Chapter 3 — The Camp of Fractured Hope
The first dawn in the survivor camp was colorless.Ash hung in the air like mist, and the horizon glowed faintly where the last rift had burned the clouds. Aiden sat alone on an overturned supply crate, watching the world that used to be Earth try to breathe again.
Around him, people moved like ghosts. Soldiers patrolled the perimeter with scavenged rifles. A child cried softly inside a torn tent. Someone tried to start a fire with an emergency igniter, only to give up halfway through.
This was what was left of civilization—thirty-seven survivors, two defense drones, and a flickering System node whose holographic light blinked every few seconds.
[Local Node: Safe Zone Stability — 39% and falling.]
The voice was calm, but everyone knew what that meant. If it hit zero, the monsters would find them.
Jiro approached, his uniform torn, his face lined with exhaustion. "Morning, Cross. You sleep at all?"
Aiden gave a dry smile. "Define sleep."
"Fair." The captain crouched beside him, lowering his voice. "You didn't tell me how you cleared that rift yesterday."
Aiden's hand tightened on the steel pipe resting beside him. "Do you want the short answer or the one that sounds like insanity?"
"Try me."
He hesitated, staring at the faint scars that still traced the ground from where the void had expanded. "It's not magic. It's… something else. I have a skill the System called Void Sovereign. It consumes things."
Jiro's eyes narrowed. "Consumes?"
"Everything. Flesh, energy, light. It leaves nothing behind."
The soldier was silent for a long moment. Then he said quietly, "That explains why our scanners couldn't find any residue from those creatures."
"Yeah."
"But it doesn't explain why you're still alive."
"Working on that part," Aiden muttered.
Jiro studied him, then stood. "I don't like mysteries. But I like dead soldiers even less. If that power keeps us breathing, you've got my cooperation. For now."
Aiden nodded. "That's good enough for me."
They spent the next few hours reinforcing the barricades. The camp's makeshift walls—sheet metal, vehicle doors, and sandbags—creaked with every gust of wind. Aiden helped weld pieces together, his hands blistered but steady.
Every so often, he caught the eyes of other survivors watching him—fear mixed with curiosity. Whispers followed him wherever he went.
"That's the guy who killed the Riftspawn…""His eyes glow at night.""Stay away from him."
He couldn't blame them. Even he didn't fully understand what the Void had turned him into.
When the System's hum echoed again, he froze.
[Global Announcement.][System Initialization: 72% Complete.][Territorial Integration Begins.][All living beings will be assigned Factional Alignment based on Will resonance.]
"Factional… alignment?" Jiro muttered. "What now?"
Light flared across the camp as faint holographic circles appeared beneath each person's feet. Aiden felt the ground vibrate under him—then his circle appeared, but instead of blue or green like the others, his was pitch black edged with violet flame.
[Alignment Determined: Unbound Void.][Factional Category: Unknown. Rank — Undesignated.]
Murmurs rippled through the camp.
"Unbound? What's that supposed to mean?""Is that even human?"
Jiro barked for calm, but eyes still turned toward Aiden—some fearful, some angry. The System had marked him different, and in a world ruled by data and light, difference was dangerous.
He clenched his fists. "Figures," he said under his breath.
The captain met his gaze. "You didn't choose that."
"No. But they'll think I did."
By afternoon, scouts returned from the south with grim news: a massive rift had opened near the river, releasing hundreds of entities. The monsters were moving toward populated zones—what was left of them.
Jiro gathered the survivors near the command tent. "We can't hold here forever. The Node's stability is dropping and food's running out. We move north toward Fort Dawn. It's the last functioning military base we know of."
"What about the monsters?" someone shouted.
"We avoid contact. If we can't, we fight."
Aiden stood at the edge of the crowd, silent. He could feel the Void pulsing faintly, almost eager. It wanted to be used again.
He didn't trust it. But he needed it.
That night, as the camp prepared to move, he walked beyond the lights to the edge of the old highway. The moon was cracked—a faint fracture line visible even through the haze.
He whispered, "You're still there, aren't you?"
The answer came like a whisper beneath his skin.
[Always, Ascendant.]
"You said I was the last Ascendant. What does that mean?"
[Long before your world burned, others reached beyond their stars. The Void remembers their fall.][You carry their legacy — the will that defied annihilation.]
"So this… isn't the first invasion?"
[It is the last. The Cycle nears its end.]
The words sent a chill through him. "And the System?"
