I taste ash as the world goes black. My lungs sting from the smoke, and my armour, polished and shining nevermore, sits shattered beneath me. The sky is a cruel violet and cobalt bruise above—a dying tapestry and the Void Legion's obelisks share stoop up the clouds into wicked spires. I am the last line of defense, the last protector of Earth, and I've already failed once.
My name is Kairo Vale; it's the only thing I can remember when writhing in that kind of pain. Dark ichor, thick as midnight, oozes from the hole in my side and the pain is immediate. The battlefield extends into the distance: broken tanks, ash‑covered ruins, soldiers transmuted into silent statuary by the Legion's dark gravity. I make myself stand, choking on my own breath like a razor against my ribs, because if I die right here, humanity dies alongside me.
There is a remote explosion that passes through the ground, undulating the shattered pavement under my boots. I see movement: an Obsidian Warlord looming a hundred feet away, eyes burning red, snakes of void energy squirming around its fists. It is the last of the Legion's commanding officer riding by in person. I have men down––I saw half a dozen fall to its assault just seconds ago.
A part of me shambles after hope, just for a moment. I raise my plasma blade. "This ends now," I whisper. The words taste hollow.
I charge.
The Warlord turns. It bellows in a tongue more ancient than stars. Reality quakes. The energy lashes out in a bolt of lightning black, and I duck behind a crumbled wall. The pressure wave almost rips me in half. For one heartbeat I consider giving up. But then I think of the urchins of Earth huddled in underground bunkers, the whispers I overheard yesterday of resistance cells coming together in the ruins of cities, the glint of defiance and courage in their eyes.
I won't let them die in vain.
I surge back into the open. My blade hums, slicing air. I dive at its ankle — a sure blow I have practiced a thousand times. The Warlord's knee gives out, and it snarls. My chest swells with triumph. But I don't have time to complete it before its arm swings in a gravity pulse. I'm sucked off my feet, thrown up against the wall, as my world turns on its side.
Darkness seeps in. No pain anymore — just a numb detachment, this sensation of floating under water. I welcome it. Better than the agony.
A voice pierces the fog -- a distant, melodic voice: "Kairo Vale… Defender… you are required elsewhere."
I can't speak. Instead, I make an effort to will my eyes open.
Stars––so many stars. They glisten in impossible constellations, bending and warping as if viewed through a broken lens. An almost human figure is approaching, and it is tall and cloaked, with indistinct shape and shadows attending, that swallow starlight. I haver seen those wandering gowns in a dream I never dreamed.
"You died for a world that cannot save itself," the stranger intones. "But death is but a door, not the end."
I try to say something, but I don't have a voice. My body is empty — as if the muscles and bones have been removed.
"I'll give you a second chance."
The words ring out into the nothing with disturbing clarity. I am pulled forward with nothing to prevent me. And as I get closer, the stranger reaches out a hand. A shimmering symbol dances in their palm –– a flicker of sliver light and runes which turn into others that I can't read, and back again.
"Take the System," the figure tells him. 'You will rise again." …. "Embrace the Unblinding Evolution and you will rise again.'
Something splinters inside me — something like hope, or desperation. My arm extends on its own. My fingertip grazes the sigil, and a surge of light jolts through me, like electricity down a wire.
Pain explodes.
I scream—or at least I think I do—as every nerve in my body bursts into flame. Colours blaze behind my eyes: violet, crimson, gold. I sense bones shifting, veins redirecting, the edges of my mind unraveling. Then, silence.
I open my eyes to darkness. Something soft beneath me — a narrow cot; dim room. Dim torches flicker on stone walls marred by age-old glyphs. My eyes flicker, then focus: not an infirmary but something carved from memory and myth.
A voice: soft and tense with pressure.
"Stay with me," it says. I turn my head. A woman stands next to me, a field of silver‑white hair rippling over armor filigreed shoulders. Relief and fear equally shared in her light violet eyes.
"Where… am I?" My throat is raw. The words scrape out.
She kneels and places a cool hand against my forehead. "You're in Elyndros, Kairo Vale."
The name leaves a queer chord in my mind. Elyndros… This is real and I'm alive. An interface floats in front of me, an overlay before my eyes: Boundless Evolution System — Initializing.
Stat bars flash: Life, Power, Chaos Resistance – all on zero. And right below that, a countdown: 01:23:47 until System Link ends.
I lurch upwards, ignoring the woman's hand. "Tell me what happened!"
She holds up a finger. "Breathe. You've been unconscious for… days." Her voice falters. "The System nearly consumed you. Maybe you didn't even wake."
I closed my eyes and let the memories return: war on earth, the black ichor, the rebel god's proposal, the transformation's pain. My sense of self trembles. If the System very nearly ruined me, what else can it do?
I glance around the chamber. Torches illuminate etched pillars each carved with ten symbols, representing each Divine Realm. But half the columns stand broken. Somebody or something already hit this place. My spine feels ice cold.
"Where am I? Who are you?" My voice is firmer now.
"I'm Lirael Starforge," she tells me, the name serving as a vow I hope to keep. "I saved you from the aftermath of the Void Rift."
A Void Rift––the very power that disintegrated Earth–now tears through Elyndros! And I'm its new herald.
The ping from the System interface: Resource Audit Available. Here, a sampling: "Soul Fragments of Lesser Beings."
I swallow. "What must I do?"
Lirael's eyes flash with something wild. "Survive. Adapt. And whatever you do, don't succumb to the mutations. Every time you decide, it will eat away at your humanity."
I clench my fist as my heart beats. Choice, humanity, survival — all quantified in mutations.
Beyond the torchlight your voice, your distant voice, echoes through the corridors – it sounds like the whisper of iron on the floors. Lirael's eyes dart to the covered archway.
"We're not alone," she warns.
My heart hammers. The last mouthful of air that I took on the surface of this earth started another war here. I bend my fingers and there's a throbbing where bones are settling into new places.
I'm alive.
And I will fight.
A faint growl comes from the shadows through the arch.