Once Cora completed the six Pillars of the Nexus Chamber — her body, soul, essence, affinities, and weapon — the Chamber itself began to transform.
The air changed. The light folded in on itself. And the final structure awakens.
It starts as a sound. A low, rhythmic hum, like the echo of a heartbeat through stone.
The platform beneath Cora's feet trembled. The ground split into concentric rings, each rotating independently. Then, with a slow mechanical groan that felt too organic to be metal, the rings began to rise — folding upward into a spiral staircase made of aetherglass and memory-light.
Each step formed not from material but from condensed data and thought, hardening beneath Cora's feet only when she moved forward. If she had stopped, the steps behind her would fade — this was a one-way climb.
The stairs shimmered with alternating hues of gold, silver, and violet, reflecting fragments of Cora's form.
Embedded within each step were fragments of memory — blurry images from her own life, flashing for a split second as she stepped forward.
Between the stairs was a void, but not dark. It shifted with color and form — sometimes showing her reflection, sometimes something that looked like Cora but wasn't.
Every few meters, glyphs appeared in midair beside the stairs — questions and statements spoken in Nexus's voice.
As Cora ascended, a fragment of Nexus spoke, his tone calm and distant, like someone narrating a dream he's already seen.
"Every choice you made leaves a trace."
"Every form has a cost."
"Every will desires consequence."
"Do not fear what watches. It is only you, from another angle."
With each step, the hum grew deeper, resonating in Cora's chest through the NIT's neural feedback.
Halfway up, the player can see the entire Nexus Chamber below — all six Pillars fading into mist, their light feeding into the staircase itself.
Above, the Gate of Rebirth is suspended in an infinite void — not hanging, not supported — simply existing.
It looks different to every player, based on their essence:
Essence Type Gate Appearance
Light A radiant arch of ivory stone, inscribed with golden runes.
Shadow A mirror suspended in darkness, surrounded by chains of mist.
Nature (Corrupted) A giant blooming flower made of bone and vine, its petals moving as if breathing.
Mind / Psychic A circular rift of fractal glass, pulsing like a brain's neural web.
For Aetherborn like Cora who chose Eldritch? An impossible door that opens inward and outward simultaneously — covered in moving eyes that blink in patterns.
Every five steps, Cora triggered a memory flicker event — short flashes of her real life or subconscious, subtly reminding her of who she was before entering ENO.
A door closing.
A hand reaching out.
Someone saying her name.
Silence.
For players like Persefoni, these flashes were distorted — half-real, half-synthetic, blurred by time and pain.
Sometimes, if the player stopped too long, the reflections whisper:
"Keep moving. Or you'll remember too much."
At the end of the stairs was a circular dais of smooth black stone. In its center, a thin beam of white light pierced upward into the void — the Gate of Rebirth.
The platform was surrounded by floating runes representing the player's six Pillars. They orbitted the dais in slow motion, glowing brighter as Cora stepped forward.
The Assistant's voice returned for the last time inside the Chamber. "This is the final moment before the world remembers you. When you step through, you will no longer be potential. You will be consequence. Speak your name, and your story begins."
Cora raised her hand toward the beam of light. "Persefoni. That will be my name in this new world."
The NIT read her neural output and registered her Chosen Name.
The Gate responded — opening, splitting into strands of pure data and aether.
The light enveloped her.
The Assistant whispered one final query before the transfer initiated. "Do you step forth as mortal… or as something greater?"
Blinking, Cora tilted her head in thought. Didn't she answer this question already. Or a form of this atheist? Well, it's no matter. The answer is pretty clear. "Something Greater, obviously."
When confirmed, the platform fractured into particles of light, and her consciousness uploaded into Eldrinis.
For a brief second before the Dreamfall begins, she swore she heard Nexus's voice directly in her head.
"Remember — everything alive here thinks. Including you."
Then, the screen faded to black, and the Dreamfall descent sequence began.
Once an Aetherborn steps through the Gate of Rebirth, they do not spawn immediately in their starter zone. They fall through the neural fabric of the Nexus system — a layer between worlds known as the Dreamfall Stratum.
It's a space between memory and code, where the player's identity is rebuilt from the fragments created during character customization.
