Aiden stepped through the unseen doorway—
And everything unraveled.
The temple vanished. Gravity twisted, the air was stripped away, and for a brief moment, he felt weightless. Then, an unseen force yanked him forward, hurling him into a space that wasn’t meant to be entered.
He landed hard. But the ground beneath him wasn’t stone. It wasn’t solid. It wasn’t anything.
His boots pressed against a shifting surface, neither firm nor fluid, yet somehow both. It pulsed beneath him, alive, like it recognized his presence. Every step sent ripples outward, distorting the space around him before snapping back into place.
Aiden’s pulse quickened. This wasn’t a Rift. This wasn’t even a place.
Then, his vision fractured.
Not foresight. Something else.
Images flooded his mind—
A tower, spiraling into a darkened sky, its structure impossible, angles shifting when he looked at them.
A colossal chain, stretching into eternity, vibrating with something barely contained.
A figure, its face shrouded, but eyes burned where no features should be.
Aiden staggered. The flashes weren’t warnings. They weren’t showing him what was coming.
They were memories.
But not his own.
A heavy pulse reverberated through the air, syncing with the steady thrum in his chest. A presence or force that had been here long before him.
And it was watching.
The Source
He turned.
And there it was.
Suspended in the void, shifting between forms, it refused to settle into a single shape. Not light, not matter, not energy. It flickered between infinity and nothing, existence and absence. A rupture in reality itself.
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And yet—he knew it.
Not because he had seen it before. But because some part of him recognized it.
The same pull that had guided him here now surged through his veins, vibrating in his bones. This wasn’t just power.
Aiden took a step closer—
And the world answered.
Symbols ignited beneath his feet, unfurling like ink spilled across the shifting surface. They weren’t carved. They hadn’t been written.
They manifested.
Aiden’s breath hitched.
He didn’t recognize the language.
But he understood it.
The words etched themselves into his mind, whispering to him, speaking of something ancient, something beyond comprehension.
Then—they changed.
Shifting, reforming before he could grasp their full meaning. The harder he tried to focus, the more they slipped away, like sand through his fingers.
Frustration flared.
Why was he seeing this? Why did it feel like he should know?
Everything lurched.
Not the script. The space itself.
A presence moved.
And it pushed back.
Aiden’s body seized as an unseen weight crashed into him. He gasped—or tried to. The pressure wasn’t crushing him. It was forcing him out.
The world around him fractured, like a mirror under stress, cracks spiderwebbing outward but never fully breaking.
He wasn’t supposed to be here.
Not yet.
The weight intensified. He dug his heels in, reaching toward the shifting words, trying to lock onto just one phrase, one answer, one truth.
But they slipped away.
The force took hold.
And Aiden fell.
He slammed into something solid.
This time, it was real.
Stone. Cold. Grounded.
Air rushed into his lungs, and for a second, he just lay there, body trembling from the weight of something he could no longer feel.
The temple ruins surrounded him once more, just as they had before—but he knew everything had changed.
His vision flickered—gold not just in foresight, but something else threading through his veins.
And then—
[[SOURCE RECOGNITION IN PROGRESS…]
[CALIBRATION INCOMPLETE: PARTIAL ACCESS GRANTED.]
[NEW ABILITY AWAKENED: SURGE SIGHT.]
Aiden sucked in a breath.
The words weren’t just notifications. Somehow, he understood them.
Surge Sight.
For an instant—his body would move as if it already knew the outcome. No hesitation. No delay. Instinct honed to perfection.
Aiden clenched his fist, feeling the shift settle in his muscles.
It wasn’t just seeing the future.
It was becoming it.
Then—another notification.
[VISIONARY CODE: 5% ACTIVATION.]
[SEEK THE SOURCE.]
Even after rejecting him, it had given him something.
It wasn’t over.
Not even close.
Aiden pushed himself upright, rolling his shoulders. His body felt lighter. Stronger.
But his mind was still racing.
The symbols. The presence. The language that had spoken to him, then erased itself before he could grasp it.
He needed answers.
And then, just before he reached the Rift’s exit—
A presence.
Not a beast. Not an anomaly.
Someone was waiting.
His breath slowed.
Whoever it was, they weren’t here by accident.
Aiden steeled himself.
And stepped forward