[A prison. A balance. A chain meant to contain what should not exist.]
He frowned. "Then what am I?"
[The key.]
The voice faded, leaving him in silence once more.
When morning came, the survivors were ready to move. Drones hovered overhead, scanning the sky for rifts. The convoy rolled out—three trucks, two armored carriers, and a handful of motorcycles.
Aiden rode in the back of the second truck beside the medic, a quiet woman named Lyra. She was maybe mid-twenties, with streaks of soot on her cheeks and a half-broken wrist terminal strapped to her arm.
"You don't talk much, do you?" she asked after a while.
"Not much to say."
"I saw what you did yesterday. The black light."
He looked at her sharply.
"I'm not afraid," she said before he could respond. "If anything, I'm grateful. You saved us."
Aiden's expression softened. "Grateful or not, you should still keep your distance. I don't even know what that thing is doing to me."
"Maybe it's doing what it's supposed to," she said quietly. "Maybe the Void picked you for a reason."
He didn't answer. The truck jolted over a piece of debris, and conversation ended there.
Hours later, the convoy slowed. Smoke rose in the distance, and the first signs of battle came into view—charred vehicles, gouged earth, and half-dissolved corpses. The monsters had passed through recently.
"Eyes sharp," Jiro's voice crackled through the comms. "We're not alone out here."
Aiden closed his eyes and activated Perception Lv.1. The world dimmed, details sharpening into clarity. He could hear the faint clicking of chitin somewhere ahead.
"Contact front," he said calmly.
Before anyone could react, the asphalt burst open and a massive creature lunged forward. Its body was plated in obsidian scales, eyes glowing red.
"Riftbeast!" someone shouted.
Gunfire erupted. Bullets sparked harmlessly off its hide. The creature roared, slamming its claw into one of the trucks and sending it flipping onto its side.
Aiden jumped clear, rolling to his feet.
"Jiro!"
"Focus fire on the joints!" the captain shouted, blasting the monster's leg with a plasma rifle.
It barely staggered.
Aiden didn't think—he moved. The Void thrummed inside him, hot and cold at once. He raised his hand.
"Activate: Void Pulse."
A wave of invisible force erupted outward. The monster's armor cracked, a chunk of its torso collapsing inward like it had been crushed by gravity itself.
Screaming, the Riftbeast swung a claw at him. Aiden leapt aside, barely avoiding the blow. The Void whispered in his mind, eager.
[Consume.]
He hesitated for half a heartbeat—then gave in.
Darkness burst from him like a supernova in reverse. The air screamed as space itself folded. The Riftbeast's form disintegrated, sucked into the black hole that bloomed around Aiden's outstretched arm.
[Entity Consumed.][EXP +600 | Corruption +2%.][Level Up: 3 → 4.]
The void light faded, leaving only silence. The others stared in shock.
Lyra whispered, "You… killed it."
Aiden exhaled slowly, clutching his head as the static returned. "No," he murmured. "I erased it."
They buried the bodies of those who'd died in the attack—three soldiers, one civilian. Jiro stood over the graves, expression carved in stone.
"This is going to keep happening," he said quietly. "Every rift brings more. Every mile we travel, something stronger will follow."
Aiden looked at the horizon, where faint purple streaks tore through the clouds. "Then we keep moving until we find something stronger than me."
Jiro gave him a grim smile. "You sound like a soldier already."
"I'm not," Aiden said. "Just someone too stubborn to die."
That night, they made camp near a ruined service tunnel. The stars above burned in strange patterns now—some closer, some wrong. Lyra sat beside him, cleaning a blood-stained knife.
"You know," she said softly, "for a world ending, it's almost quiet."
Aiden looked up at the fractured moon. "Too quiet."
Then, in the distance, thunder rolled—not from the sky, but from the ground. The earth trembled.
Jiro's voice barked through the comms: "Rift surge incoming! Everyone inside the tunnel!"
Aiden looked back toward the horizon. A tear was opening—massive, wider than the last. Lightning bled from it in violet arcs.
The Void inside him stirred violently, almost excited.
[The Cycle accelerates.][The Heralds awaken.]
Aiden felt a chill crawl up his spine. "Heralds?"
The voice didn't answer. But far beyond the clouds, shapes began to move—massive, winged, and burning with cosmic fire.
He clenched his fists. "Looks like we're not done yet."
As the rift widened and the first of the Heralds descended, the world seemed to hold its breath.
And somewhere deep inside the darkness, the Void whispered, "Ascend."