Selena Brighton
As I rested a hand on Raiden’s forearm, I glanced over at Chronos.
He had given me a brief description of what Raiden’s Aether Realm looked like, but it did nothing to sate my curiosity. If anything, it only made me more impatient to see for myself.
I let my aura flow into my hand, directing it into Raiden. The first thing I noticed? No resistance.
Most people, especially the unawakened, react poorly to a foreign aura entering their body. It’s a natural defense mechanism, like an immune system detecting an invader. At the very least, they flinch. Get uncomfortable. Their aura recoils or stiffens in response.
But Raiden? His body accepted my aura seamlessly, as if it were his own.
I narrowed my eyes slightly. The meditation Chronos has him doing is clearly working. Even though he has yet to awaken, his aura flows through his body with remarkable smoothness. I had noticed it before, but feeling it directly gave me a whole new level of understanding.
This kid’s control is beyond what it should be. He should have awakened already.
I continued guiding my aura deeper, moving near his solar plexus in search of his undeveloped Aether Core.
I’ve seen plenty of cores in my time, enough to know that once an Aether Core forms, it can’t be tampered with. Decades of research, countless experiments, and no one has ever been able to force an awakening or manipulate a core’s formation to give someone a head start.
Any interference, any attempt to force a change, only damages it. That’s what should happen. So why… Why is his aura reacting with mine?
Unawakened auras avoid external influence. Always. But his? It flowed with mine, moving in sync rather than resisting.
Interesting.
I pressed further, trailing after Chronos' aura. If he had already found the core before, then he would know exactly where to look. And then, I saw it. My breath hitched.
What… is this?
I was expecting something formless, like most undeveloped cores—a faint, flickering sphere of condensed aura. Maybe something slightly unstable at worst. But this? This was completely different. Raiden’s core had no shape. No color. It didn’t even try to stabilize.
Cores, even undeveloped ones, at least attempt to take a form, whether as a single mass or, in rare cases, multiple floating pieces. The most unusual case I had ever seen was someone having three separate orbs orbiting one another like celestial bodies. But Raiden’s?
It was fluid. Always shifting. Always changing. As if it didn’t know what to become.
I had never seen anything like it.
I barely breathed as I watched it twist, ripple, and reform endlessly, moving between shapes with no consistency—one second as thin as mist, the next stretching and compressing like something alive.
My fingers tightened slightly. How is this possible? I glanced toward Chronos. He was silent. His expression unreadable. But the fact that he wasn’t looking at me directly spoke volumes.
Chronos… what the hell do you already know?
The question of how this isn’t possible echoed in my head as I stared at Raiden’s shifting, formless core. My mind raced through every documented case I had ever studied, every theory, every failed experiment on forced awakenings.
Nothing. No record of anything like this. And then, I felt it.
A spike in my heartbeat. A rush of adrenaline. My pulse pounded in my ears, my fingers tingled, and a strange, uncontrollable heat spread through my chest. My breath hitched.
Oh… Oh, this is exciting.
A shiver ran down my spine. My lips parted slightly, and I realized, I was drooling. Again.
Get it together, Selena!
But how could I? I was witnessing something entirely new—something that shouldn’t exist. My heart raced, my hands trembled, and my entire body buzzed with barely contained energy.
This was it. This was the moment every scientist dreams of. A discovery so groundbreaking, so unprecedented, that every hypothesis I had ever entertained meant nothing now.
I needed data. I needed to record this. I needed answers. I needed to—
“Selena.” Chronos' voice cut through my spiraling thoughts.
I snapped my head toward him, far too quickly, probably, my pupils dilated, my breathing a little too erratic.
His brow furrowed slightly. I knew that look. That was his "Calm the hell down" look.
Oh, but how could I calm down?
I turned back to Raiden’s core, clutching my own face as if physically holding myself back.
“This… this is… this is…!!!” I gasped between breaths, struggling to even find the words.
Raiden had no idea what was happening, but he was about to. Because I was about to lose it. I grabbed both sides of his face and squeezed his cheeks together, forcing him to look at me.
