Asher’s skin shimmered faintly, catching the eerie glow of the Void as it pulsed along jagged pillars of obsidian rock. The fractured light danced across the ruined tower where he sat, one among many forsaken places he had sheltered in over the past week. Here, amidst broken stone and whispering winds, he kept his silent vigil while his companions slept.
To his right, Sylthara and Lunira lay nestled beneath conjured shadows, the magic curling at the edges of their forms like the frayed borders of a dream. The darkness did not simply settle—it writhed, shifting imperceptibly, as though reality itself struggled to contain it. Yet within that uncanny embrace, they slept undisturbed, untouched by the war raging inside him.
Asher exhaled slowly, raising a strip of dried jerky to his lips. He tore off a portion with mechanical precision, his other hand tipping his waterskin, swallowing without thought. The motions were as familiar as they were meaningless. Sleep had abandoned him long before this journey began, driven away by the unrelenting force thrumming in his core. The magic within him—Void and Aether—swirled ceaselessly, locked in a quiet but relentless struggle. Not an outright war, not chaos, but something more insidious. A shifting balance. A push and pull. Like two opposing stars caught in each other’s gravity, trying to find their place.
Without thinking, he reclined against the stone and lifted his hand, summoning a thread of Void magic to his fingertips. It coiled and twisted, slipping through the spaces between his bones, winding around the currents of Aether already coursing through him. He wove the strands together, pressing them into shape, testing their limits. The core within him hummed in response, its many-faceted chambers cycling through different flows of Aether, shifting, adjusting. Always shifting. Always searching for equilibrium.
He sighed, his gaze drifting past the ruins, out into the vast emptiness beyond. The ache of longing settled into him—not sharp, not unbearable, but steady and present, like an old wound that had never quite healed. He missed Brynn. He missed Vicky. He missed home.
Aetherhold.
The name came unbidden, carrying with it the image of bustling streets bathed in warm lantern light, the scent of rain on cobblestone, the distant hum of a world that had once felt solid beneath his feet. But that place, that life, belonged to another man. A man who no longer existed.
The thought sat heavy in his chest, lingering like a specter as he pushed himself to his feet. He dusted off the remnants of sleep that had never come, his muscles tight from the long hours of stillness. With practiced ease, he reached for his gear, fastening the straps of his armor and letting the familiar weight settle against his shoulders—an old ritual, a silent reassurance that he was still here. Still standing.
Behind him, a breath stirred the quiet.
Sylthara shifted, her presence unfurling like a shadow stretching lazily into the waking world. The obsidian glow of the Void flickered faintly at her fingertips before dissipating, retreating into the folds of her being as she rose from the darkness. Her hair, an endless cascade of inky black and violet, tumbled down her back in silken waves, catching the dim light like liquid dusk. And then, her gaze—impossible, shifting, the endless depths of blue and green swirling like the meeting of sky and sea—locked onto him.
She studied him for a moment, silent and half-lidded with sleep, before tilting her head ever so slightly.
Then, with the careless ease of someone shaping reality to their will, she conjured a gown of shadow—a sleek, flowing cascade of black silk that wrapped around her form as if it had always been there.
Her voice was smooth but laced with lingering drowsiness. “Good morning, master. I trust you slept well.”
Asher huffed a quiet laugh, pulling his cloak over his bare shoulders. “Not at all. But at this point, I’m getting used to it.”
Sylthara smirked, the edge of her lips curving into something unreadable, something almost amused. The Void pulsed at her fingertips again, just for a moment, as if responding to the exchange.
Outside, the ruined tower stood in solemn vigil, its crumbling stones watching over the endless expanse of shadowed rock and eerie silence. The day had begun, whether they were ready for it or not.
Asher stepped beyond the threshold, Sylthara and Lunira flanking him. The air was thick with the weight of what lay ahead. Today, he would reach that gods-forsaken tower. And with any luck, he would find a way to stabilize the Core—before it tore him apart from the inside.
