Drip.
It echoed — soft and singular — into the dark.
Norian opened his eyes.
There was no ceiling above him. No sky. No dome. But there was something — an open vastness that felt both too wide and too still. He could see, but there was no light source.
He lay on a flat surface that shimmered like water, but didn't move like it. Not cold. Not warm. Not... anything. He sat up slowly.
The knife was still in his hand.
His breathing was steady. No fever. No chest pain. The tightness he'd carried all day had vanished, like it had never been there.
Was it a dream?
He blinked, once.
It was too clear for a dream. The air, the silence — they had weight. Detail. Dreams never held on this tightly.
Then — a gentle chime. Like glass tapping bone.
---
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
DIMENSION WALKER INTERFACE BOOTING...
Initiating Awakening Protocol...
Location: AWAKENING DIMENSION
User Confirmed: Norian Veyar
Age Verified: 18
Awakening Sequence Authorized
---
His breath caught — shallow, uncertain.
This wasn't fever.
This wasn't a hallucination.
This was real.
He'd heard of it. Quiet whispers in classrooms. The official guidebook had vague lines about transition zones and interface links, but no one really described what it felt like. No one ever came back talking about this part.
The Awakening Dimension.
Alone.
Always alone.
---
[SYSTEM SCAN IN PROGRESS]
Detecting Innate Ability...
Result: Ability Present
Attempting Analysis..
Scan Complete.
---
His heart thudded — not fast, but harder than normal. Like it knew something he didn't.
Another screen slid into view.
---
[INNATE ABILITY DETECTED]
Name: CONVICTION NEXUS
Description: They believe, he becomes.
Status: Active
---
He stared at it.
It wasn't hard to read. The words were plain. But they hung there, like something that had depth behind it. He understood what the words meant — vaguely — but the meaning didn't settle. His brain brushed the surface, then moved on.
There was something there.
But not yet.
The silence around him deepened. Something vast turned overhead, unseen — like a planet or a ring. He didn't look up.
---
[SYSTEM INTERFACE STATUS]
Core Interface: LOCKED
Mission Hub: TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED
System Access: RESTRICTED UNTIL FIRST MISSION COMPLETE
Administrative Channels: LOCKED
Class-Tier Allocation: PENDING
Mission Quota: 0/20
---
He exhaled.
So it was happening. The real thing.
No ceremony. No voice from the sky. Just a quiet boot-up like he was some device being turned on for the first time.
He didn't know how to feel.
Not afraid. Not excited. Just... slow. The way someone might feel waking up on the wrong train — not because it was dangerous, but because it meant the next stop wouldn't be home.
The chime rang again. But deeper this time.
From above, concentric rings began to descend — translucent, covered in moving glyphs. They spun slowly as they lowered, passing through him without resistance. Each one peeled something invisible away.
The space around him cracked.
Not loud — no noise. Just fracture. Thin fissures of glasswork light split through the emptiness. A hum began. The world itself vibrated — barely, like a thought.
Then the center of the floor beneath him opened.
It didn't fall apart. It folded. Bent space curled inward, impossibly slow, forming a tunnel — no, a funnel — of spiraling motion. It looked like liquid pulled through a pinhole, but massive — too massive.
Colors shifted — black, violet, white, silver — and for a moment he saw stars bending in circles, like water circling a drain in reverse.
This was a wormhole.
But not like in movies.
It didn't shimmer.
It pulsed.
A heartbeat made of gravity and glass.
---
[FINAL SYSTEM UPDATE]
Preparing Dimensional Transfer...
Target World Assigned: HS-009711
Designation: XERION
Current Tier: 1
Status: UNDEVELOPED // HAZARD ZONE // CLASS-F ECOSYSTEM
Known Dominant Lifeforms: SAURAKHAN
Transfer Time: 00:00:05
Please remain conscious.
---
He didn't move.
The rings around him accelerated. The tunnel widened. And the final chime sounded — not like a note, but a sentence he couldn't hear.
Then he fell.
Not down.
Not up.
Through.
Through himself, through the space, through the silence. All thoughts unraveled. Shapes bent. Gravity collapsed into directionless motion.
His heart skipped. His vision stretched. The surface of thought itself fractured.
He didn't scream.
He didn't resist.
He just disappeared.
*****
✢═─༻༺═✢═─༻༺═✢
✶ Dimension Walker ✶
✧ The Veiled Paragon ✧
⊱ Eternal_Void_ ⊰
✢═─༻༺═✢═─༻༺═✢
*****
The land was quiet.
Too quiet.
A narrow vein between two opposing worlds. To one side stretched a wild, overgrown rainforest—thick with emerald canopy, dripping vines, and the scent of sap and moisture.
Light filtered through the trees like fractured glass, but beneath that beauty was something else. Something darker. The silence here wasn't peace. It was a kind of waiting.