“RAIDEN.” My voice came out breathless, almost frantic. “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA—ANY IDEA—HOW INSANE THIS IS?!?”
His eyes widened in alarm. “Uhm—??”
I shook his head back and forth aggressively. “THIS—THIS IS A MEDICAL—SCIENTIFIC—HISTORICAL ANOMALY—”
“Chnros—hwp—” Raiden slurred, trying desperately to look at Chronos.
Chronos sighed. “Selena,” he said, exasperated. I ignored him.
“I NEED TO RUN TESTS,” I declared, releasing Raiden’s face just long enough to start pacing back and forth at lightning speed. “I NEED TO DOCUMENT THIS. I NEED—” I stopped mid-spin, grabbing my hair, eyes wild.
“—I NEED A DAMN NOTEBOOK!!!”
Chronos pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, for the love of—”
I whirled back toward Raiden, pointing at him aggressively. “You. Do not. MOVE.”
Raiden froze. Probably because my eyes were glowing with sheer unhinged excitement.
I turned to Chronos next, stepping forward and jabbing a finger into his chest. “You.” My voice lowered dangerously. “You knew.”
Chronos remained entirely unfazed. “Figured it’d be funny to watch you react.”
I hissed.
Then, without warning, I lunged at Raiden, grabbing his wrists to inspect his anchors again.
“DID THESE CAUSE IT?” I muttered, poking at them aggressively. “NO—NO—THAT WOULDN’T MAKE SENSE—UNLESS—”
I spun around again, pacing once more, my mind racing at a thousand miles per hour.
“I NEED MORE TIME.”
“Selena,” Chronos said firmly, clearly trying to contain my spiral.
“I NEED MORE TESTS.”
“Selena.”
“I NEED TO GET INTO HIS AETHER REALM MYSELF.”
“Selena.”
I stopped dead in my tracks.
Chronos leveled me with a look. “I will throw you across the lab if you don’t calm down.”
I blinked. Then, I exhaled deeply, smoothed out my coat, and clasped my hands together in what I thought was a very professional manner.
“…Understood.”
Raiden, still visibly tense, cautiously glanced between us. “So, uh… does this mean I’m not about to be dissected?”
I gave him a sweet, reassuring smile. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous.”
Then I leaned in, whispering just loud enough for him to hear, “Not yet.”
His soul visibly left his body.
Chronos sighed. “You really need to stop doing that.”
I grinned. “But where’s the fun in that?”
“Either way,” Chronos drawled, arms crossed, utterly unimpressed with my spiraling excitement, “before you start licking him all over thinking it’ll give you insight, how about we enter the core?”
I snapped back to reality. “Ah, yes, yes,” I coughed, composing myself with all the grace of someone who had absolutely not just been vibrating with unhinged scientific glee.
Professionalism, Selena.
Clearing my throat, I turned my focus back to the real reason we were here.
I exhaled, steadying myself. Then, with practiced ease, I let my aura pulse outward, attuning myself to the delicate process ahead.
Entering the Veiled Between was never a simple act, but for me, it was second nature. I closed my eyes and began the soul projection process, allowing my astral body to detach from the constraints of the physical plane.
My astral body, the essence of my soul, drifted from my form, weightless yet deeply tethered.
The familiar thrum of my Aether Core began within me. Not frantic, but precise, like the rhythmic calibration of an intricate machine. With each deliberate pulse, I envisioned the sigils, ancient and powerful, etching themselves into the fabric of my being.
A gentle pull. A shift in perception. And then, I was unmoored.
The constraints of my body melted away, my consciousness expanding beyond its shell. My senses stretched into the Veiled Between, a space of transition, where the spiritual and the tangible intertwined in ephemeral harmony.
A whisper of energy curled around me, a guiding thread leading toward Raiden’s core. I let it take hold, allowing my presence to weave into the existing link Chronos had established.
As I drifted further, I focused my intent, shaping my path through the unseen tides of aura that surrounded us. Then—
Contact.
