The valley waited.
The gate's surface rippled like oil disturbed by thought, subtle at first, then deeper, its concentric patterns spreading outward in perfect, silent waves. Aiden stood at its edge, unmoving, feeling the pulse vibrate through the soles of his boots and up his bones. Every thread of cosmic energy in the vicinity responded, bending minutely toward that circular heart.
[Anomaly Intensity: Rising — 0.02 → 0.09 → 0.16][Dimensional Shear Index: Moderate][Recommendation: Maintain stabilization posture]
He stayed where he was, eyes half-lidded, breath long and deliberate. The Aegis Loop glowed faintly on his wrist, drawing invisible circles through the air that folded reality's edges down around him like smoothing a blanket. The Silence Spindle layered over that, damping the tremor of energy so it didn't echo outward into the watching sensors above.
The gate wanted to wake. But it was like an old creature stirring in its sleep — a motion full of age and weight. The lines etched into the black surface glowed pale, runes rearranging themselves with the patient logic of machines built to last longer than civilizations.
Then the System whispered again.
[Foreign frequency detected.][Origin: Non-planetary data stream. Level — Verse-tier.][Contact in: 7... 6... 5...]
Aiden's eyes snapped open. The glow reflected in them like starlight caught in obsidian. He stepped back, spreading his awareness as the Infinite Comprehension expanded outward instinctively. His senses slipped through layers of matter and energy, reading the weave of the world.
The signal was not energy, not matter — it was concept. An instruction sent through the structure of reality itself.
And it was old. Ancient enough that even the ruins beneath Blue Star might have called it ancestor.
The gate's ripples stilled.
Then, for a heartbeat, everything stopped.
Rain froze mid-fall. Lightning suspended in glass-white silence. The world held its breath.
A shape flickered above the gate — a single outline formed of burning geometry. It wasn't a person. It was a presence, thin and fractal, its edges folding inward infinitely. The longer Aiden looked, the more it refused to resolve into something he could describe.
It looked back.
"...Identification: incomplete. Pattern anomaly detected," the presence said, its voice echoing directly inside his skull. "Local construct, you do not belong to any registry of known civilizations. Designation?"
Aiden didn't speak. Words weren't the right medium. He projected thought instead, shaped by the edge of his comprehension.
"Aiden Cross. Human. Blue Star."
The presence flickered — as if startled.
"Human. That configuration persists? Impossible. The fall of the Progenitor Line was recorded five hundred and twelve billion cycles ago."
Aiden didn't answer. He didn't have the context. The being wasn't really speaking to him — it was thinking through him, as if his consciousness was a mirror it needed to verify its own reflection.
"Error confirmed," it murmured. "This sector was sealed. This Gate—"
The air trembled. The lines of light along the valley floor brightened until they hummed with resonance. The gate began to pulse faster, like a heartbeat under glass.
Aiden's body tensed. His system flared with warnings.
[Gate Activation Sequence Initiated][Event Horizon Expanding — Local Reality Deviation: 0.72%][Warning: Catastrophic risk threshold at 3.0%]
He didn't step back. His instincts told him this was no ordinary activation — it was a reaction to him.
The Obsidian Edge in his chest thrummed softly, a pulse of dark warmth in rhythm with the gate.
The presence flickered again — its form collapsing into thin filaments of data. "Ah. The Blade's current bearer. The recursion persists."
"You know about the blade?" Aiden thought sharply.
"Know? I witnessed its forging. Tell me, remnant child — do you still believe you can control it?"
Aiden's eyes narrowed. "It's not control. It's resonance."
The presence laughed — or maybe it was the sound of reality cracking a little. "Correct answer."
Then the light turned white.
The gate exploded upward in silence.
A column of black and silver light burst into the sky, punching through clouds, cutting them open in a perfect spiral. The rain disintegrated into mist. From kilometers away, the soldiers of Silver Division staggered, shields flickering as the readings on their displays spiked beyond scale.
Captain Nyra Voss tore her visor off as her sensor array overloaded. Her lieutenant stumbled beside her, shouting over the static.
"Ma'am, the readings are off the charts! Spatial distortion radius expanding beyond prediction — it's not a flare, it's a breach!"
