Aiden blinked. The ocean of glass was gone.
He was standing on solid ground now — dark stone under his feet, cold and faintly vibrating. Overhead, the sky still looked wrong. The sun was black, its orange rings spinning slow and deliberate. But the space felt smaller now, more… compact. Like a cage built from what was left of the Nexus.
"...so this is it," he muttered. "I'm gonna die inside a video game."
A chime suddenly started echoing:
[System Rebooting…]
[Orientation protocol: Online.]
The air grew thicker and a cluster of light started assembling, weaving itself into a humanoid silhouette. Slowly, the silhouette became clear — white hair flowing in soft waves, eyes like liquid silver threaded with light. She looked like... an angel.
"Welcome, Aiden Vale. Your connection has been confirmed."
Aiden blinked. "Are you real?"
"I am Lyra," she said. "An orientation construct created to guide new users through the Nexus."
She turned, and the ground around them began to change. Patterns rippled outward like particles of light — circles within circles — until a wide platform materialized beneath their feet. Beyond it stretched an infinite sea of light, while above them, the black sun kept humming.
"This is the Nexus," Lyra said. "Where consciousness stabilizes before entering Eclipse. Think of it as a… waiting room of sorts."
Aiden tried shoving his hands into his pockets, only to find out he didn't have any. He was completely naked. Despite that, what he found weird wasn't the fact that he had no clothes on, but that his body looked exactly the same as in the real world — pale, thin, hollow in all the wrong places. Even THAT… was the same.
"Wow," he muttered. "Could've given me abs."
Lyra turned toward him, her expression perfectly neutral. "Physical forms are not chosen. They get transferred as-is. The Eclipse does not alter reality."
"So I look like I actually look."
"Yes."
He stared down at himself for a moment, then gave a small, humorless laugh.
"Guess that's one way to give people a reality check."
She checked him up and down for a while — long enough to make him uncomfortable.
"You're different," she said finally. "The Nexus couldn't assign you a Resonance."
"Yeah, I noticed."
"It shouldn't be possible," she murmured, almost to herself. "Every living consciousness produces emotional energy. It is the foundation of entry. Without it, the interface should treat you as a virus and reject you."
"Lucky me," I murmured.
She suddenly looked up, as though listening to something he couldn't hear. "Yet it didn't reject you. The system forced connection manually."
Aiden frowned. "Meaning what?"
"Meaning," she said quietly, "something wants you here."
Lyra raised her hand, and lines of light spread outward again. Dozens of colored orbs rose into the air — red, blue, pink, green, violet — each moving to a rhythm that was more like a pulse than a song. Weirdly enough, Aiden felt an uncomfortable sense of familiarity whenever they got close to him.
The colors twisted and separated, each one finding its own orbit.
"These are the Resonances," she said. "The foundation of Eclipse. Every emotion carries energy. Every energy takes form."
The red one flared brighter, spreading fire across the platform.
"Rage," she said. "The oldest force — fire, strength, motion. When humans first fought the dark, this was their most prized weapon."
The orb's flame twisted into a silhouette of a man roaring at the sky before vanishing.
"Often, those who awaken it burn too brightly," she added. "They forget that fire consumes without exceptions."
Then a blue one swirled upward, smooth and fluid. Its movements were hypnotic, always shifting, never breaking form.
"Serenity," Lyra continued. "Calm. Water. Reflection. It watches before it strikes. The ones who awaken it often claim to see… fragments of what's coming. Not exactly the future, more like a prediction of the next few moments."
"So basically precognition," Aiden said.
Her eyes flickered toward him — an unspoken 'yes'.
Next came black. It stretched across the platform like ink spilled over glass, and for a second, Aiden thought he saw something moving in it — a shape watching from the dark.
"Fear," she whispered. "Shadow and instinct. The first to hide is the last to die. Those who live long enough under Fear stop being seen at all."
His eyes squinted. "So stealth mode."
Then gold — warm and soft, like sunlight through a curtain. The glow brushed against his skin, and for a moment, he felt… lighter.
"Joy," she said. "Light. Restoration. When you feel joy, the world itself responds. An entire Strata has risen from ashes because of a single Joy resonant."
"Wait," he interrupted. "What's a Strata?"
Her serene eyes focused on him. "Patience. We'll get there."
The warmth faded, replaced by a sudden rush of violet light that cut across the platform like a race car.
"Excitement," she said. "Wind. Acceleration. They say the first one who awakened it could outrun lightning. He didn't survive long enough to prove it twice."
Aiden whistled. "I'm starting to see a pattern here. Excess leads to death."
"That is humanity," Lyra said simply.
Then the violet gave way to crimson — not warm like Rage, but darker, raw, almost alive. The air around it warped, trembling as if trying to escape.
"Hatred," she said. Her voice was quieter now. "Destruction. Ruin. It corrodes everything — even itself. The first Hatred user to touch Eclipse erased half a Strata before vanishing."
Aiden grew curious. "Vanishing meaning dead?"
"Meaning gone," she shot him down.
Before he could reply, gray light rose from the floor, heavy and bitter. It pulsed once, and the air grew thicker.
"Contempt," Lyra said. "Stone. Control. The user doesn't have to move — it makes the world move around it."
Aiden snorted. "So, even people with superiority complexes get powers?"
"Superiority is control," she said, almost sharply.