I inhaled deeply, steadying myself as I prepared to step into Raiden’s core.
Unlike Chronos, I had never approached a core quite like this before. The Veiled Between was a space I was deeply familiar with, a bridge between the physical world and the essence of a person’s being. But with Raiden…
I knew, instinctively, that this wouldn’t be like any core I had ever traversed.
I let my aura pulse outward, extending into the thread of connection already established between us. Slowly, carefully, I let my presence drift from the physical world, allowing my astral body to detach.
As I crossed the threshold of the Veiled Between, the familiar sensation of weightlessness washed over me. My body faded from my awareness, and in its place, the sensation of something immense and uncharted pulled at me.
A single, glowing filament stretched ahead from my chest, pulsing in synchronized rhythm with Raiden’s core. It shimmered like a beacon in the dark void, leading the way. I followed, letting my consciousness weave through the vast emptiness, the tether of aura guiding me forward.
The final moment before I stepped in, my entire being buzzed with anticipation. Chronos’ description of Raiden’s realm had been tantalizingly vague, and I was all too eager to see it myself.
A familiar warmth gathered in my chest, my aura forging a brilliant strand of light that extended outward, blazing to life like a miniature sun. Each pulse of the strand sent a pleasant shiver through me, excitement stirring in my veins.
Suddenly, the path before me ended in a towering, kaleidoscopic wall. Colors swirled, vibrant yet laced with a menacing charge, rippling as if alive. Most people would probably pause at this point, maybe even feel their stomach drop. But for me, the moment I saw that twisting tapestry, I felt an adrenaline spike of pure discovery.
“Oh my goodness…” I breathed, heart hammering against my ribs. This wasn’t the typical smooth entry I’d seen in other unawakened cores.
With every swirl of those prismatic hues, the wall seemed to challenge my presence, daring me to turn back. But I’m not one to back down, especially not in the face of fresh data.
“Yes… yes… show me more…” I whispered, practically drooling with excitement.
I pressed my palm against that living wall, ignoring the electric tingle that raced up my arm. The aura here felt sharp, thrumming with raw potential. It could have been intimidating, but to me, it was invigorating, like a flash of lightning in a pitch-black sky.
A jolt pierced my core the instant I made contact. Sharp, searing, and so deliciously new. The wall flared with light, colors blazing in a disorienting swirl. For a moment, I was blinded, awash in brilliance that seared my vision. Then, it vanished.
When my sight returned, I stood before an endless expanse of light that left me breathless. It reminded me of those salt flats in Bolivia, but here, the stark white surface glowed with an inner luminescence, as though the ground itself was made of living starlight.
Delicate hexagonal tiles spread out in all directions, each tile swirling with miniature nebulae, vibrant purples, blues, and greens dancing within them like cosmic storms. The air around me felt thin, charged, as though the atmosphere itself crackled with unspent possibility.
A grin tugged at my lips. This place… it’s still forming. The horizon shimmered in a constant, uneasy flux, refusing to resolve into any single shape, mountains, clouds, or otherwise. Here, the very reality was fluid, as though the kid’s core was still deciding what it wanted to be.
I took a few tentative steps, feeling the ground shift beneath my feet. Where my shoes pressed against the white flats, they rippled softly, turning hints of violet and turquoise, as if the realm was responding to my presence.
“Fascinating,” I breathed, leaning down to run my hand along the luminous surface. It was like touching liquid silk, solid enough to hold me, yet never fully fixed in shape.
Some distance away, wispy arcs of energy danced in the air, flickering in and out of sight like spirits from some ancient dream. The more I focused on them, the louder their silent song seemed, a whispery melody that made my heart race all over again.
I couldn’t hold back a giddy laugh. “He said unawakened, but this… this is anything but typical.”
I moved toward a slight rise in the shifting terrain, a gentle hill forming out of swirling violet nebulae. Each step I took left trails of color in my wake. It was as if this realm was painting itself in response to my curiosity.