The three moved forward with quiet purpose, the only sound their steady footfalls against the lifeless terrain. No words passed between them; there was little need. Sylthara and Lunira ate what little remained of their rations as they walked, their movements automatic, their focus set on the path ahead.
The silence was absolute.
No birdsong, no rustling of unseen creatures—only the wind, hollow and restless, sweeping across the land like a voice that had long since forgotten its own language.
Hours passed, measured only by the slow march of the distant tower growing ever larger on the horizon. What had once seemed distant, a dark monolith in the vast emptiness, now loomed in its full, terrifying enormity.
It was imposing, far more than they had imagined.
By the standards of Asher’s world, it dwarfed even the greatest structures he had known—its width rivaled the Roman Colosseum, its height double that of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. But there was something beyond mere size that made it oppressive. It commanded the landscape, standing like a monument to something ancient and unknowable, a structure built not by human hands but by forces older than the concept of time itself.
As they neared its base, the air grew heavier. Dark tendrils of Void energy coiled around the stone like living things, shifting and writhing in unseen currents. Shadows pooled unnaturally along the foundation, stretching and twisting in ways that defied the light.
Asher slowed, his breath steady but weighted. He could feel something here, something pressing against the edges of his mind. The whispers were faint, but present—words half-formed, names lost to time, farewells never spoken.
This was ground zero.
For something.
Asher approached the base of the tower, its sheer size swallowing the sky above him. He reached out, pressing his palm against its surface. The structure was unnervingly smooth—cold, unyielding metal with no seams, no windows, no doors. It bore no sign of age, no indication of wear. It simply was, as if it had existed since time immemorial, untouched by decay or the passage of years.
He stepped back, scanning the towering monolith before turning to Sylthara with a dry exhale.
“Well… how do we get in?” He gestured toward the unbroken wall. “I kinda thought it would just open.”
Sylthara stepped forward, unconcerned by the lack of an obvious entrance. Her fingers brushed against the metal as she traced intricate runes along its surface, weaving symbols of power with deft precision. The air around her pulsed, the magic seeking purchase—only to be violently repelled.
A cold, mechanical voice resonated from the tower itself, devoid of emotion:
“Improper authorization. Input proper authorization.”
The runes flickered out of existence, leaving nothing behind but the silent, impenetrable surface.
Asher exchanged glances with Lunira and Sylthara, his brow furrowing. “You’re kidding me.” He placed his hands on his hips, staring up at the monolith as if it had personally insulted him. “What the hell kind of authorization code could it be talking about?”
Sylthara’s eyes narrowed, her gaze flickering with calculation. “It rejected my magic outright,” she murmured. “This isn't just enchanted—it’s locked by something else.”
Lunira ran a hand along the metal, her fingers trailing across the flawless surface. “It’s too perfect,” she said softly. “No erosion, no seams, no signs of construction. Like it was… placed here rather than built.”
Asher frowned, his mind racing. The voice. The rejection of magic. The seamless nature of the material.
“This… matches newer technologies that were being developed in my world before I came here,” he muttered, more to himself than to them. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
A structure like this had no business existing in a world ruled by Aether and Void. And yet, here it stood.
Waiting.
He exhaled and placed his hand on the metal once more.
This time, something answered.
The Core within his chest shuddered, its energies—Void and Aether—fluctuating wildly, drawn toward the tower as if recognizing something buried within its depths. The surface beneath his palm pulsed, the cold metal warming, coming alive.
Symbols ignited across its surface, flickering between languages unknown, rearranging themselves in patterns too precise to be random. They shifted, twisted, resolved—until at last, they settled into words he could understand.
“Authorization recognized. Initiate Core attunement.”
At the base of the tower, a seamless slit formed in the metal—silent, imperceptible at first, until it widened into a yawning, gaping maw. A doorway, but not one made by hands. It did not open so much as reveal itself, as if the structure had merely decided to allow entry.
