The sound was soft at first—a low, deliberate tapping of stone against stone.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
A board of mandarin stones rested between two ancient figures whose faces seemed carved from the concept of time itself. They sat in silence, their forms outlined not by light, but by the shifting fabric of reality itself. Around them stretched no horizon, no sky—only infinite layers of dimension folding into each other like mirrored oceans.
This was the Noxis Realm—the Eighth Dimension of Unbound Depth. A place that existed beyond causality, beyond even the domain of gods. Here, time had no forward motion. Space was thought, and thought was law.
One of the elders—a man with long white hair tied loosely behind him and eyes blacker than the void—placed his next stone. A tremor echoed through the fabric of the dimension. Stars blinked out in the lower realms like dying embers.
The other man, broader and older, with skin that shimmered faintly like molten obsidian, leaned forward. "You move carelessly, Morvhal. Every step you make reverberates across the lower worlds."
Morvhal's smile was faint but cold. "And yet, Sareth, that is how we remember that they still exist."
Sareth chuckled quietly, his voice carrying a rumble like colliding planets. "Still obsessed with the lower planes. Still curious about the chaos of the fragile ones."
Morvhal's gaze flicked toward the endless abyss around them. "Curious… or nostalgic? Tell me, old friend, when was the last time you felt wind? Or tasted sunlight unfiltered by divine matter?"
Sareth's hand paused over the board. "Eons ago. Before the ascension. Before we abandoned the Fifth Dimension for the purity of the higher."
Silence followed. In that silence, universes trembled.
Morvhal set another piece on the board. The world seemed to bend. Across thousands of realities, a faint storm stirred—like a whisper crossing the boundary of time.
Sareth looked up, eyes narrowing. "You feel it too, don't you?"
"The storm below," Morvhal murmured. "The Conduit has been born."
For a moment, both of them stared downward—or rather, through countless veils of existence. Their vision pierced dimensions like blades through paper until they gazed upon a small blue world bathed in the glow of a rising sun.
Earth—or what remained of it in that plane.
The nascent aura of a single soul shimmered faintly beneath its clouds.
A flicker of stormlight. A resonance that should not be.
Sareth placed a black stone, slow and deliberate. The move caused reality to hum like a stretched string. "Then the prophecy of the Black Sun will be fulfilled sooner than expected."
Morvhal leaned back, folding his hands. "Remind me again what you think that prophecy means."
Sareth's tone lowered, almost reverent. "When the Black Sun breathes, the order of all realms will collapse. The bridges between dimensions will burn, and the higher will bleed into the lower. That is when the Noxis Core awakens—the will that sleeps beneath even us."
Morvhal's eyes flickered with a faint trace of amusement. "You speak as if the Noxis Core still cares about us. It hasn't stirred in uncountable epochs. Why would a sleeping god wake for a single mortal spark?"
Sareth's smile was thin. "Because this spark carries entropy. The void-storm. The ability to destroy structure and return law to its original chaos. Do you not sense it? That storm is not born of one realm—it's the resonance of all that came before."
Morvhal grew quiet. His gaze, deep as collapsed suns, lingered on that fragile blue sphere far below. "A mortal who carries the mark of cycles… The last time that happened, the lower dimensions nearly merged with ours."
Sareth nodded slowly. "The Eryndor Nasarik the seer mentioned—he is not yet aware. But his blood carries a rhythm that sings across every plane."
The white-haired elder drummed his fingers against the board, each tap birthing ripples that spawned miniature galaxies and then snuffed them out. "And what will you do when the storm reaches us?"
Sareth looked away, his tone heavy. "The Noxis do not act. We respond. If he becomes a threat to the Core, we devour his world. If he becomes a bridge, we use him to descend."
Morvhal smirked faintly. "You sound as if we still have a choice."
Sareth's smile faded. "We don't. Not anymore."
A pause stretched.
Morvhal tilted his head, his tone quieter now, almost somber. "Tell me, old friend. Do you ever regret ascending?"
Sareth stared into the void where color had no meaning. "Regret?" He chuckled faintly. "Perhaps. There are days when I remember the way wind used to sting the skin."
Morvhal placed the final stone. The board glowed faintly, fractals spiraling outward like veins of light. The game ended—but not in victory. In balance.
He exhaled. "Then may this mortal storm remind us of what it felt like… to be alive."
Sareth stood, his robes dissolving into luminous vapor. "Then pray he never learns to look up. Because if Eryndor Nasarik ascends while the Black Sun breathes…"
He turned, his voice deep and final.
"Even the higher dimensions will know fear."
The void trembled. A faint, distant thunder echoed—not from any world, but from the gaps between them. The storm of a mortal, growing stronger.
And far below, in the fragile realm of flesh and sky, Eryndor Nasarik opened his eyes from a restless dream—his heartbeat echoing with the rhythm of something vast, ancient, and watching.
The board was set. The next move would belong to him.