“Unbelievable,” I whispered, placing a hand on the hill. It rippled beneath my palm, reflecting my face back at me in a distorted spectrum of color. My eyes, wide with wonder, shimmered in the reflection—almost merging with the swirling galaxies swirling below.
Snap out of it, Selena.
Right. I had come here for a reason.
This kid’s core wasn’t just a static, inert space. It was alive, shifting, uncertain, and infinitely adaptive. Within this unformed realm, there was a raw consciousness, like an ancient force newly born, or a newborn force ancient beyond comprehension. I felt it, prickling at the edges of my awareness, regarding me with an almost amused curiosity.
I inhaled deeply, the thin, charged air sending a fresh rush of excitement through my blood.
Yes, yes, yes… I need to study every inch of this place.
And yet, a part of me also knew that if I pushed too hard, if I tried to force something here, it could all collapse. This wasn’t just a random environment; it was an expression of Raiden’s potential, his mind, his soul, everything that made him who he was.
With careful reverence, I pressed my palm against the hill once more. Color surged beneath my hand, swirling across the white flats in breathtaking spirals. This realm was responding to me, allowing me to shape it as I moved.
Incredible.
A quiet ripple of thought brushed against my consciousness. It was aware of me. A grin tugged at my lips as I felt the faintest hum of acknowledgment.
Thank you for letting me in.
I barely had time to relish the moment before a deep voice spoke from behind me. "Do you need a napkin for all that drool?"
Instinct kicked in. I started reaching up to wipe my mouth—only to stop halfway as realization struck. We were inside an Aether Realm.
I couldn’t even drool if I wanted to.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Spit wouldn’t land. Tears wouldn’t fall. Any physical act of saliva-based excitement would vanish into the void as if it had never existed. I slowly lowered my hand, rolling my eyes as I turned toward the voice.
Chronos stood atop a moving hill, one that rippled beneath his steps like liquid stone. Each step sent gentle waves through the ground, undulating outward until they disappeared at the base where the hill met the ground.
My fingers twitched with restraint. This place… This whole realm… I wanted to study everything. But first—
I gestured around us with exaggerated flair. "So, you're telling me you've been keeping this absolute treasure trove all to yourself?"
Chronos smirked, stepping off the hill as it stilled beneath him. "Oh please," he scoffed. "If I planned on keeping him to myself, you would have never heard of him."
I squinted at him, folding my arms. "Don’t tell me you plan on hiding his power too?"
He snorted. "Oh, not at all." His crimson gaze flicked toward the horizon, thoughtful yet sharp. "I want him to stand out like a star in the night sky. But to do that, he needs to be the best at what he does."
His tone turned matter-of-fact. "And in his case, that means fighting."
His words thrummed with conviction, but I knew Chronos well enough. There was more to this.
"But," he continued, finally meeting my gaze, "that's not why I brought you here." He took a step forward, gesturing around us. "So?" His voice was measured but curious. "What’s your take on this place?"
I inhaled sharply, tearing my gaze away from him to really take in the scenery again.
The ground beneath my feet had a strange, almost liquid solidity, firm, yet shifting ever so slightly, like stepping on the surface of a calm lake frozen in time.
The horizon was undefined, almost like it didn’t quite know what it wanted to be. It blurred at the edges, fading into a vast canvas of potential, as if the realm itself was still deciding how much space it was allowed to take up.
And the sky—
Oh, the sky.
A vast, rolling expanse of something that wasn’t quite night and wasn’t quite day. Like a painted dreamscape, fluid in motion yet motionless at the same time.
Everything here felt… unwritten. As if the rules weren’t fully set. As if it were waiting. I narrowed my eyes, focusing harder. I would not—could not—miss a single detail.
With that marinating in my beautiful, high-functioning genius brain, there was still something about the sky that kept drawing my attention.
It was an endless expanse of clouds, stretching far beyond sight, a canvas of rolling white, untouchable and ever-present. Yet… Something was wrong with it.
It’s not moving.
