Chapter 17 — The Rift That Watches Back
Wind tore across the Pale Sky perimeter, scattering dust in swirling, frantic spirals as the battle raged on the surface. But Aiden heard none of it. The world around him dimmed until sound became a distant echo—like someone had thrown a thick blanket over reality.
He pushed a hand against the ground, steadying himself. Cold sweat beaded along his forehead, and his breaths came sharp, uneven, like his lungs had forgotten what oxygen was supposed to feel like.
"Aiden!" Elena reached him first, sliding to her knees beside him, her mage coat stained with ash. "Talk to me!"
He blinked rapidly, the image of the white void still burned into his retinas. It wasn't an illusion. It wasn't a hallucination. He'd been pulled somewhere else—if only for a breath.
Behind Elena, Lucas limped toward them, spear trembling in his unsteady grip. "Did he hit you with something? A spell? A psychic attack?"
"No…" Aiden whispered, though even he didn't sound convinced. "It was… something else."
Riven staggered back into view, coughing dust out of his lungs. "The hell kind of monster can knock me flat with a wave of its hand?"
All eyes drifted toward the breach.
Toward Severin.
The Herald stood still at its center, masked face tilted slightly upward as if examining the sky—and finding it lacking. Pale-blue strands of cosmic energy drifted from its fingertips like ribbons unraveling in the wind.
Around it, Shades continued to pour into the world, crawling from the distortions and forming ranks like a silent army.
Elena's grip tightened on Aiden's shoulder. "If he's a Herald, that means he's not the one in charge… right? There's something worse behind him?"
Aiden nodded slowly. "Yes."
"Fantastic," Lucas muttered.
Riven took a long breath. "We can theorize about existential doom later. Right now, we need to regroup and reestablish a defensive line. Aiden—can you still fight?"
Aiden pushed himself up. His legs shook, but he forced them steady.
His Void pulsed again—twice, like a heartbeat.
But different.
Deeper.
Awake.
"I can fight," he said.
He felt Elena's worried stare, but she didn't argue.
Riven barked orders. "Second and third squads, form firing arcs! Mages, channel barriers! Engineers, bring the stabilization rods—I want the breach anchored before that Herald decides to peel the sky open!"
The fortress soldiers rushed to comply.
But Severin turned toward the commotion—and raised a hand.
More than twenty Shades surged forward instantly.
The air thickened with cosmic pressure. Dust rose in spirals. Energy crackled across the battlefield.
Aiden drew both short blades. The Void wrapped around the steel with a sound like crackling embers, except the embers were black.
"Aiden," Elena warned, "don't overdo it. Whatever that thing did—"
"I'm fine," he repeated. "I can handle this."
He didn't know if that was true.
But he had no time to doubt it.
The Shades sprinted.
Aiden moved first.
He blurred forward with Void-boosted speed, slashing through the leading Shade. It shattered like brittle glass, dissolving into pale fragments. Lucas stepped beside him, spear rotating in a wide arc to knock two more off balance.
Elena unleashed a stream of fire that cut through the left flank, air shimmering with heat.
A Shade slipped past, claws extended toward Elena's throat.
Aiden's blade intercepted it with a metallic crack. He spun and kicked the creature away, impaling it before it could rise.
The Shades kept coming.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
Even with superior skill, they couldn't hold forever.
Riven shouted from behind, "Back up toward the perimeter! We need to fall into the stabilization zone!"
But backing up would mean giving up ground their lives had been paid for the night before.
Aiden's muscles burned.
The Void in him surged again, reacting violently to the pressure Severin exuded.
It wanted out.
It wanted everything.
Elena fired another blast—then stumbled as she exhausted her mana reserves.
A Shade lunged.
Lucas barely blocked it—but the strain sent him collapsing to one knee, clutching his bad arm.
Aiden saw the opening. Saw the danger. Saw the choices.
And made one.
He let the Void rise.
Power flooded up his spine, across his ribs, down his arms until his fingers shook uncontrollably from the force. It felt like heat and frost at once, a contradiction made real.
