Adrian opened the chamber door and stepped inside.
The room was startlingly bare. No furniture, not even a chair. Just a man sitting cross-legged in the center, surrounded by silence.
Most of the world had never seen the Sentinel's true form. In the grainy satellite footage of the day he shattered alien fleets, his body had been drowned in light, only a golden silhouette visible.
Now, Adrian saw the face of the man who had lived for millennia. The being who had carried Earth for millennia looked no older than thirty-five, his features were normal.
But his presence… Adrian felt as if he stood at the edge of an endless ocean. Even after all his growth, even with his Source stirring inside him, he could not fathom the depths before him.
The man opened his eyes.
"Adrian Blackwood." His voice was quiet, yet it carried through the chamber as though the walls themselves spoke.
Adrian bowed his head slightly. "Lord Sentinel." Respect was the least he owed. This was the man who had borne Earth's weight for ages uncounted.
The Sentinel regarded him silently. His gaze held depths that spoke of civilizations risen and fallen, of battles fought in the void between stars.
Then he spoke.
"I've seen the reports. Sixteen years old. Awakened with what we classified as Echo, an SSS-rank affinity."
The Sentinel's fingers drummed once against his knee. "Your affinity lets you mirror others, and you reached manifestation long before most A-ranks ever touch it."
"And now—" He paused, studying Adrian's face. "—in a single mission, you created ink that rewrites the rules of runes, slew an A-rank kraken, and healed an entire fortress with one spell."
He leaned forward slightly. The movement was small, but it made the air itself seem to compress around them.
"You've been awakened for barely a month. And you tell me it was Volume III that gave you all this."
Adrian nodded once. "Yes."
The Sentinel's eyes narrowed with something colder than calculation. "Child… I have studied those Volumes for millennia. I have read them until their symbols haunted my dreams."
His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "And still, there are lines even I cannot decipher. Even I cannot claim comprehension of the third."
He let the words hang in the air. The silence stretched between.
"And yet, you say you understood it in a single day." The Sentinel's tone carried disbelief.
"Do you understand what you've done? To my knowledge, even the civilizations that created the Volumes could not master the third so swiftly."
"What you achieved transcends human limits… perhaps even theirs."
The Sentinel rose to his feet in one fluid motion. His presence expanded, filling the chamber until Adrian felt pressed against invisible walls.
"It seems I've waited all these millennia for someone like you to appear." Something flickered in his ancient eyes. "With your existence, humanity's chance against the stars grows brighter."
Adrian met the man's gaze evenly. The pressure around him was immense, but his Source connection held firm.
His voice was steady. "I don't know if I'm the one you've been waiting for."
"But I do know this." Adrian's hands clenched at his sides. "If humanity is to survive, then someone has to break through where others stop."
"I'll bear that burden, if I must." His voice hardened with resolve. "Because I refuse to watch helplessness rule us again."
A flicker of something passed across the Sentinel's face. Approval, perhaps even relief.
He raised a hand. "Show me the ink. Let me see with my own eyes what you have created."
Adrian produced the vial from his robes. The liquid swirled with its telltale white-grey shimmer, catching the chamber's dim light.
The Sentinel took it, holding the glass up to examine the contents. At first, his expression was calm, analytical.
Then his brows furrowed. His hand tightened ever so slightly around the glass.
"This energy…" His voice shifted, low and grave. "I have felt it before."
Adrian tilted his head. The change in the Sentinel's demeanor sent a chill down his spine.
"Where?"
The Sentinel's voice grew heavy with ancient memory. "In the Abyss."
Adrian's chest tightened. He knew of the Abyss, everyone did. The most dangerous land on Earth, making even the Sea Wall's endless monster waves seem tame by comparison.
Yet the Abyss was shrouded in secrecy. Little true information existed, even in restricted files.
The Sentinel spoke slowly, each word deliberate. "The Abyss is no ordinary land. It is a domain, a transparent veil that covers the region."
"Step within, and affinities weaken. Power collapses." His grip on the vial remained steady, but Adrian caught the tension in his shoulders.
"Even the strongest find themselves losing half their strength."
He looked past Adrian, as if recalling memories carved into his very being.
"When I entered, the suppression twisted violently. My strength pushed it so far that one more step would have torn the land itself apart."
The Sentinel's jaw tightened. "If I had pressed on, the Abyss might have destabilized the Earth itself. So I withdrew to protect this world. "
Adrian's breath stilled. The idea of something forcing the Sentinel to retreat was almost incomprehensible.
"I could only observe after that," the Sentinel continued. "Each year, I send S-rank and top A-rank defenders into the Abyss."
"To cull monsters and to temper themselves. For once they ascend to S-rank, there is little left in this world that threatens them."
His eyes grew distant. "The Abyss is their crucible."
The Sentinel's gaze locked with Adrian's, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop. "And now I feel the same energy here. In this ink you've created."
"The same force that suppresses even me."
"Tell me, child... why does the energy from that place reside within the ink you created?"
For a moment, the room was silent but for Adrian's controlled breathing. The implications crashed through his mind like waves.
"I had no idea, I only infused my affinity into the ink," Adrian said finally. His tone was calm, but inside his thoughts roared like a tempest.
Source energy, here, on Earth? Hidden within the Abyss?
Was this the key to why he had awakened the Source at all? Questions multiplied faster than he could process them.
But one thing was clear. A place that suppressed even the Sentinel was no simple land.
It was something far more dangerous than he had ever imagined.