Once, it must have been magnificent. Once, Ekwensu had followers, festivals, blood-oaths sung by whole cities, and a thousand altars burning in his name. But now?
Now, his shrine sat like a ruin swallowed by time—half-buried in moss, its jagged obsidian spires cracked and leaning like broken teeth. Where other gods in Nri-Ulo basked in marble temples brimming with worshipers and chi-fed luxuries, Ekwensu's shrine was quiet, oppressive, and forgotten.
The Shrine of Ekwensu sat like a forgotten wound in the belly of Nri-Ulo—a crumbling edifice of blackened stone, its once-fearsome murals now chipped and faded. The pillars leaned inward, burdened by time and neglect, and vines crept through the cracks like nature reclaiming what deceit had abandoned.
Inside, the air was thick—not with reverence, but bitterness. The once-grand halls echoed with silence, save for the occasional metallic clang of distant chains.
Ezego, High Priest of Ekwensu, sat brooding on a throne built from rusted blades and the bones of past enemies. The torches around him barely flickered—Ekwensu's power had waned, starved by dwindling faith. But Ezego's Chi still pulsed beneath the surface, volatile and sharp like shattered obsidian.
Suddenly, the silence broke.
A low, electric hum surged through the room.
Then—thunder. Loud enough to rattle stone.
A blinding arc of lightning split the air at the shrine's entrance.
From within the crackling brilliance stepped Nnamdi the Skybrand, Chief Priest of Amadioha.
His robes swirled with the colors of the storm—deep indigo trimmed in searing white, shifting with every step like rolling clouds. A long silver staff crackled with restrained lightning in his right hand, while his eyes glowed faintly with divine charge. The room itself seemed to brighten in his presence, the shadows retreating.
Behind him, the crack in the stone sealed with another rumble of thunder, as if the storm itself obeyed his command.
"This is the second time in three moons I've had to cross this wretched threshold," Nnamdi said, his voice carrying with it the weight of judgment, not anger—something colder. More permanent.
Ezego didn't rise. He remained seated, staring through the storm-priest.
"I wasn't aware I needed to request permission to move my pieces," Ezego muttered. "Not from you."
Nnamdi descended the steps into the central chamber. His eyes scanned the ruined murals of Ekwensu—paintings of deceitful gods and wars waged in shadows.
"You do, when those pieces wear the red fangs of the Red Claw, and move without restraint."
He came to a stop a few paces from Ezego's throne.
"You've mobilized a force meant for divine conflict—to chase a man. A lone fugitive. Why?"
Ezego's lip curled. "That 'man'—is no mere fugitive. His name is Chizoba, and he is not what he appears to be."
"Then enlighten me," Nnamdi said with a mocking raise of his brow. "Who is he? A criminal? A heretic? Or simply someone who knows too much?"
Ezego's jaw tightened. "He is a hybrid, a half-breed between the Ase-born and a Chi-forged line, one who walks dangerously close to prophecy. If left unchecked, he could unravel both pantheons."
"So you sent the Red Claw. Across borders. Without council permission. Again."
"You fear one man that much?"
The silence that followed hung like smoke.
Nnamdi's gaze darkened.
"You've cried wolf before, Ezego. I still remember Aneke the Soothsayer, how you said her visions endangered Nri-Ulo's future. You executed her in the night. The same with the Twin Brothers of Ihiala—torn apart for 'plotting rebellion' when all they did was deny you tribute. And let us not forget the Harvest Pact."
Ezego rose from the throne slowly, his Chi beginning to simmer.
"I did what I had to. Ekwensu demands sacrifice. There is always a price."
"No," Nnamdi snapped. "You demand sacrifice. Your god only watches and whispers. He rewards cunning, not cowardice disguised as prophecy."
The atmosphere tightened, charged with raw spiritual energy. Ezego's Chi burst forth in tendrils of black-purple energy, cracking the walls, warping the stone beneath his feet.
"You walk into my shrine, judge me in my domain, and insult my god?"
"If this place still was a shrine, perhaps I'd respect it," Nnamdi said calmly.
"But all I see is a dying monument to lies."
With those words, lightning cracked from Nnamdi's staff, striking the ceiling.
A blinding column of white-hot energy tore a clean vertical gash through the stone. The shrine shook violently, bits of ceiling crumbling. The ground beneath Ezego split—not deeply, but enough to warn.
Ezego recoiled. His Chi withdrew like a wounded animal. Sweat formed on his brow.
For a breathless moment, there was only the faint crackle of electricity hanging in the air like the edge of a blade.
Then Nnamdi stepped forward and leaned in.
"I know you, Ezego. I know how you twist danger into justification. How you carve your ambition into prophecy."
"So hear me clearly. I don't care about your hunt, your spies, your whispers. But if I find that you've lied—if Chizoba is just another scapegoat for your hunger—I will return."
"And I will not come alone. I will come with the weight of Amadioha's fury. And we will see whether your god of shadows can survive a storm that does not lie."
He turned toward the exit. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
"I'll be watching, Ezego. The gods are not blind. Neither am I."
Then, without another word, he raised his hand, and a pillar of lightning descended from the cracked sky above, engulfing him in a blinding flash.