The air around him warped.
Void tendrils curled off his skin.
Aiden swung his blade.
A crescent of darkness erupted from the strike, slicing through six Shades in a single arc. The ground cracked beneath his feet as the shockwave rippled outward.
Elena shielded her face. Lucas nearly dropped his spear. Even Riven swore aloud.
The Shades halted.
Even Severin seemed… curious.
The Herald tilted its head.
"Your Void awakens further still," it mused, voice carrying across the battlefield like silk stretched over steel. "How many layers do you hide, I wonder?"
Aiden didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
Only that the Void inside him wasn't done.
Some of the remaining Shades shrank back, unnerved by his sudden shift.
For the first time, Severin stepped closer.
Each step bent the air.
Each step pulled shadows toward him.
Each step made Aiden's heart pound like it wanted to escape his chest.
"Do you know," Severin asked softly, "why the Constellum marked you?"
Aiden grit his teeth. "I wasn't marked by anything. I awakened on my own."
"No," Severin said. "You awakened because they watched you."
A shiver traced down Aiden's spine.
"They?" Lucas whispered.
"The Ones Beyond," Severin answered. "The architects of the Outer Universe. They who breathe stars into existence. They who erase entire civilizations with a thought."
Elena's voice trembled. "Why would they watch Aiden?"
Severin's mask angled toward him.
"Because he is not simply touched by the Void."
A pause.
"He is becoming it."
The ground trembled.
Thunder rolled across the horizon even though the sky was clear.
Aiden's stomach twisted. His heart throbbed painfully. His thoughts blurred for a moment—just a moment.
But Severin saw it.
He drifted closer.
"Your essence bends into something new," Severin continued. "Humanity is merely the shell cracking open."
Aiden's fingers tightened around his blades.
"Whatever I become," he said, "I decide."
Severin considered this.
"A romantic notion," the Herald replied. "But evolution is not a choice. It is an inevitability."
Before Aiden could retort, a soldier screamed from behind them. A Shade had slipped through the firing lines, cutting down two men in seconds.
Aiden turned—
And Severin's hand extended.
"Eyes on me."
A wave of force hurled Aiden backward, straight into a chunk of broken concrete. Pain exploded through his ribs as he slid to the ground, gasping.
Elena screamed his name.
Aiden pushed himself up, coughing, vision swimming. Blood dripped down his chin.
The Void stirred again, trying to take the reins.
Not yet.
Not now.
He steadied himself.
Severin floated inches above the cracked earth. The Herald pressed two fingers to the breach.
Reality convulsed.
A pulse spread outward from the rift, flattening soldiers and bending steel into warped spirals.
Riven yelled, "Brace yourselves!"
Aiden dug his blades into the ground as the wave passed through him. His ears rang. His vision blurred. His bones vibrated like they might fall apart.
And then—
Everything stopped.
The Herald lowered its hand.
The breach had expanded—twice its size.
Silver-white light spilled out like a second sun.
Severin turned away, satisfied.
"This world is interesting," he said. "Let us hope it remains so when the Architect arrives."
Aiden froze.
"The—what?" Lucas whispered.
Severin lifted his hand toward the rift.
The Shades gathered behind him.
"Until then…" the Herald said, voice drifting like an echo carried by cosmic winds, "grow, Voidbearer. I wish to see how far you fall."
Light enveloped Severin.
The Shades stepped into the rift.
And in a quiet, soundless instant—
They vanished.
The breach shrank back to its original size.
The world returned to stillness.
But nothing felt still.
Aiden leaned against the fractured stone, breathing hard.
Elena knelt beside him. "Aiden… what do we do? What happens now?"
Aiden wiped the blood from his chin.
"Now… we prepare."
Riven walked over, clothes torn, armor dented, but eyes sharp. "Prepare for what, exactly?"
Aiden stared at the trembling rift.
"At the rate things are escalating… not a battle. Not an invasion."
His eyes narrowed.
"A war against something that doesn't belong in our universe."
The wind carried the faintest tremor.
As if the rift itself was listening.
And waiting.