And then the pain came.
Asher barely had time to draw breath before his legs buckled beneath him. He hit his knees hard, barely aware of the impact as a surge of raw energy flooded into him.
Void and Aether poured into the Core in an unrelenting deluge, filling it to the brim—then spilling over, coursing through his veins like liquid fire. His nervous system ignited, every fiber of his being vibrating with power that was too much, too vast, too beyond him. He gasped, fingers clawing at the stone, his body both drowning and burning at once.
He was being overwritten.
Sylthara moved first, catching him before he collapsed fully. Her jaw clenched as she poured her will into the storm raging inside him, weaving Void magic into protective encasings around his Core, his body, his very soul. The sheer force of the energy fought back violently, threatening to unravel him at the seams, and even her formidable strength strained against it.
Nearby, Lunira pressed herself against the ground, hands braced as if the very air had turned against her. The force of the exchange distorted reality itself, the pressure unbearable—like the veil between worlds had been stretched thin enough to tear.
And then, as suddenly as it began—
It stopped.
The air stilled. The howling torrent of power snapped back into silence.
Asher sagged in Sylthara’s grip, every muscle in his body trembling, the volatile energies within him settling into an uneasy truce. He let out a ragged, pained exhale, the aftershocks of whatever had just happened still rattling in his bones.
He swallowed, inhaled shakily, then managed, "What the fuck was that?"
No one had an answer.
But the door had opened.
The silence stretched, heavy and unbroken, as Asher forced himself to his feet. His limbs trembled, his breath still uneven from the onslaught of energy that had ripped through him, but the pain had dulled to an uneasy hum beneath his skin.
The doorway yawned open before them, dark and waiting. An invitation. A warning.
Sylthara stepped closer, her gaze sharp as she studied him. “Can you stand?”
Asher flexed his fingers, feeling the lingering remnants of Aether and Void still crackling beneath his skin. “Barely,” he muttered. “But that’s never stopped me before.”
Lunira let out a slow breath and pulled herself upright, brushing dust from her cloak. She cast a wary glance toward the entrance. “It feels wrong.”
She wasn’t wrong. The air beyond the threshold was thick, charged with something unseen, something ancient. It wasn’t just the weight of magic—it was the weight of purpose.
Whatever lay inside had been waiting.
With one last glance between them, Asher stepped forward.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the world shifted.
The moment Asher stepped through the threshold, the air shifted—dense, charged with an energy neither wholly Aether nor Void but something far older, something raw.
The chamber beyond stretched impossibly wide, swallowing the dim glow of their entrance like a beast consuming light. The walls were not stone, nor metal, but something in between—shimmering with an unnatural sheen, flickering like an illusion just at the edges of perception.
And then there were the whispers.
Not voices, not words, but a pressure against the mind. A presence.
Sylthara’s fingers twitched at her sides, coiled with barely restrained magic. Lunira stayed close behind them, her posture rigid, her breath slow and measured.
"I don’t like this," Lunira muttered.
Asher didn't respond. His pulse drummed in his ears, his body still reeling from whatever had just happened at the entrance. But even through the lingering ache, the Core in his chest was calm. It had quieted, its constant shifting and warring of energies now eerily still.
That, more than anything, unsettled him.
They pressed deeper.
At the heart of the chamber, suspended above a monolithic dais, a sphere of blackened glass pulsed faintly, slow and rhythmic—like a dying heartbeat.
Asher exhaled, his voice low. “I’m guessing that’s important.”
No one disagreed.
The silence around them was alive, heavy with something unseen. The walls bore no markings, no runes, no sign of ancient scripts—but Asher felt them all the same. Impressions of something once written, now lost. A history erased.
And yet, this place was preserved.
Waiting.
As he stepped closer, the pulse of the blackened sphere quickened. And then—
A sharp hum split the air.
