The sterile light of Concord's medical bay flickered softly against white walls, humming like a lullaby for the wounded. Mana stabilization units pulsed faintly beside the beds of Ethan and Keir, both boys still and pale, cocooned in gauze and mana-threaded bandages. Machines buzzed, the occasional beeping spike marking some irregularity in their vital readings. Their wounds had been dire, nearly fatal yet somehow, they were still breathing...barely.
Zira Thorne sat at Ethan's bedside, an ugly bruise blooming beneath her left eye, a slash of dried blood cutting across her collarbone. Her arms were crossed, but her knuckles were pale,her fingers digging into her own biceps. She stared at Ethan's unmoving form, jaw clenched, eyes wet but defiant.
Across the room, Liora stood quietly beside Keir's pod. Her hands trembled as she adjusted the vitals display. Keir looked like death incarnate,his left leg wrapped in a mana-cast, his side punctured with slow healing wounds, chest rising and falling shallowly.
"I didn't do anything," Liora whispered. "Not really. I...I watched while it broke him."
Zira turned, her voice gravelly. "That thing nearly killed all of us. You stayed calm. You kept your drones moving. That matters."
Liora shook her head. "My drones couldn't do anything to it. They jammed when I needed them most. I didn't even get hurt much compared to you guys. Just bruises. Meanwhile... you're limping and Ethan's…" Her voice cracked. "Keir almost died."
Zira stood up slowly and limped over. She placed a bruised hand on Liora's shoulder. "You survived. That's what matters ok?. Sometimes that's all we can do."
The door hissed open.
Warden Caelis stepped in, flanked by Instructor Veyna and two robed medical officers. Her piercing eyes swept the room, locking first on the unconscious Ethan, then on Keir, then Zira and Liora. She walked in silence, every footfall crisp.
"How are they?" she asked quietly.
"Stable. Barely," Veyna answered. "Keir suffered multiple compound fractures. Internal damage too. Ethan's mana patterns are... strange. They fluctuate. Sometimes they vanish entirely. Then spike like they're about to explode."
Zira straightened. "Ethan burned that thing in the face. It wasn't enough to kill it but it saved us."
Caelis narrowed her eyes at her. "You four should've died. And yet, here you are. Lucky, or something else?"
Liora hesitated. "That thing... it went after Ethan and ignored the rest of us most of the time."
Instructor Veyna tapped her tablet. "The readings support that. That Riftbeast's aggression patterns were... specific. Focused."
Caelis's lips pressed into a thin line. "We'll return later."
The officials turned to leave.
As the door hissed shut behind them...
Thump. Thump.
Footsteps. Then a blur.
Raiden stormed in, eyes wild, panic bleeding off of him like a static storm.
"Where is he?" he barked.
Zira pointed.
Raiden dashed to Ethan's side, grabbing the railing. "What the hell happened out there?"
No one answered immediately. The silence was too loud.
"He looks like he went through fucking hell headfirst," Raiden muttered.
Zira finally spoke. "We all did."
Liora added softly, "It wasn't just the beast. Ethan… he changed somehow. I saw something on him. His skin. Markings. They were glowing."
Raiden's brows furrowed. "Markings?"
Zira nodded slowly. "Its hard to explain. Like something wanted to burst but couldn't fully y'know."
---
Concord Command: Strategic Oversight Room
A massive holo-table flickered with distorted footage of the Riftbeast encounter,blurred scenes of impact, screaming mana flares, Ethan's body being hurled like a ragdoll.
Warden Caelis stood with arms folded, Grall to her right, Sylha seated at the edge of the table. A few Concord brass filled the space via projection,generals, scholars, scientists.
"This thing wasn't in our records," one older general barked. "It shouldn't even exist damit."
"The Rift has been causing mutations to some monstes," Sylha countered. "But this wasn't any mutation we've came across. This was... It's like it's went through an evolution. Hell I don't think I can take it down easily,it's fighting pattern was hard to read."
Caelis cut in: "We analyzed energy surges from the squad. All three showed heavy stress spikes. But Ethan...his readings"
She pulled up a separate chart.