Not like the ground, which rippled with Raiden’s shifting presence. Not like the horizon, which blurred and redefined itself at will. No. The sky was different. It was stagnant.
I squinted, instincts itching with curiosity. “Chronos?”
“Yes?” His voice was flat, as if expecting another one of my "brilliant and completely reasonable" requests.
I pursed my lips. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything you could throw, yes?”
Chronos gave me a long, dull stare, then glanced around. There was nothing to grab, no rocks, no stray objects, no conveniently placed debris that would exist just to make my life easier.
I nodded, as if I had expected this outcome. “Right… well, I was going to ask if you could throw whatever it was as high as possible.”
Chronos arched a brow. “Even if I had something to throw, my full strength isn’t properly translated here. This isn’t my realm.” He folded his arms, tilting his head slightly. “Why?”
I didn’t answer immediately. My eyes stayed locked on the sky, a deep frown settling on my face. Something was up there. Something unnatural.
A gut feeling slithered through my thoughts, whispering that I was missing something obvious. The clouds should have moved. The sky should have breathed with the rest of the realm. Instead, it lingered, unchanging.
Why?
I took a step back, inhaling deeply as I let my astral awareness expand. And then, I saw it. It was faint at first, just the slightest shimmer in the farthest reaches of the sky. Like catching a glimpse of a gossamer thread in the dark.
I narrowed my eyes, focusing harder. The more I concentrated, the clearer it became.
Chains.
Massive, impossibly large chains stretching across the sky like unseen shackles. At first glance, they blended seamlessly with the clouds, their presence so unnatural that my mind refused to register them until I forced myself to see.
Each link was titanic, forged from a substance I didn’t recognize, neither metal nor energy, but something between. They stretched far beyond where my sight could follow, locking the sky in place. They weren’t just above us. They were part of the sky itself.
A seal.
A weight settled in my gut, excitement clashing with unease. Raiden’s realm was alive, constantly shifting, changing, adapting to its owner. But the sky? It was bound.
“Chronos…” My voice was almost breathless, barely above a whisper.
Chronos followed my gaze as I pointed. I said, “…You see it, don’t you?” I exhaled sharply, a grin creeping onto my lips. “Oh, this just got a lot more interesting.”
Chronos glanced at me, brows furrowing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I groaned. Loudly. “Oh, for fuck’s sake—look there!”
Without hesitation, I marched over to him, grabbed the sides of his stubborn, oblivious head, and aimed him toward a section of the clouds.
“There! Right there,” I jabbed a finger at the tip of one of the clouds, my voice brimming with frustration. “Do you not see the shape of a chain?”
His crimson eyes narrowed, scanning the sky. And then, his expression shifted.
“I didn’t see this the last time I was here.” His tone was measured, almost cautious.
I huffed. “Of course you didn’t! The boy had no clue how to properly meditate or feel his own aura back then. And let’s be honest—” I folded my arms, tilting my head knowingly. “You weren’t here on an investigation. You weren’t looking for anything last time. This kind of thing, you have to actually look for it to see it.”
Chronos remained silent, his gaze flicking between me and the massive, looming chains in the sky.
I rolled my shoulders, warming up to my favorite part, the part where I explain things and sound like the smartest person in the room.
Because I always am~
“I’ve been inside a lot of Aether Realms,” I started, my voice turning professorial as I gestured upward. “And in every single one I’ve studied, the sky behaves just like the ground.”
Chronos glanced at me, waiting. I smirked.
Good. He’s listening.
“If the ground moves, the sky moves. If the ground breathes, the sky breathes. If the realm is in chaos, the sky churns with it. But this?” I motioned toward the sky with a flourish.
“The ground in Raiden’s realm is fluid, constantly shifting—his entire core is practically rewriting itself every second. But the sky?” My grin faded slightly, replaced with serious curiosity. “It’s frozen. Bound. That’s a sign of interference.”
Chronos' gaze flicked back to the chains, his expression unreadable.