A burst of blue light erupted from the dais, rippling outward in concentric circles, illuminating long-dormant sigils carved into the stone beneath them.
Then, a voice.
Cold. Mechanical.
"Core identified. Installation complete. Beginning onboarding procedure."
Before Asher could react, a smaller point of light flickered to life above the dais. It pulsed once—twice—then spoke, its tone distant, hollow, devoid of true intelligence.
"Am I speaking with... Core Recipient 104?"
Asher stiffened. His pulse hammered in his ears.
"Recipient 104?"
He exchanged a quick glance with Sylthara, but before he could voice his confusion, the light repeated itself, its words eerily precise.
"Please confirm. Are you Core Recipient 104?"
A chill ran through him.
Whatever this thing was, it had been expecting someone. And somehow, it thought that someone was him.
Asher responded before he could stop himself. “Yes. I am Core Recipient 104. Here for onboarding.”
Sylthara stiffened beside him, her expression shifting from shock to something far more wary. Lunira's wide-eyed stare flicked between them, her unease palpable.
The voice responded without hesitation, smooth, mechanical, and unwavering.
"Finalizing Core installation and onboarding procedure. Please do not be alarmed by what you are about to see."
The world vanished.
Darkness engulfed him. Not the absence of light, but something deeper. A space without form, without boundaries.
Then, suddenly—motion.
Symbols spiraled through his vision, shifting too fast to comprehend. Aetheric scripts interwove with patterns of pure Void, threading together like the veins of a living thing.
And then—
A memory.
He was standing in this very room.
The dais loomed before him, unchanged, but the chamber was filled with figures cloaked in shadow. Men and women, draped in hooded robes, their faces hidden, their voices raised—not in ritual, but in argument.
Fear. Worry. Desperation.
Asher strained to make sense of their words, but they overlapped, colliding into a storm of indecipherable urgency.
Then—one voice broke through.
The same voice from the blue light. Cold, steady, filled with something perilously close to hope.
“Core 104 is our last chance… We won’t get another iteration.”
Another voice, raw with exhaustion, answered.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. No one else can install the Core. All is lost.”
Then came a third. This one deeper, stronger—weighted with the finality of command.
“All is never lost.”
The chamber fell silent.
“Put the Core in standby mode. Set the tower to standby. If we cannot see its power come to fruition… then maybe, someone else can. Let them find it. Let them decide how to proceed.”
A pause. A heavy exhale.
“We have done all we can. Now… we wait.”
The vision shattered.
Reality came rushing back, slamming into Asher with the force of a collapsing world. His body ached as though he had been wrung dry, every muscle burning with the exhaustion of battles he hadn’t fought, of distances he hadn’t run—but felt all the same.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
His vision swam, black spots dancing at the edges, and the dull, pounding pain behind his eyes made even the act of breathing feel like a struggle.
A presence stirred beside him.
Sylthara knelt at his side, her violet-black hair spilling over one shoulder, her expression unreadable save for the faintest flicker of concern. “Are you all right, Master?”
Asher exhaled sharply, forcing himself upright with a groan. “I think so.” He ran a trembling hand through his sweat-dampened hair, blinking hard to steady his vision. “But damn—this place is going to kill me before anything else does.”
Sylthara didn’t disagree.
He pressed a hand against his chest, feeling the Core’s hum beneath his skin—slower now, subdued, as if it too had been drained by whatever had just happened. His mind scrambled to make sense of what he had seen, but the memory felt fragmented, slipping through his grasp like sand through open fingers.
“I don’t even know what just happened,” he admitted. “But from what I saw… this Core inside me—it’s the last one they ever made.” His throat felt dry, the weight of those words settling in. “It was supposed to be special, but I didn’t get any more than that.”
Sylthara’s gaze lingered on Asher, searching, calculating. But there was no time for questions.
A deep, grinding groan echoed through the chamber.
The sound of ancient metal rousing from centuries of slumber.