"Pull everyone back!" she snapped. "Do not engage — that's an order!"
But even as her words echoed across the comms, the light intensified. The shockwave rolled outward in perfect silence — not heat, not wind, but the absence of both. Everything it touched flickered out of alignment for a fraction of a second before snapping back.
Aiden stood at the center, unmoving, the world bending gently around him like glass around a steady flame.
Inside the light, a gate appeared.
Not a symbol. Not a mere construct. A literal archway — tall as a tower, forged from the same black-silver material as the Obsidian Edge. Its surface flowed like liquid metal, engraved with glyphs that rearranged themselves in constant, incomprehensible patterns.
Beyond it was nothing.
Not darkness — absence.
The System spoke, voice hushed, reverent.
[Primordial Gate recognized.][Access: Level 0 — Planetary Interface.][Synchronization Threshold exceeded — 53%.][External observation confirmed.]
Above the clouds, the orbiting Watcher units turned their optical arrays. They watched as the spiral of light expanded, their systems registering a signal that didn't fit any known scale.
Across the upper atmosphere, something stirred — an intelligence that had not noticed Blue Star in millennia.
Back on the ground, Aiden raised his head. The Infinite Comprehension worked furiously to interpret the cascade of data flooding from the gate. He caught fragments — terms like Root Cluster, Progenitor Verse, Primordial Inheritance.
The presence spoke again — its tone softer, almost kind.
"You are too young to step through. But this world will not hold you long. When your core stabilizes, seek the Lightless Span. There lies the true entrance."
Then its voice dimmed.
"Remember this, bearer: what doubles can still divide."
The light receded. The gate dimmed. And then, as suddenly as it had risen, it sank back into the earth — leaving nothing but a shallow crater and the scent of ozone.
Aiden stood still for a long while, letting the rain return.
The System chimed softly.
[Event Complete.][System Synchronization: 53%.][Reward: Gate Imprint Fragment (1).][Status: External Lock – Awaiting cosmic stability.]
He exhaled slowly, tension bleeding from his shoulders. His clothes were soaked through, but his pulse was steady. The Aegis Loop cooled against his skin, its glow fading to a steady hum.
He looked at the crater, then at the horizon.
"Lightless Span," he whispered. "So there's more beyond this world."
He started to walk, boots crunching over damp stone. Above, the first line of blue cracked through the clouds, sunlight returning to the fractured land.
Far behind, in the monitoring outpost buried beneath Base City 5, alarms still wailed. Technicians scrambled to analyze the anomaly, but every reading dissolved into static past a certain threshold.
Nyra Voss stood at the main console, eyes locked on the satellite feed showing the valley's faint heat signature.
Her second-in-command approached cautiously. "Captain… whatever that was, it just stopped. No radiation, no seismic instability. It's like it never happened."
Nyra didn't respond. She zoomed in on the last clear frame before the distortion collapsed — a blurry image of a young man standing at the center of a storm, untouched by chaos.
She recognized him instantly.
"Cross…"
The name left her lips like a quiet curse — or a prayer.
"Keep all data classified under Code Obsidian," she said finally. "And double the surveillance on him. Whatever he just woke up... the Verse might start looking back."
Aiden didn't hear any of that.He walked until the wind softened and the valley was a memory behind him. The System's interface hovered faintly before him, a reminder of the progress he couldn't slow down even if he wanted to.
Physique: 419,430.4Spirit: 419,430.4Attributes doubling in: 21:57:08Synchronization: 53%. Next evolution threshold: 75%.
He stopped beneath a shattered tower of metal that once might have been part of an orbital tether, long since swallowed by vines and dust. He sat, back against the cold steel, eyes closing as the power within him settled, deeper and more stable than before.
For a long time, there was only silence.Then, faintly, the System whispered something new.
[Optional Quest: The Path Beyond the Planet.][Objective: Locate the Lightless Span.][Warning: Entities at Stellar or higher realms may interfere.]
Aiden smiled faintly, eyes still shut.
"Then let them try."
The sky above cracked with lightning again — but this time, it felt like applause.