“The moment I noticed the sky wasn’t behaving like the rest of the realm, I knew something was off,” I continued. “It’s a basic rule, Aether Realms aren’t static. If part of it isn’t behaving the way it should, then something is forcing it to stay that way.”
I let the weight of that settle in.
Then I crossed my arms again and added, with a little too much satisfaction, “Which is why I’m smarter than you.”
Chronos sighed. “Not the time, Selena.”
I smirked, then continued. “I’ve worked with the Sentinels before,” I said, shifting gears. “I’ve personally helped place seals on criminals being detained. Some of those bastards needed severe restrictions on their Aura to prevent them from doing anything dangerous, so I know exactly what suppression methods look like.”
Chronos’ expression darkened just slightly.
“But this?” I lifted a finger, pointing back at the sky-chains, my voice growing more intrigued. “This isn’t like those.”
Chronos frowned slightly, but I continued before he could ask.
“The methods used on criminals?” I shook my head, letting the memory sink in. “They’re painful. Sentinels aren’t gentle with their sealing techniques, binding someone’s Aether Realm hurts. I’ve seen men collapse just from having their power locked away. Some lose weeks of mobility if the seal is strong enough.”
I turned to him, eyes sharp. “Raiden isn’t awakened yet. If he had been sealed that way, his body would have felt it, probably in the form of crippling pain or severe suppression. But there’s nothing like that. No external symptoms. No signs that he’s ever felt these chains before.”
Chronos tilted his head slightly. “So, what’s your theory?”
I inhaled slowly, my gaze locked on the chains stretching across the sky.
“…Someone did this before he ever had a chance to notice.”
Chronos remained silent.
“Before he awakened. Before he could ever understand what his core was.”
A slow smirk pulled at my lips, excitement thrumming under my skin.
“This means someone sealed this core before it even had the chance to form properly.”
My heart pounded.
Who the hell would even know how to do this? Let alone why? I’ve studied sealing techniques for years, criminal containment, power restrictions, even experimental suppression methods. But this? This was completely different.
"Realm aside," I muttered, still turning the information over in my head, "I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone who hasn’t awakened be sealed before…”
Then it hit me. My eyes snapped to Chronos, only to find him already looking at me. We had reached the same conclusion.
“Unless,” he said, finishing my thought, “this seal was meant to prevent him from awakening.”
A strange silence settled between us, heavy with the weight of that possibility.
I exhaled sharply. “But who the hell would do such a thing? This kid—he’s not part of a clan, not from a sect, right?”
Chronos shook his head, his expression serious. “No. I looked into his family. They’re as ordinary as it gets. His father does contracting work for rift collapses and gate transportation. His mother is an attorney at a firm downtown. His little sister is barely about to go into first grade.”
He paused, arms crossed. “As for Rai himself? Nothing. No connections to anything that would warrant this. He’s never been involved in dangerous groups, shady organizations, illegal power experimentation, nothing.”
I frowned, tapping my fingers against my arm as my mind raced.
"Do you think this might have been part of something else?” I asked slowly. “Maybe Raiden was just collateral, caught in the crossfire of something bigger?”
Chronos’ gaze darkened. “I couldn’t say.” But his voice was tense. "I checked the medical records of the hospital he was born in,” he continued. “Roughly 80% of the newborns from that same hospital have awakened by now.”
My stomach twisted.
I ruffled my own hair in pure irritation, my thoughts spiraling at the sheer irrationality of this entire ordeal.
Nothing makes sense.
Who the hell would go out of their way to seal this kid’s awakening? And, more importantly—
How did they even know to do it in the first place?
I sat there, silent, still turning the impossibility of it all over in my head. My gaze flickered to the massive chain stretched across the sky, its links motionless, unwavering, like an executioner’s blade suspended mid-fall.
Something about it itched at my instincts. It felt wrong in a way I couldn’t fully articulate. I let out a slow breath. Sitting here thinking wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
Time to start moving.
I stood and brushed off my coat, turning toward the horizon. “If something is sealed,” I muttered to myself, “then there has to be an anchor point.”