At the far end of the room, the golems began to move.
Their stone limbs, once frozen in place, trembled as unseen mechanisms forced them to life. Their hollow visors flared with an eerie, pulsing light—blue, like the glyphs on the dais, but tinged with something colder. Dust spilled from their plated joints as they straightened to their full, towering heights.
Asher staggered fully to his feet. “Of course there’s a test.”
The first golem lurched forward with a mechanical snarl. Another followed. Then a third.
Within seconds, the entire line of sentinels was advancing, each footfall a thunderous crack against the stone.
Lunira barely had time to swear before Sylthara’s voice rang out, sharp and urgent.
“Move!”
The golems advanced with terrifying precision, their movements methodical and unrelenting. Their hollow visors burned with eerie blue light, devoid of emotion, devoid of hesitation.
There was no rage in them, no anger—only purpose.
Asher forced himself into motion, ignoring the lingering ache in his body. His breath came steady, measured. Every instinct in him screamed to run.
Instead, he stepped forward.
Sylthara was already moving, her form shifting like liquid shadow, weaving through the dim chamber with effortless grace. Lunira followed a heartbeat later, her hands carving sigils into the air, golden threads of Aether sparking at her fingertips.
The first golem struck.
A massive stone fist, faster than anything that size had a right to be, came crashing down toward Asher’s head. He barely had time to twist away, the sheer force of the blow sending cracks rippling through the ancient floor.
Another followed—a backhanded swipe meant to crush.
Asher ducked beneath it, dropping low, sliding across the stone. He lashed out as he moved, daggers in hand, striking against the golem’s plated leg—only for the steel to glance off uselessly.
He swore.
Sylthara materialized behind the second golem, both hands glowing with inky Void magic. She drove her fingers into its stone body, tendrils of darkness burrowing deep. The construct shuddered, the Void coiling through it like a parasite—but it did not break.
Sylthara’s eyes widened slightly before she vanished again.
Lunira unleashed a blast of Aether, her spell striking another golem in the chest. Light surged through its body, flaring brilliantly—before fading into nothing.
They resist Aether.
They resist Void.
They resist steel.
Then what the hell do they not resist?
A golem lunged, too fast. Asher twisted, but not fast enough. The blow clipped him, sending him sprawling across the floor. His ribs screamed in protest as he rolled onto one knee, breath ragged.
Think, dammit.
The Core in his chest pulsed.
Aether and Void shuddered inside him—not in conflict, but together.
An understanding settled in his mind.
He pulled.
The magic responded instantly.
Aether surged into his right hand, golden and crackling, raw and untamed. His left hand curled with Void, darkness bleeding from his fingertips like smoke in water.
For the first time since stepping into this cursed tower, the two magics did not fight inside him.
They did not rage against each other.
They aligned.
The next golem struck.
Asher didn’t dodge.
He met the attack head-on, slamming his Aether-charged fist into the construct’s descending arm. Light flared—not to destroy, but to disrupt.
The golem staggered back, its inner mechanisms faltering.
Sylthara’s gaze snapped toward him, sharp with realization. “That’s it.”
The second golem lunged.
This time, Asher let the Void answer.
His left hand lashed out, and dark tendrils burrowed into the stone, corrupting the resistance itself. The golem convulsed, its glowing visor flickering.
Then, Asher switched.
Aether surged into his right palm, and with a single, precise strike—he shattered the construct into dust.
Lunira recovered quickly, adjusting. She wove a different pattern—not raw Aether, but something subtler, something that altered the flow of magic itself.
The next golem hesitated mid-strike—just long enough for Sylthara to reappear behind it and tear through its weakened joints.
Another fell.
Then another.
The last two golems, sensing the shift in battle, charged Asher at once.
He didn’t retreat.
He met the first with **Void—**weakening its core.
He met the second with **Aether—**delivering the killing blow.
The final construct collapsed at his feet.
Silence followed.
Heavy. Absolute.