On the other side, the ground sank and drowned. The trees shriveled into twisted, hunched things. Pools of still water sat in depressions of black mud. A swamp.
And not the kind seen in stories. This one pulsed with something living—something watching. The air was thicker here. It clung to the lungs, refusing to be breathed. No birds. No insects. No breeze. Only the distant groan of unseen things and the slow drip of water that had nowhere to go.
Between these two lands was a patch of open space, bare and wrong. Like the world hadn't finished building itself here.
Then—
A shimmer. Like oil tearing through glass. A flicker above, high in the air, spiraling open.
The fabric of space folded, twisted in a way the eye couldn't fully track. Something dropped through. It wasn't a ship, not exactly—a structure no larger than a tool shed, humming faintly, edges rounded, surface dark and seamless like stone soaked in starlight.
The air sighed. A hatch opened.
And Norian fell through.
He didn't crash. Not really. The drop was gentle, but sudden. His knees hit first. Then his hands. The earth beneath him was soft and damp, but not forgiving. A jolt ran up his bones. His vision doubled for a moment.
He sucked in a breath—and choked.
The smell.
Wet. Muddy. Rotten. A rancid mix of mold and decay that forced its way into his sinuses and wrapped around his brain like a vise. It wasn't just a smell. It was a weight. It made his stomach curl and his thoughts fumble.
What is this place?
His thoughts scattered like loose pages in wind. His body didn't feel like his own. His mind felt… slow. Fogged. Everything had happened too fast. There wasn't enough time to adjust. No pause. No reset. Just this.
He turned his head—slowly, sluggishly—to the left.
And saw it.
A mouth. A thing. Charging straight at him.
His heart didn't race. It stalled.
It was like his body refused to understand what his eyes were seeing. The thing was monstrous, larger than a car, shaped like it had crawled from the bottom of a grave and kept growing.
Its skin looked like it had been stitched from tree bark, muscle, and disease. Each step it took sank into the earth with a sound like meat being torn underwater. The mouth was wide, no jaw, just a ring of jagged, uneven teeth spiraling inward, pulsing like it breathed through hunger.
Norian froze.
His body didn't move.
His mind screamed run, but it was like shouting through water. He couldn't even lift his arms.
And then, just meters from him—
The ground shifted beneath the creature. The thing stumbled—slid, collapsed, crashing into the swampy earth with a squelch that sent mud spraying. Its momentum snapped to a halt inches from Norian's feet.
Still, he didn't move.
Not until the smell hit him full-force.
It was no longer just rot. It was death—old, wet, clinging death. Like a corpse left to decay in a locked room. The kind of smell that turned instinct into command.
His stomach lurched. Something snapped inside him.
His breath caught, then rushed out.
If I don't move now… I never will.
The thought didn't come from courage. It came from something buried—something primal.
His limbs unlocked.
He scrambled to his feet, stumbling once, then caught himself. The sound of movement behind him—slick, shifting mass—rose like a drumbeat. He didn't look back.
He ran.
He didn't know why he ran toward the rainforest. He didn't weigh the options. Didn't think. Thinking was gone. There was no plan. Only motion.
He just had to get away.
The earth sucked at his feet with every step. Branches tore at his arms. His lungs burned. His vision blurred with each bounce of his stride.
Behind him, the Mire Golem was rising.
It didn't roar.
It didn't scream.
It just followed—silent, inevitable, relentless.
And Norian ran.
He didn't feel brave.
He didn't feel ready.
He felt like a boy who'd stumbled into someone else's nightmare.
And the nightmare was real.
***
Huff… huff…
Huff… huff…
Norian ran.
Ran.
And ran.
Behind him, the Mire Golem thundered forward, each of its massive footsteps booming into the earth like the tolling of a death bell. The ground trembled. Trees shuddered. Birds screamed and fled into the storm-colored canopy above.
Tears streaked Norian's cheeks—not from pain, but raw, undiluted terror. He couldn't control it. Couldn't see properly. The world blurred as sweat and salt stung his eyes, but still he ran.
His heart pulsed so hard in his chest it felt like it might burst through his ribcage, like it might leak out of his mouth. His head spun.
Adrenaline, thick as poison, surged through him, making his limbs feel alien, distant—like they belonged to someone else.
He wasn't in control.
His body moved, but it didn't feel like him anymore. He was a puppet of instinct. Of survival. Numb to sensation. He felt every footfall ripple through his legs and shake his organs with tremors, as if the forest itself were protesting his escape.
The shockwaves from his own sprint trembled his muscles until they spasmed, twitching like broken wires.
But he couldn't stop.
Wouldn't stop.
Behind him—
BOOM.
Another footstep. Louder.
Closer.
Too close.
He cried harder, breath catching in sharp, aching gasps.