Maybe if I walked far enough, if I followed the sky, I’d find where the chain ended. Where it was bound.
I began walking, my footsteps sending gentle ripples through the shifting ground. The terrain beneath me flexed and adapted, responding in subtle ways, like a living organism adjusting to my presence. Yet the sky? Unmoved. Unchanged. A fixed constant in a realm that refused to stay still.
I glanced back at Chronos, who watched me with mild curiosity. He knew me well enough not to ask what I was doing—just that I had already decided to do it.
“Try not to run off and get yourself lost,” he said lazily.
I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Oh, please. I’ve navigated countless Aether Realms. I think I can handle a—”
My next step sank slightly deeper than I expected, making me freeze. Chronos smirked as I immediately began backpedaling, regaining my balance, and pretended like that didn’t just happen.
“Aether Realms,” I continued, clearing my throat, “are a work in progress. They change, they shift, they grow, but every one of them follows some kind of structure."
I lifted my gaze back toward the chains in the sky.
“They’re a part of this place, meaning they have to be tied to something. If I can find the end of them, I might be able to figure out what’s anchoring them here.”
Chronos hummed in mild amusement. “And if they just stretch on forever?”
I shot him a smirk over my shoulder. “Then that’s an answer in itself, isn’t it?”
With that, I kept moving. The further I walked, the more aware I became of how unnatural this place was.
The ground continued its slow, rippling shifts beneath my feet, but the horizon remained elusive. No matter how far I moved, it felt like I was no closer to the end of the realm than when I started.
I looked up again. The chain stretched endlessly, disappearing into the hazy atmosphere above, never breaking, never curving. The realization sent a chill down my spine. Most Aether Realms had some kind of limit. Even the most expansive ones had an edge. A barrier where the world simply stopped. But this one? It just kept going.
I slowed my pace, my brows furrowing. Something felt different now. At first, the realm had seemed fluid, ever-changing, yet as I moved forward, it was as if the world behind me was shifting, closing in, ensuring I never truly reached the boundary I was searching for.
As if it doesn’t want me to.
I clenched my fists. This wasn’t just a seal. This was containment. And if there was one thing I knew about chains—
They aren’t just made to bind something in place.
Sometimes, they’re made to keep something locked away. But keep what locked away exactly?
The further I walked, the more the ground beneath me began to change.
At first, it was subtle, thinning, like the rippling terrain was stretching itself out. The once fluid-like solidity began to feel fragile, less certain, like I was walking on something that didn’t quite know if it wanted to be there.
Then, after a few more steps, I stopped dead. The ground ended.
Not in a clear, definitive way. No abrupt cliff. No sudden edge. Instead, it just… thinned into nothingness, fading into an abyss so vast that looking into it felt like staring into infinity.
A bottomless pit. I took a cautious step closer, peering down into the void. The air felt heavier here. And then, just as I was about to turn away, something shifted. A glint—no, a distortion.
At first, I thought it was just a trick of my eyes. The light within this realm bent strangely near the edge, warping in a way that made it hard to focus on anything directly.
But then I moved too fast—turning my head too sharply. And for the briefest moment, the illusion faltered.
My breath caught. There, reaching from the abyss all the way into the sky, was an enormous chain.
I hadn’t seen it before because I wasn’t meant to.
The light around it bent unnaturally, wrapping around the structure in a way that kept it hidden from sight unless you looked at it from the exact right angle.
I froze, staring at it. It wasn’t just big, it was colossal.
Each individual link was large enough to eclipse buildings, disappearing into the unending void below and stretching far beyond the clouds above.
This wasn’t just a seal. This was a pillar. A structure meant to hold something in place. Slowly, carefully, I took a step back, still keeping my eyes locked on the massive hidden chain.
“Chronos,” I called, my voice steady but sharp. “You’re going to want to see this.”
I didn’t take my eyes off it, not this time.
Now that I knew where to look, I wasn’t letting it disappear on me again.