Asher swayed slightly, catching his breath. His fists still crackled with residual energy, the last remnants of Aether and Void flickering and fading.
He felt… different.
Not drained. Alive.
Something inside him had clicked into place.
Lunira wiped the sweat from her brow, exhaling hard. “Okay,” she managed. “That was new.”
Sylthara didn’t respond right away.
She was staring at Asher—not in shock, not in fear, but with something dangerously close to understanding.
“You’re not supposed to be able to do that,” she said quietly.
Asher flexed his fingers, watching the last remnants of magic fade from his skin. He met Sylthara’s gaze, his expression unreadable.
"Yeah," he murmured. "I'm starting to figure that out."
As if his words had triggered something, a deep, monolithic groan reverberated through the chamber.
The very foundation of the tower shook.
Then, behind the fallen golems and the raised dais, an unseen mechanism ground to life—metal scraping against metal, stone shifting with the slow inevitability of something long dormant waking.
A doorway revealed itself.
Not by opening, but by simply existing.
As if the structure had decided it was time to be seen.
A gaping maw into utter, sightless black.
The air that poured from within was ancient.
It carried no scent of dust or decay. It was pure, untouched by time.
And then—a voice.
“Come, Number 104. We must speak.”
The whisper did not touch his ears—it bypassed them entirely, sinking straight into the marrow of his bones.
It was not a command.
Not a plea.
It simply was.
A presence that had always been waiting.
Asher turned to Sylthara and Lunira—but the world around him had stopped.
They were frozen mid-motion, caught in an unnatural stillness, like figures trapped in amber.
A tableau of reality held at bay.
“Do not fear,” the voice continued, patient, measured. “They are unharmed. My power is waning, but I have time to speak with you—once. You should know what you face, fully.”
Asher swallowed. His pulse was steady but quick.
Every instinct screamed caution.
But something deeper compelled him forward.
His feet moved without thought, his body drawn toward the abyss.
The shadows swallowed him whole.
And behind him—
The doors slammed shut.
Darkness enveloped Asher.
It was not the simple absence of light, but something more profound. A silence that ate sound. A void that stretched in every direction, swallowing time, swallowing sensation.
For a moment, he wasn’t certain if he was moving at all—or if he had ceased to exist.
Then, the whisper returned.
"You step where none have walked in fifteen centuries, Core Recipient 104. You have questions. I have answers."
The weight of the words pressed against his skull. He forced himself to breathe, to ground himself. His boots met something solid—not stone, not earth, but something unshaped.
A pulse.
Distant at first, like a dying heartbeat.
Then—light.
It came in slow, shifting waves, flickering through the void like the glow of embers struggling against the wind. Sigils formed in the air around him, ancient glyphs spiraling outward, moving like celestial bodies bound by gravity.
Asher’s vision sharpened.
The abyss was no longer empty.
Before him stood a figure.
Or what remained of one.
It was neither ghost nor machine, but something caught between—a construct of pulsing energy and fractured metal, its humanoid form flickering between states, as if reality itself could not decide what it was.
Where eyes should have been, there were only two burning sigils, shifting and reforming every time he blinked.
And still, that voice.
Low. Measured. Endless.
“I am Adraxis. Last steward of the Varethis Imperium. And you, are our final gamble.”
The space around them shifted.
Adraxis raised one fragmented hand, and the darkness cracked apart like shattered glass.
Suddenly—motion.
A city emerged around Asher. Not merely an illusion, but something alive. A vision of the past, so vivid he could feel the heat rising from the stone beneath his feet.
The sky above was gold and crimson, twin moons hanging heavy over a metropolis that should not exist.
Varethis.
He stood amidst its greatest age, its towers gleaming with impossible architecture—bridges that defied gravity, spires pulsing with the hum of boundless magic.
And yet, there was unease in the air.