In his mind, chaos howled.
'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Why? Why is this happening? Why me?
Why now? Why the fuck can't I catch a break?!'
He wasn't thinking. Not clearly. He was screaming inside, trapped in the echo chamber of his own skull. The thoughts weren't sentences. Just noise. Panic. Instinct.
The forest around him—Sontai, a place of legends—blurred by in his tear-glazed vision. The canopy above shimmered in unnatural colors, thick with rain-cloud mist and strands of glowing moss. Bioluminescent vines curled around massive blackwood trees that pulsed faintly with inner light, as if breathing.
Unfamiliar birds chirped sharp notes like broken glass. The leaves beneath Norian's feet glowed faintly under pressure, casting footstep-shaped pulses that faded in seconds.
Yet none of it registered.
It was beauty he couldn't afford to notice.
He ran.
And ran.
Time stretched into nothing. It felt like hours, though only minutes had passed. Norian had no sense of direction, only fear and the need to move.
Then—he saw it. A fallen dead tree. Thick, hollowed out. He veered toward it and leapt, barely clearing it. His breath hitched as he glanced back, desperate for hope.
He saw the Mire Golem barrel through the log like it was paper.
The world blurred again. Norian screamed.
He screamed as he ran.
Screamed, cried, and ran—his voice raw, throat torn from the force of it.
And then—
DING.
A golden-blue screen flickered in front of his eyes.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]...
Norian barely glanced at it.
A second later, it vanished.
He didn't process it. Not really. Just a ding, and some flashing symbols. He forgot about it the next breath.
But something changed.
His legs moved more surely. His heart, once ready to explode, slowed—slightly. His lungs still burned, but no longer felt like ripping apart. A little strength returned to his limbs. Not much. But enough.
He pushed harder.
Faster.
Distance opened between him and the monster.
Another ding rang out. Another notification. He didn't look this time. Didn't have the mind to.
Instead, his head whipped side to side, searching the shadowy rainforest around him. His panic was giving way to something sharper. Still desperate, but focused now.
He needed to hide.
Escape.
Live.
The monster moaned behind him—an awful, gurgling cry. Enraged. Starved. Close.
And then—salvation.
A narrow hill. A small cave opening hidden beneath hanging roots, barely wide enough for a child.
He didn't think. Foolishly, blindly, he dove for it. Slid through the entrance, scraping his arms on the rough stone.
Inside, he stumbled toward the far wall, panting. Shaking.
The space was tight. Triangular. Not deep enough. Just a slanted cavity in the hill's face.
He was trapped.
He pressed against the wall, trying to disappear, willing himself to vanish into the stone. But it was cold. Solid. Unforgiving.
The ground shook.
The footsteps again.
Closer.
So close.
His breath stilled. He didn't know if the sound he heard was the Mire Golem's approach or his own heartbeat. The two merged—thump, thump, boom, boom—until he couldn't tell which was which.
Then—
It came.
The Mire Golem loomed at the entrance.
It looked in.
Its rotting, mud-caked hand pushed into the narrow space, grasping.
Stone cracked.
Its fingers came inches from Norian's face.
He didn't scream.
He couldn't.
He slapped his hand over his mouth, choking on the smell.
A stench so vile it burned his sinuses, made his eyes water all over again. Like mold and burning sewage, mixed with something dead and left to rot for months.
His stomach lurched. He gagged. His legs buckled and gave out, and he slid to the floor. Still covering his mouth, still trying not to make a sound.
The Golem couldn't reach.
It snarled.
And punched.
Once. Twice.
Boom. Boom.
Norian flinched with each strike. The cave shook. Dust fell. He curled tighter, forehead against the stone, shaking like a leaf.
It kept punching.
Kept howling.
For minutes.
But to Norian, it felt like forever.
Then—
Silence.
A lull.
Hope.
But before Norian could believe it, the monster growled, then let out one final, furious roar, and smashed the entrance again—
BOOM!
The rocks dented inward, but held.
And then—quiet.
The Mire Golem was gone.
Norian didn't move.
Couldn't.
He didn't trust it. Didn't trust the silence. The shadows.
His eyes stayed on the cave mouth, watching, waiting for the hand to return. For the sound of feet. For the end.
But nothing came.
He wanted to stay alert. Needed to.
But his mind was unraveling. The adrenaline high had crashed. His limbs were lead. His head fog.
He knew—
Knew—
If he lost consciousness, he might die.
Something else could come.
There was no one guarding the entrance. No lock. No protection.
But his body didn't care.
The tears were dry now. His muscles twitched with aftershock. His heartbeat was faint, shallow. The corners of his vision darkened.
He slumped, body trembling from overload. His mind slipping under.
The last thought that passed through him, before the darkness took him—
'I don't wanna die.'
-To Be Continued