Then came pale blue frost, blooming like flowers over the platform. Aiden's breath came out white now.
"Despair," Lyra said "Ice. Stillness. The longer you're near it, the harder it is to move. A few of the original Depsair users learned to stop hearts without the need to get close."
Aiden glanced down at the ice creeping toward his toes and stepped back. "That's… good to know."
Mist began to rise — faint, gray, constantly shifting. Shapes formed and disappeared within it, silhouettes that seemed to tell you to come closer.
"Anxiety," she said. "Mist. Mirage. The more you look at it, the less you know what's real. Most who awaken it eventually lose themselves and die confused."
And then, just when he thought it was over, one last light appeared — faint pink, almost white, and strangely warm. It didn't pulse or hum, yet this was the most enticing of them all.
Lyra hesitated. "Love," she said finally. "Bloom. Life. The rarest frequency. No one knows what it truly does."
Aiden was intrigued. "Why is that?"
"Because," she started, "everyone who's ever awakened it has vanished."
The light flickered once and drifted upward until it was swallowed by the black sun. Lyra's voice grew distant, almost reverent.
"There are stories, though. That love isn't about strength or healing — it's about connection, the power to rewrite souls. Some call it the resonance that 'ends the game.'"
"That sounds…" Aiden muttered. "Horrifying."
The light began to fade, retreating into the air like embers after a storm.
"Each Resonance is both a weapon and a curse," Lyra continued. "The stronger you feel, the stronger you become. But the closer you get to becoming corrupted."
"Corrupted?"
She nodded. "Crash States or Corruption. It happens when your emotions override your self-control. Every Resonance has one. Once someone ends up in a Crash State, the chances of them coming back from it are... low."
Lyra didn't move for a long moment. When she finally did, her voice became softer, almost like she was talking to herself.
"Resonances define everything here. They are your power, they are your identity."
"Yeah," Aiden said. "You made that pretty clear. Feel things, get stronger. Feel too much, die horribly."
She blinked once.
"Few ever master more than one emotion," she said. "Most stabilize with a single Resonance, sometimes two. Those who awaken three are rare enough to be called prodigies, four are beyond geniuses, and five are legends."
"And six?" Aiden asked.
Her silver eyes dimmed faintly. "There are only two people alive who stabilized with six Resonances," Her tone lowered slightly. "One of the is Karas — The Hunter. He appears whenever a Key surfaces. And when he does, no one leaves alive."
Aiden exhaled. "Sounds like a fun guy."
Lyra didn't react. "The Eclipse Police Force exists to stop him from collecting all the Keys — and to maintain balance across Eclipse. Their Commander Varyn is the other one of two people known to hold six Resonances."
Aiden was perplexed. "I'm guessing those aren't regular keys…"
The air around her shimmered, and then crystalline fragments appeared — each one glowing faintly with its own color.
"These are the Keys," she said. "Each is tied to a pure form of its Resonance. Rage. Serenity. Fear. Joy. Excitement. Hatred. Contempt. Despair. Anxiety. Love."
Her eyes lingered on the keys, their colors reflecting her silver irises like distant fireflies.
"No one knows what the Keys truly are," she said, her voice quieter now. "Only that the—"
The light around them flickered once — then again. Lyra froze. Her head snapped upwards, eyes scanning the sky. For the first time, her composure cracked.
"No… that's not possible," she murmured. "The Nexus can't destabilize here."
Aiden realized something was wrong. "What's happening?"
"Your presence — it's unbalancing the system. The Nexus isn't designed to hold a Null."
The ground shuddered underfoot, fissures of light crawling across the obsidian platform. Aiden took a step back.
"You're saying I broke the tutorial?"
Lyra ignored the comment, her tone suddenly clipped and urgent. "There's no time. I have to transfer you out manually."
"To where?"
"The first Stratum," she said quickly. "The Veiled Plains. It's a transitional layer, made for beginners. You'll find other Resonants there—"
The air cracked like glass. Lyra staggered, static tearing through her voice.
"No… not yet! The coordinates aren't—"
[Error. Transfer Protocol Interrupted.]
[Fallback Route Engaged.]
She reached toward him, her fingers dissolving into white light.
"Aiden! Listen to me — if you end up outside the first Stratum, do not move. The system will—"
Lyra vanished in a burst of sound and the platform split apart below him.
Then he was falling — through layers of shattered light, tumbling endlessly. Fragments of color bled past him: red like fire, blue like oceans, black like night.
When he hit the ground, it wasn't light he saw — it was dust. Thick, choking dust that smelled like iron and ash. Aiden groaned, rolling to his side. The air was hot and the sky burned.
He blinked. Yeah, this definitely wasn't the beginner zone.
[Warning: Location Error.]
Aiden pushed himself up, his arms trembling. All around him, the world stretched out in blurry silhouettes — towers split in half, bridges hanging in the air with no support, rivers of black glass pulsing faintly below. The wind howled low through the ruins, carrying a faint metallic echo — like chains dragging across glass.
And then he heard it. Footsteps. Heavy. Slow.
He turned, squinting through the haze — and froze. A figure was walking towards him through the dust. The figure was tall, broad, and looked wrong in a way Aiden couldn't exactly describe. Like the light didn't want to reveal whatever that nasty silhouette was hiding.
The man stopped a few meters before him. Even from a distance, Aiden could feel it — this man was dangerous.