The morning air in Airlock 4 vibrated with tension, a cold pressure that seemed to compress every breath. The metal walls reflected harsh neon light, casting long, trembling shadows of the eight Diver Operatives stationed there. Their hands clutched weapons, but it wasn't fear of the Rift—it was something else entirely. Something they couldn't name, something… anomalous. Even the subtle hiss of air vents seemed amplified, like the room itself was listening.
Ren Vallis stood among them, the Vessel. The walking fracture.
Lyra lingered slightly apart, her Diver Harness glowing with unstable blue stabilizing light, pulsing irregularly with every shift in the psychic pressure from the Rift. Even before stepping through, her nervous system quivered; proximity to Ren made her very perception shake. Every micro-signal from his presence seemed to vibrate directly into her bones.
The Handler's voice cut through the silence from the control glass:
"Target: The Siphon Mire Rift Gate. Stabilize. Follow procedure. Do not be influenced."
It sounded normal—too normal for a situation already fraying at the edges.
Ren's internal sensors ticked faintly, capturing micro-variations in vibration. Noise from his 27 Echoes surged subtly, a foreign rhythm sliding through his bones and muscles.
My body is adjusting… without my determination. This is not my movement. Something is guiding.
The other Divers tried to brace themselves, but most seemed on the verge of vomiting under the mental strain radiating from the Rift.
Zyd, the Diver Leader, stepped forward.
"Three meters from the Vessel. Any psionic Noise appears, I handle it."
Ren did not respond. He did not need to.
The Rift Gate throbbed like a wet organ, and cracks of purple light opened and closed, like the eyelids of a colossal, awakening entity. Air itself rippled, bending neon reflections into chaotic arcs. Ren's body cataloged each vibration, each subtle shift in gravity, executing micro-adjustments automatically. His mind remained still, processing everything without emotion.
Then the floor trembled.
The Airlock doors exploded outward. Sensors screamed, then died. Rift light erupted violently, and wind ripped through the chamber. The air split as a dark purple vortex materialized. Divers lost their footing instantly.
Cira screamed. Kael gripped his helmet as the floor seemed to vanish beneath him. Lyra's helmet shook violently; vertigo hammered her consciousness, bending the world unnaturally.
Ren stood, unaffected, Adaptive Reflex initiating without permission. Tiny, precise movements—almost imperceptible—aligned him to forces his mind could barely comprehend. Every muscle, every fiber, adjusted instinctively to the rhythm of the Rift.
The Rift Gate stretched, yawning. The maw of the sky opened.
Lyra gasped.
"The Gate… the Gate is changing on its own…"
The space inside the Rift contorted. Ancient ruins floated, inverted pillars swirled, gravity twisted, stones gliding like fish through black water. Rift fragments reflected across the walls, creating chaotic interference that rendered Diver calculations useless.
On a damaged Airlock display, data flickered.
Zyd shouted, panic-stricken:
"This isn't the Mire! This is Nightfall! Grab something—!"
Too late.
The Airlock platform shattered, sucked into the vortex. Divers were flung into the Rift without transition, without preparation, without logic. One by one, they were dragged into the spinning chasm.
Ren felt something brush against him, invisible yet precise, as if the Rift itself traced his bones. Adaptive Reflex responded before thought—micro-adjustments, cold and mechanical, moved him in perfect rhythm.
They landed.
—BRAGH!
A giant flat stone. An altar. The Mind Chasm breathing around them. Rift energy briefly stabilized.
Ren removed the Mark Regulator from his wrist. Metal clattered and broke. Noise from the 27 Echoes surged violently, flooding the room with a cold aura that nearly incapacitated Lyra.
She stared, trembling.
"I'm using the Harness to survive… and you just—remove that? Your Handler is insane."
Ren said nothing. His body processed every micro-vibration. The rhythm guiding him extended through the Mind Chasm, aligning him with forces no human could detect.
Zyd rose unsteadily. Kael and Cira scrambled upright, eyes darting.
"The Chasm is cutting into their minds," Zyd muttered.
The Mind Chasm sky expanded like a giant pupil, observing. Beside the altar, a Rift Abomination formed—a body stitched from human limbs and sharp crystal, faceless, eyeless, yet aware. Its movement was deliberate, searching for footing amid the altar's chaotic shifts.
Kael fired a Mark anchor at an inverted pillar. The system failed—the anchor's data could not reconcile with the shifting gravity.
THE ANCHOR MISSED.
Kael jerked violently; gravity shifted.
—KRAK!
His spine snapped. He floated, flailing, before vanishing into the abyss beneath the altar. No blood. Only the last air bubbles.
Cira grabbed a spinning rock to stabilize herself. Her Echo Mark activated—but the Mind Chasm reversed her motor signals. Intent became its opposite. She launched, not toward safety, but into a spinning crystal.
—CHRRRRTTT!!
Her body split; her blood dispersed as purple mist, absorbed instantly by Rift energy.
Lyra paled. Zyd's head dropped.
"Seven people… gone in a minute… This isn't Level 4. This is a massacre."
Ren observed calmly. Kael and Cira failed their calculations. He did not. No emotion. Only data. Adaptive Reflex aligned him with impossible angles, absorbing rotational energy, moving like a being born from the Rift itself.
Lyra's gaze froze in terror and awe.
The Rift Abomination launched crystal shards—Spike Barrage. Ren dodged instinctively. Echo Insight mapped their trajectories mathematically. Each shard, each parabolic curve, was anticipated and avoided.
Lyra whispered, horrified.
"Is he a Vessel… or something worse?"
Ren twisted midair; the foreign rhythm guiding him since the start sent a cold, absolute command.
[SINK. FIND ABYSSAL CONVERGENCE.]
The signal crawled into his spine. Logic screamed no. But his body—Adaptive Reflex—already moved toward the void.
Lyra saw it. Zyd felt a subtle shift beneath the altar. Distant ruins opened a dark path, a hole that should not exist.
The Silent Key awaited.
Ren's first step was calculated, mechanical, yet aware. A step that defied logic, breaking conventional thought, guided by an unseen rhythm. A step toward emptiness. A step toward the abyss calling him. Every Echo, every fragment of Mira, every shard of Noise aligned.
This step was not merely movement. It was a bridge between worlds, a fracture manifest. He inhaled sharply, noting the metallic tang of Rift energy in his nostrils, his senses alive to every particle of the spinning space.