOME THE CENTER!"
Rourke forced one final breath—
deep and ragged.
And matched the Heart's rhythm.
The black spiral slowed.
Light flared.
His heartbeat synchronized.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
The pressure vanished.
Rourke collapsed to the ground, gasping, alive.
The Awakening of Gravity Sight
As he caught his breath, a shimmer passed over his vision.
Everything changed.
He could see gravity.
Not metaphorically—
actually see it.
Threads of force.
Lines of tension.
Curves of orbit.
The gravitational "soul" of every object pulsed visibly, connecting into a vast web.
Seren rushed to him as the Forge dimmed.
"Rourke—hey—HEY—are you okay?!"
He looked up at her.
Her face glowed with networked gravitational strands that danced around her like faint silver rivers.
"I…"
He exhaled.
"Seren. I can see everything."
She pulled back. "Uh… everything? What do you mean everything?"
Rourke stood shakily.
"The Solarii called this Gravity Sight.
I can see forces… understand them… feel where objects belong."
The Memory Core approached.
"You have completed the fourth lesson.
You are now attuned to the Heart."
Rourke blinked, trying to focus, overwhelmed by the new senses flooding his mind.
Seren helped steady him.
Her voice was half-relieved, half-terrified.
"What happens next?"
The Memory Core pulsed darker than before—almost grim.
"Now… you learn what the Hunters are preparing to do.
And why you may be the only being capable of stopping it."
Rourke steadied himself.
"Show me."
The relic's light dimmed until it was almost black.
"Very well.
Lesson Five begins now—
and it will show you the true face of the Obsidian Engine."
The broken world trembled.
The sky cracked open.
A new vision rose—
A colossal structure, black as death…
awakening.