Figures moved through the streets—men and women clad in ornate robes of sapphire and silver, their expressions sharp with fear. Their steps were hurried, their voices hushed, eyes turning toward the sky.
Above them, something stirred.
Something watched.
Then, the first tear opened.
A great wound in the heavens, a gash of impossible void.
The light of Varethis dimmed as it poured through.
Not an army. Not an invasion.
A corruption.
It moved like a storm, unraveling the fabric of reality as it spread. Aether burned away, magic itself screamed as the first monstrosities emerged.
They were not creatures.
Not things that could be fought with sword or spell.
They were wrong.
Towering shapes of shifting angles, too many limbs, too many eyes. Some twisted into existence, half-formed, their very presence a violation against the world itself. Others were mimics of things that had once lived—corpses stitched into movement by unseen forces.
The people of Varethis fought.
For one hundred and fifty years, they fought.
For every abomination slain, a hundred more took its place.
The Imperium's greatest minds turned to one last hope.
The Cores.
Machines of impossible intricacy, built to counter the corruption at its very essence. Not by force, not by magic—but by rewriting the laws of existence.
They crafted 104 of them.
And then—time ran out.
The vision faded.
Asher was back in the abyss.
Adraxis stood before him, silent, waiting.
Asher’s fists clenched. “You built these Cores to fight the corruption. And I have the last one.”
Adraxis inclined his head. “Yes.”
His voice was calm, but there was something beneath it—something raw.
“You were not meant to be the one to bear it.”
Asher’s jaw tightened. “Then why the hell do I have it?”
The flickering figure hesitated.
“…Because you survived.”
The words hit harder than he expected.
Asher’s breath came slow. Measured.
He thought of the last few months. Of waking in this world with no past, no future. The weight in his chest, the Core humming beneath his ribs.
It had always felt like something unfinished.
Something waiting.
His voice was quiet when he spoke.
“Then tell me what it actually does.”
Adraxis regarded him for a long moment.
Then, he lifted one hand.
The abyss shuddered.
And the Core in Asher’s chest answered.
Asher staggered as his Core pulsed, the energy within him thrumming in response to Adraxis’ summons. It wasn’t like before—no violent, consuming flood of Aether and Void, no battle between forces trying to unravel him. This was something else.
A call.
And deep within him, the Core answered.
The abyss rippled outward, the void itself bending around Asher like a living thing. The floating sigils and ancient glyphs that filled the space twisted, shifting into patterns he couldn’t begin to understand. His body seized, his breath catching as heat surged through his veins, the Core spinning faster, faster—
Then, Adraxis spoke.
“The Core was never meant to be a weapon.”
The world shattered.
And suddenly—Asher was not alone.
A thousand voices flooded his mind.
Screams. Whispers.
He was standing somewhere else. No, he was standing in a thousand places at once.
He was at the precipice of war, where the last remnants of Varethis made their final stand. A woman’s voice called out desperately to unseen figures, her robes torn, blood staining silver embroidery.
He was in a laboratory filled with impossible machines, Cores being forged in the final hours before collapse, their creators arguing—shouting—over calculations that would never be finished.
He was in the skies above a world that no longer existed, watching as a great rift split the heavens apart, vomiting out horrors that did not belong.
And at the heart of it all—
He was standing before the first Core.
The Prime Core.
The Origin.
It was not metal. It was not magic. It was something in between.
A sphere of shifting light, held together by will alone.
It thrummed with a presence that was aware.
It saw him.
And it whispered—
"You were never meant to be the one."
Asher gasped, his body lurching backward as he was ripped back into the abyss.
He collapsed to his knees, his breathing ragged, sweat trickling down his temple. His hands shook, but the Core—his Core—was still humming, still moving, still… waiting.
Adraxis stood over him, watching in silence.
Asher forced himself to speak. “What the hell… was that?”
Adraxis inclined his head. “You glimpsed the echoes left behind. The Core does not simply store knowledge—it remembers. And now, so do you.”