The moment Chronos arrived, I pointed furiously at the hidden chain, once again guiding his stubborn gaze toward where the light warped unnaturally. It took him a second. His eyes narrowed, scanning the illusory bend in the air. Then, after adjusting his angle.
His entire expression shifted. “…I see it,” he muttered.
“Took you long enough.” I scoffed, already shifting my attention back to the enormous chain. “Now let’s see what else we can learn from it.”
With that, I leaned forward, intensely focused on the massive links disappearing into the abyss below. Well… I tried to.
In reality, Chronos was gripping the back of my coat, holding me in place like a leash on an overly eager scientist. I was leaning so far forward that I could’ve shamed Michael Jackson himself.
“Could you not?” I grumbled, still studying the chain.
“Could you not fall into a bottomless pit?” he countered, unimpressed.
“Look, if I die, you can just drag my soul back and say I told you so.”
He ignored me. Fine. Whatever. I had work to do.
Up close, well, as close as Chronos would let me get, I could tell this wasn’t normal. It wasn’t like the bindings used by Sentinels. It wasn’t natural aura compression, either. This chain was crafted. Designed.
My eyes traced the impossibly smooth metal, the sheer weight of its presence pressing against my aura like standing too close to a thunderstorm.
Its color was strange. At first glance, it looked like polished black metal, but when I focused, it was more like an absence of color entirely. Like the metal was consuming the light around it instead of reflecting it.
I moved my gaze along its surface, looking for anything—sigils, markings, engravings—anything that would tell me what the hell this thing was.
I had seen all kinds of seals before. Runic locks. Aura-suppressing arrays. Sentient barriers that attack intruders. But this chain? It was different.
Shit did a Celestial decide to play god again?
It bore no traditional sigils. No active runic scripts. No signs of common suppressive techniques. At first glance, it was perfectly forged. Unbreakable. I was just about to concede defeat when—
Wait.
My breath hitched. Something tiny. Something so minuscule that I wouldn’t have noticed it unless I was practically fusing my eyeballs to the chain.
I stilled.
Not one.
Not two.
Three cracks.
They were tiny—insignificant by practical chain standards. Any normal structure wouldn’t even register them as damage. But they were there. And chains like this weren’t meant to have imperfections.
I slowly straightened, my fingers twitching with excitement as my mind connected the pieces.
I turned to Chronos, my voice low but charged with realization. "You said he had three moments where he could have awakened, right?"
Chronos’ gaze flickered toward me, registering my tone.
His expression darkened, “Yeah.”
I slowly turned back to the fractures. Three cracks. Three moments. This chain wasn’t just binding him. It was taking damage.
Every time he came close to awakening, this chain absorbed the brunt of the effort.
That meant two things:
1. The seal isn’t absolute. It can be weakened, which means it can, theoretically, be broken.
2. Whoever did this didn’t just want to seal him, they wanted to stop him from trying.
I exhaled slowly, my mind sharpening as I pieced together a new hypothesis.
The first, the less likely but more unsettling scenario: Someone deliberately sealed Raiden because they didn’t want him to awaken.
Not just to delay his progress. Not just to restrict his abilities. But to completely erase the possibility of him ever trying. The chains didn’t just bind his Aether Core, they were designed to make him fail.
Most people attempt awakening once, maybe twice. If they fail, they assume they just don’t have the potential. They give up. Whoever did this must have assumed that after a few failed attempts, Raiden would do the same.
But he didn’t. And now the chain is showing damage.
The second possibility, and the one that made the most logical sense. Raiden was just collateral. A test subject. Part of some hidden experiment to see if an Aether Core could be sealed at infancy.
Maybe they weren’t targeting him specifically. Maybe he was just unlucky, caught in something bigger, something we haven’t uncovered yet.
It’s the more reasonable conclusion. The cleaner answer. And yet… I couldn’t shake the pull of the first theory. I couldn’t ignore the feeling that whoever did this wasn’t experimenting.
They were making sure. And that? That terrified me.
Chronos, is the baby kitten you picked up, actually a tiger?