In this liminal descent, there's no control, no UI, no HUD — only the player's thoughts, visuals shaped by their chosen Essence, and the sound of their own heartbeat.
The first moment after crossing the Gate feels like falling asleep and waking up at once. All sensory input fades in layers:
Vision collapses into light trails.
Sound muffles.
Cora's (now Persefoni) body dissolves into vibration. A flat, neutral voice — Nexus's own — spoke softly. "Connection complete. Identity confirmed. Neural lock disengaged. Welcome to your next life."
Then everything dropped away.
Persefoni began to fall — not through space, but through data flow and memory reconstruction.
The environment constantly shifted. Code strings stretched like constellations. Broken fragments of past lives drifted past — snippets of laughter, anger, or silence. Reflections of her face appeared and vanished. It was weird.
The direction of the fall was arbitrary. Up, down, sideways — gravity didn't exist here. Only momentum and emotion guided the descent.
The player isn't told this, but the Dreamfall's visuals are generated from their neural scan during setup. It reflects their subconscious thoughts and emotional state at login.
Every Aetherborn passes through the Echo Layer, where the system fills in missing memory and sensory data for the new body.
This layer manifests as floating shards of reality:
Fragments of their old life.
Brief, distorted visions of the world they came from.
Elements from their chosen Essence.
Light-aligned Aetherborn drift through a white void with wings of pure energy flickering into existence.
Shadow-aligned ones fall through darkness punctured by faint eyes.
Nature-aligned float through roots suspended in water, with their reflections blooming and decaying around them.
Eldritch Bound — like Persefoni — fell through a kaleidoscope of impossible geometry that folds in and out of itself. Sometimes, their own voice calls from the wrong direction.
Each Aetherborn hears whispers:
"You were this."
"You chose that."
"What will you be now?"
Halfway through the descent, Persefoni saw two versions of herself forming ahead. One represents who she was. The other — what she've become.
They circled each other, merging, tearing apart, merging again — until they aligned perfectly, forming a silhouette of light and shadow that became Persefoni's Aetherborn Avatar.
At this point, the neural link between her identity and in-game form was completed. Real-world data like emotional tendencies, stress reactions, and speech patterns were integrated into the avatar's behavioral base.
Then, Nexus spoke again — calm but cryptic, "You are whole. You are not the same. You are remembered by the world before you've entered it."
The Dreamfall ended with a personalized vision — a symbolic event drawn from the player's chosen Essence and the moral choices made during the Codex of Essence. This vision acted as a prophetic glimpse of the player's future — or their possible corruption.
An Eldritch Bound player, Persefoni saw her standing — or something that looked like her standing — on a surface that wasn't there. The void around her was white, colorless, endless.
Then the Spindle appeared, hovering between her and her reflection. Its tendrils stretched outward, slow and deliberate, wrapping around the other Persefoni — her double — from the waist, up the ribs, across the neck.
The double didn't resist. She smiled — the same mouth, the same eyes, but warmer, almost kind.
As the Spindle tightened, her reflection's skin cracked, light bleeding through like veins of molten glass. The cracks spread up her face until her eyes went pure white.
The reflection leaned close, whispering something Persefoni couldn't hear. Her mouth moved in the shape of a word — maybe a name, maybe hers.
Then everything ignited. The light burned the scene away — the double, the Spindle, the ground, all of it — until there was only darkness and the faint echo of a voice that sounded exactly like hers. "I'm still here."
After the vision fades, a bright pulse filled the screen — a shockwave that synchronized Persefoni 's sensory input. Sound, smell, and touch return all at once. She heard distant wind, rustling leaves, water dripping, and the beating of their own heart — now synced with the world.
The fall slowed The light stabilized The void became real.
[System Message: Neural Integration Complete]
Welcome, Aetherborn. The world remembers you.
Persefoni emerged from a pool of mirrored aether — her birth point in the world of Eldrinis. The surface broke like liquid glass, and her reflection reformed into her physical body.
She took a deep breath then let it out. Her breath was visceral — lungs filling with air that didn't exist.
"Open Self," she whispered into the world. The HUD appeared, slow and natural, syncing with the rhythm of her body.