The notification stayed pulsed in Kaelen's vision, a throbbing crimson light that matched the frantic beat of his heart.
[Warning: Proximity to 'Void Variant' – 300 meters.] [Detection is mutual. The Abyss recognizes its own.]
Kaelen didn't go to the Royal Archives. He didn't return to the servant's quarters. He followed the "pull." It felt like a cold thread tied to his navel, dragging him toward the Spires of Silence, the isolation chambers where the Academy's most dangerous failures were kept.
He used [Void Step], flickering through the shadows of the stone corridors. Each jump cost him 0.1% of his core capacity, but he didn't care. He needed answers.
He stopped in front of a heavy iron door etched with "Nullification Runes." These runes were designed to suppress all magic—but they were useless against the Void. To Kaelen, the runes looked like delicious, glowing crackers.
He touched the door, felt the mana drain into his palm, and the lock clicked open.
The room was pitch black. No windows. No torches. Only the sound of heavy, rhythmic breathing.
"Liora's little pet has found his way to the basement," a voice rasped. It was melodic, yet jagged, like broken glass falling onto velvet.
Kaelen's eyes adjusted. Sitting in the center of the room was a girl, perhaps a few years younger than him. Her hair was stark white, and she was draped in heavy "Soul-Binding" chains. But the chains weren't holding her; she was eating them. Black smoke rose from where the metal touched her skin.
"Who are you?" Kaelen demanded, his [Void Aegis] flickering into life around his skin.
"I am Sora," she said, looking up. Her eyes weren't purple like Kaelen's—they were a dead, matte black. "And you... you are a 'Bound' one. You have a System. You have 'Levels'. How pathetic."
Kaelen frowned. "What do you mean 'Bound'?"
"The System you hear in your head... it isn't a gift, Kaelen Voss. It's a leash," Sora stood up, the heavy chains shattering like brittle ice. "It's a regulator built by the Jailers to make sure you only grow at a pace they can control. I? I am a True Void. I don't have a level. I only have my hunger."
She moved.
She didn't use a skill. She didn't use 'Void Step'. She simply ceased to be in one spot and appeared in another. She grabbed Kaelen by the throat, and for the first time, his [Absolute Consumption] met its match.
Instead of Kaelen draining her, their energies began to clash, creating a miniature storm of gravity that started to tear the room apart.
[Alert! System Integrity Compromised!] [Anomalous Entity detected. Initiating 'Emergency Harvest'...]
"See?" Sora hissed, her face inches from his. "The System wants to 'harvest' me through you. It wants you to kill me so it can recycle my essence. Are you a man, Kaelen? Or are you just a tool for the gods?"
Outside, the alarm bells of the Academy began to scream. The guards had finally noticed the mana collapse in the Spires.
"The guards are coming," Kaelen said, his voice straining against her grip. "If we fight now, we both end up in the 'Star Prisons' you're so afraid of."
Sora let go, her matte-black eyes narrowing. "Then prove you're more than a puppet. The High Proctor keeps a 'Origin Seed' in the vault above us. It's a pure fragment of the world's birth. If I take it, I escape this planet. If you take it, you might finally break your leash."
"And if we both try to take it?" Kaelen asked.
Sora smiled, showing teeth that were slightly too sharp. "Then we see whose hunger is deeper."