Asher’s pulse was pounding, his thoughts racing, his body thrumming with something that hadn’t been there before.
The Core had awakened.
Adraxis took a slow step forward, his fragmented form flickering like a flame caught in the wind. “You are the last bearer of the Final Core, Number 104. And you are now bound to its power in ways even I do not fully understand.”
Asher clenched his fists, feeling the current of energy beneath his skin. The power was different now. Not raw. Not wild. Controlled. Balanced.
He exhaled, steadying himself. “Then what the hell does it actually do?”
Adraxis paused, as if considering. Then, he lifted one hand.
The air shook.
“The Core does not grant you strength, Asher.”
A pulse of light spread outward, rippling through the abyss, touching everything.
“It grants you command.”
The moment the words were spoken, Asher felt it.
Something shifting in the back of his mind. A weight he hadn’t known was there, a door that had been locked suddenly cracking open.
It was not Aether.It was not Void.
It was both.
It was creation.
Adraxis’ voice was solemn, yet reverent. “The Core was designed to rewrite the laws of magic and physics themselves. To turn corruption against itself. To create from nothing and unmake what should not exist.”
Asher’s breath hitched.
That was impossible.
Magic didn’t work that way. Void and Aether opposed one another. This world had rules.
Adraxis simply watched him. “Not anymore.”
Asher shook his head, heart pounding. “I—I don’t—”
Then, the abyss trembled.
Something was coming.
Something huge.
Adraxis' form flickered violently. His burning sigils locked onto Asher, urgency cutting through his once-measured tone.
"You are out of time."
The darkness roared.
And the abyss collapsed.
Asher woke up gasping.
He was back in the tower.
Back in the ruined chamber, the dim blue glow of the dais flickering with the last remnants of spent energy.
Sylthara and Lunira were above him, their faces sharp with worry.
“Asher,” Lunira said, voice urgent. “What happened?”
The memories crashed into him all at once.
The war. The corruption. The Cores.
The power inside him.
His breathing was uneven, his hands trembling—but not from exhaustion.
The Core inside him was stable. It had accepted him.
And the knowledge it carried—the knowledge of an empire that had tried and failed to stop the end of the world—was now his.
Slowly, deliberately, Asher pushed himself to his feet.
He exhaled once, steadying himself.
Then, he looked at them.
And he said, with quiet certainty:
“We need to get to Aetherhold. Now.”
The tower shook beneath them.
Something else had awoken.
And time was running out.
Far to the north, beneath a sky choked with storm and sorcery, the land of the Shattered Spires stirred with unnatural life. The air itself writhed, thick with the scent of sulfur and something deeper—something wrong.
Then, with a sound like the world splitting apart, the first portal tore open.
A shriek, high and inhuman, echoed across the frozen expanse as reality convulsed beneath the weight of a thousand grotesque gateways. Rifts of roiling black and violet flame clawed into existence, their jagged edges bleeding corruption into the sky. And from them, like carrion spilling from a corpse, came the Veinforged.
They poured forth in endless numbers—shambling horrors of sinew and metal, creatures bound together by dark alchemy and warlock’s craft. Some were hulking war-beasts, their flesh fused with jagged blades and burning sigils, while others bore the twisted elegance of once-human forms, their gaunt faces locked in silent agony beneath golden masks. For every dozen that emerged, a dozen more followed, an army without limit, without exhaustion, without fear.
And then, Vorlath stepped through.
The warlock-emperor of the Veinforged Legions moved with the patience of inevitability, his armored form wreathed in abyssal fire. His cloak, black as the void between worlds, billowed against the howling wind. At his side strode his generals—more than could be counted, each a nightmare given purpose, each a harbinger of ruin.
Their eyes turned south. Toward Aetherhold.
They had felt it—the shift in the world, the moment when something long-buried had awakened. The Core within Asher had stirred, and Vorlath had noticed.
The siege of aetherhold had begun.