When it vanished, so had he.
Ezego stood in the silence, fists clenched, Chi trembling.
Behind him, the statue of Ekwensu loomed in darkness, silent and still.
…....
He knew.
That was the thing.
He knew.
This was not real.
And that was exactly what made it worse.
The world around him was grey, a smeared distortion of reality—cloudy skies that didn't move, a land of cracked red clay and flickering dead trees that repeated every ten steps. And behind him—always behind him, too close and yet never closing—was Ezego, face alight with that cold, predatory smile, staff dragging across the ground like a ritual executioner's blade.
Chizoba was running, breath burning his throat, the weight of the sealed Chi in his chest like a shackle.
But he wasn't tired. Not truly. Not physically.
He was tired of knowing.
"This isn't real."
He whispered it to himself with every step. A mantra. A lifeline. A rebellion.
He could feel it—the texture of illusion. Most illusions, especially ones conjured through Ase or Chi, required an interference with a person's own energy signature. Illusions bent your perception by latching onto your divine frequency—feeding it lies, molding what you saw based on how much power you unconsciously gave it.
But Chizoba had his Chi sealed.
Every inch of what remained was under complete control. No part of him could be accessed without his will.
So this shouldn't be working.
"I should have woken up."
But he hadn't. The spiral of dead trees still flickered endlessly, and Ezego's grin still stalked him, step for step.
"Still running, my little god-son?"
The voice echoed too close to his right ear, though the figure of Ezego was still several paces behind. Chizoba's head snapped to the side—no one was there. Just windless silence.
He clenched his fists. His steps slowed. The sky hadn't changed. The cracks in the clay were repeating in perfect symmetry.
He was in a loop.
"I know what this is," he said aloud, standing now, letting the phantom Ezego approach. "You're feeding false stimulus. External manipulation. Using Rift-augmented resonance to bypass my mind's thresholds."
He looked around with sharp, furious eyes. "But I'm awake. Somewhere. You've trapped me… but this is still my mind."
And so he stood.
Defiant.
The false Ezego raised his hand.
Dark violet Chi, almost identical to the real thing, gathered at his palm—jagged and sharp like lightning chains.
"Go on, then," Chizoba said. "Let's test the rules of this illusion."
He opened his arms.
"You can't hurt me."
The blast came fast—too fast. It struck him in the ribs and hurled him backwards.
Pain bloomed. Real pain. Blinding.
His side tore open like paper.
Chizoba hit the ground and screamed, curling instinctively, blood soaking the red clay.
"No. No. No—"
This wasn't right.
Illusions couldn't draw real pain. Not unless… unless his body was somehow wired into this. Unless the illusion wasn't pure Chi or Ase, but something older. Deeper.
"They've bypassed the outer mind. They're targeting the bridge between Chi and perception—the Rift layer…"
He forced himself up, trembling, clutching his side.
Behind him, Ezego began walking again.
Always walking.
Never running.
Never tired.
He stumbled forward, hands now moving not just to run but to analyze. He tapped the ground. Felt the clay crumble. Real texture. Real reactions. No dream could reproduce sensory data this sharply unless it was anchored to some kind of techno-psychic mimicry. Rift-tech.
And yet... no visible exit. No glitch. No way to overwrite it.
"You bastards built a prison not in my mind, but on top of it."
But knowing didn't help him escape.
So Chizoba ran.
Not away—but through.
He began to test the world. He altered his pace. Stopped. Backtracked.
Every action had a consequence. Even thinking the wrong thing made the illusion shift—he imagined Ezego tripping once, and suddenly he was the one whose legs gave out.
It responded like a hostile mindscape—an inversion.
The trees now bent toward him. The shadows whispered old names. Sometimes he ran past a copy of himself—bleeding, mad, weeping.
One time, he passed a version of Ezego sitting at a dinner table with his mother.
"Stop it," he hissed, gritting his teeth. "This isn't real. I just have to—"
A second blast hit his leg. Flesh ripped. Bone cracked. He tumbled and tasted dust.
Behind him, the voice—soft now. Childlike.
"You can't run from yourself, Chizoba."
And suddenly he wasn't running.
He was sinking.
The clay turned to liquid. Cold. He was being pulled into the ground—not metaphorically. Something beneath the surface had teeth.
He screamed, fought, and let his sealed Chi burn just enough to light a pulse through his body.
He saw it.
A pulse outside the illusion. A glimmer in the dark. A blurred shape. A face… the Collector's?
The illusion screamed in response. The world shattered for half a second.
He held onto the pain. The echo of that pulse. It was real. He could get out. He had to time it right.
"I see the hole. I see the tear. I just need to break rhythm again. Think outside the loop."
Chizoba, broken, bleeding, half-blind, forced himself back up and began to run again—not away from Ezego, not toward freedom, but toward the part of the illusion that fought hardest to keep him in.
"You used my own Chi to build this cage. I'll use that same Chi to burn a hole through it."
Somewhere, far away, a real monitor flickered.
Somewhere, the Collector frowned.
And somewhere deeper in the cocoon of Rift-weaved control—
a crack began to form.