Twenty years.
In the world above, twenty years might be enough to build a city or raise a generation. But in the Beyond, time was a fractured mirror. It didn't flow; it festered.
Rayan stood in the center of a silent, grey wasteland. His clothes had long since rotted away, replaced by a living cloak of swirling black shadows that seemed to pulse with a heartbeat of its own. His skin, once scarred and pale, was now etched with glowing violet veins—the mark of the Void Parasite.
He wasn't the ten-year-old boy they threw into the rift anymore. He was a man forged in the harshest environment in existence.
In front of him lay the colossal metallic remains of a Void Beast. This creature, a multi-dimensional predator, had tried to erase Rayan on his first day. Now, its hollow armor served as Rayan's sanctuary.
"Still hungry," Rayan whispered. His voice was no longer human; it carried a distorted echo, as if his very soul had been reconstructed by the shadows.
He reached into the air and gripped the thin fabric of space. With a sharp tug, he tore a hole in reality. Through the rift, he could see a glimpse of Earth-0. He saw the crimson sky, the black oceans, and the distant, glowing spires of the 13 Bloodlines.
"They think they are masters of the universe," Rayan sneered, his black eyes turning into bottomless pits. "They have no idea what kind of storm is coming back to their doorstep."
The Return
On the outskirts of Aethelgard, near the industrial Rift-Station where Rayan was discarded, the air began to vibrate with a high-pitched scream.
A group of guards from the House of Cruor were busy managing the labor-slaves for the Rift-Opening. The Commander, an old man with a scarred face, looked at the energy-meter. "Five minutes until the next portal sync. Keep the workers moving!"
Suddenly, the purple rift in the sky didn't just pulse—it shattered like glass.
A pillar of absolute darkness slammed into the station, vaporizing the metal structures instantly. The guards were thrown back by a shockwave of freezing energy that turned the ground into obsidian.
From the center of the darkness, a figure stepped out.
Rayan looked at his surroundings. The smell of the smoke, the metallic tang of the air—it was exactly as he remembered. And then, he saw him.
The Commander. The same man who had pushed him into the experimental rift twenty years ago.
"Who are you?" the Commander stammered, his hand shaking as he reached for his plasma-blade. "This area is restricted! State your rank!"
Rayan tilted his head, a cold, terrifying smile spreading across his face.
"I don't have a rank, Commander," Rayan said, his voice echoing like thunder. "You made sure of that when you used me as a test subject for your Void experiments. Don't you recognize the 'disposable asset' you threw away?"
The Commander's eyes widened in pure horror. "R-Rayan? That's impossible! No one survives the Beyond!"
"You're right," Rayan said, stepping forward. As he moved, the shadows behind him rose like massive, jagged wings of dark energy. "The boy you threw in is gone. Now, I am the one who will decide your fate."
[End of Chapter 2]