The endless forge around Karl pulsed with cobalt light, humming with the slow rhythm of his own heartbeat. Every corner of this realm was alive with molten rivers of nanite essence and floating glyphs of blueprints — hundreds of them, all orbiting his position like constellations around a sun. The ground beneath his boots was a mirrored plane of shimmering alloys, reflecting a thousand flickering projections of half-formed machine parts that came and went like ghosts of his imagination.
Karl stood in the center of it all — surrounded by shifting holograms of blueprints, mechanical fragments, and half-formed constructs orbiting him like planets around a star. His coat had long since vanished, his armor unformed, leaving only the faint shimmer of nanites that clung to his skin in luminous trails.
He took a slow breath. Even here — where time did not exist — he could feel the weight of it pressing down on him. The hum of the forge vibrated in his bones.
"Alright… skeletal frame first," he muttered under his breath, trying to focus his racing thoughts. "Chest core. Spinal joint. Stabilizers. Should be easy enough… it was easy once…"
His hands rose, fingers trembling slightly as his consciousness extended outward. From his palms, nanite fluid spilled like living mercury, spreading through the air in long, graceful filaments. His mind projected the first design layer — a faint holographic outline of a humanoid torso — skeletal, angular, intricate. The design was elegant in concept, but the moment he began solidifying the frame, the nanites resisted his commands. Each filament solidified, connecting to another until a faint wireframe of a torso shimmered before him — incomplete, skeletal, more concept than creation.
He stared at it for several seconds, memorizing every line, every proportion, every flaw.
Then he began to forge.
The nanite filaments pulsed in response to his Vythra output, glowing brighter as he poured his will into the structure. The ribs arced together, the spinal column began to knit itself from countless micro-gears and energy channels — and for a moment, it worked.
Then the hum deepened. The nanites started to resist.
The glowing lattice snapped apart with a metallic shriek.
Karl flinched back as the fragments dissolved into vapor.
"Damn it—too much torque on the lower spine line."
The structure collapsed inward with a thunderous crack, shattering into cobalt dust that scattered across the floor like falling snow.
Karl exhaled through gritted teeth. "Right. Too much energy pressure in the spinal coupler… dumb."
He waved his hand, clearing the fragments, and summoned a new holographic grid beside him. Streams of data scrolled up and down in ancient code — design parameters, torque ratios, nanite bonding algorithms — everything he remembered, everything he thought he understood.
He recalibrated the framework and tried again.
This time, he adjusted the blueprint's proportions, lowering the curvature at the shoulders and reinforcing the anchor rails near the pelvic joint. For a brief moment, it looked like it might hold — a faint cobalt skeleton floated before him, ribs curving, nanite veins knitting together.
He reduced the density of the Vythra lines, letting the nanites flow slower. The skeletal torso formed once more, the ribs connecting one by one, the sternum locking into place. The glow steadied.
Karl allowed himself to breathe. Then came the tremor.
And then — it twisted. The spinal gear rotated a full ninety degrees the wrong way, torque feedback tearing through the structure until the entire chest cavity exploded in a burst of white-blue plasma.
A crack split down the sternum, energy leaking like molten glass. The entire model crumbled.
He cursed under his breath. "Too thin again... you idiot. You knew that load ratio wouldn't hold—"
The backlash threw Karl several meters back, skidding across the glowing floor. He landed hard on his side, coughing as thin trails of smoke rose from his sleeves.
"Too thin. I knew the torque channels couldn't handle the joint pressure."
His voice cracked halfway through the sentence, caught between anger and exhaustion.
He wiped sweat from his face — or maybe it was vapor, he couldn't tell anymore — and forced himself to his feet. The Nexus reacted to his frustration, its walls rippling faintly, symbols on the far ends flickering as though reflecting his unstable mind.
He tried again.
And again.
And again.
Each time, he adjusted something — shifting the rib spacing, altering the nanite binding pattern, rerouting power flow through the spinal core. But the result was always the same: failure. The constructs shattered, melted, imploded, or simply dissolved before stabilizing.
The air soon filled with the quiet, mournful hiss of collapsing nanite shells. Piles of cobalt dust accumulated around him, fading into the floor only to be replaced by more wreckage minutes later.
Karl lost count of how many times he rebuilt it.
Ten? Fifty? A hundred? Time didn't exist here, but it felt infinite — an endless loop of creation and destruction, of precision and collapse.
At one point, his knees buckled, and he sat down on the cold luminous floor, palms trembling, gaze locked on the still-glowing fragments of his latest failure.
"Three years," he muttered. "Three years building Erevos. Three years sleeping in that damn lab. Every screw, every joint, every wire — I knew them like my own veins."
He dragged his hand through his hair, letting the nanite dust slip through his fingers.
"But now? You can't even hold a spine together. Brilliant, Karl. Real brilliant."
The Nexus was quiet. No Primordial voice answered him, no invisible force intervened. Only the sound of his own ragged breathing and the distant echo of molten light rippling through the chamber.
Then — faintly — he heard it.
A rhythmic pulse beneath the silence. Not the hum of the forge this time, but something else. His own heartbeat, syncing with the faint glow of the nanite dust scattered around him. It pulsed in time with him, like it wanted to keep going.
Karl stared at it for a long while before chuckling quietly under his breath.
"Alright," he murmured, voice hoarse but steady. "You wanna keep going? Fine. Let's make something that doesn't shatter this time."
He stood again, slow but deliberate, every muscle tense.
He summoned the next frame. But this time, he didn't rush.
He started at the spine — the foundation. He shaped each vertebra carefully, letting them float in perfect alignment before connecting them with faint cobalt energy rings. He built upward, not with anger, but focus. Every breath was measured, every movement intentional.
The ribs formed again, bending inward, connecting to the sternum.
Then the arms, their sockets sliding neatly into the shoulder joints.
For a brief second — just a flicker of time — it held together.
And even though the frame trembled, and even though the ribs cracked under their own unstable weight, Karl smiled faintly.
"That's it… you're getting there…"
The structure didn't last. The ribs collapsed moments later, scattering like glass.
But Karl didn't stop this time. He stood amidst the fragments, eyes glowing faintly cobalt, breathing steady.
The failures no longer mattered.
Because beneath the exhaustion and frustration — for the first time — the Nexus began to listen.
The forge lights pulsed in rhythm with him now. The air shimmered, and somewhere deep in the chamber, the heartbeat of the dimension matched his.
He wasn't winning yet.
But he was learning.