The room went still.
"There were two different mana signatures," Caelis said. "One was powerful,typical of an Awakened. But the other..."
She tapped the holo.
A massive surge flared across the display, dwarfing the other like a mountain beside a molehill.
"This spike," she continued, "if it was released in full, it would've leveled the entire field. We're talking energy comparable to a city-block implosion."
One of the scientists spoke up, incredulous. "Is that even possible? For a person to host two separate mana signatures?"
Another replied flatly, "Not naturally. And definitely not without side effects."
"This boy..." a senior military tactician muttered. "There's something about him that doesn't add up. Where did he come from? How much do we really know?"
"We need to question his origins," someone else added. "And initiate countermeasures immediately."
Sylha frowned. "Countermeasures against what? A wounded kid who doesn't even know what the hell happened?"
"He is a variable," Grall said. "One we can't afford to ignore."
Caelis exhaled slowly. "Keep him under surveillance. Assign discreet monitoring. Any anomalies, I want to know the moment they occur."
---
In the medical room
In the deep silence of unconsciousness, Ethan drifted.
There was no light. No weight. Just a pulse,slow and steady.
Then, fire. Not flames. Not heat.
A presence.
The void around him trembled, and a new space unfolded,an ethereal plain, cracked and glowing with ribbons of violet and crimson.
Ethan stood, or maybe floated. He looked down. He wasn't wearing his Concord uniform,just a pale projection of his own body, marked by faint stripes along his chest and forearms, flickering dimly.
A voice echoed.
"You've begantowake."
Ethan spun.
A figure stood atop a raised obsidian platform, surrounded by broken swords, shattered celestial halos, and clouds of withering ash.
He wore no armor. No crown. Only a long, dark robe stitched with gold threads that flickered like lightning. His face was sharp, ageless, yet worn by eons. In his eyes burned stars being born and dying.
"Who are you?" Ethan asked.
The figure stepped forward.
"I am called many things. Calamity. Undoing. The flameBehind the Veil."
He raised his hand.
"But to the beings of this fractured cosmos, I am known as... Nanook. Principality of Destruction."
Ethan's breath caught.
Nanook smiled faintly. "A fragment of me was carved into your soul before you ever opened your eyes. I didn't choose you. But it was merely by chance, perhaps the rift did. And it never chooses one without purpose."
Ethan's fists clenched. "I thought... I saw something. In the Rift. I thought that soul or whatever went into me...it was Aetherion. The fallen god I've read about in the history books."
Nanook's smile darkened. "It was. And it wasn't."
Ethan's eyes narrowed. "What does that even mean?"
Nanook descended the platform slowly, each step making the plane quake slightly. "Aetheriom was betrayed. Murdered in cold blood. His essence bled into the Rifts, tainting the realm, forever corrupting it,but as the corruption spread,pieces of him drifted in the Rifts for eons... And of them found you. But I found that fragment and devoured it before your frail infant body absorbed it.Andbin the end,I had Merged with it."
Ethan stumbled back.
"You're saying... I'm part Aetherion and you ? How many of those fragments are there"
"I couldn't tell you as even I don't know the exact amount "
"Tou are what remains of that fallen diety," Nanook replied. "But you are mine now,and remains of destruction cannot be separated from the god it feeds now."
Ethan gritted his teeth. "So what does that even make me?"
Nanook's eyes flared like novas. "You are becoming a bridge,one that will connect the realm of the rift and the mortal plane if your life isn't cut short. You are my vessel,if you die then I cease to exist and that is not going to happen on my watch...well until I've gained the ability to have my own physical form."
"So you've been casually living inside me this whole time," Ethan muttered.
"That is correct child," Nanook said softly.No one knows you better than I do,not evtyour own mother."
The ash thickened. Ethan stumbled.
"Waiiit! My mom...do you know if she's ok?"he asked l,his heart still hoping for rhe being to say yes.
"You are not ready yet child," Nanook said, vanishing into the swirling dust. "But soon, Ethan Valtaris... you'll remember what was taken from us."
The void collapsed.
---