The world reassembled around them in a violent lurch.
Rourke hit solid ground first, the force knocking the air from his lungs. Seren crashed beside him with a very loud, very angry groan. The guide flickered into existence last, its glow unstable, as if the portal had torn part of its form apart during transit.
For a few seconds, none of them spoke.
The silence was thick.
Heavy.
Wrong.
Rourke pushed himself up, wincing. "Everyone in one piece?"
Seren held up a trembling hand. "Define pieces."
He helped her sit up. "Movable limbs. Attached organs."
"Then yeah," she muttered. "Barely."
The ground beneath them was strange—smooth like glass, but warm, with faint lines of energy pulsing through it like veins under translucent skin. When Rourke touched it, a faint vibration traveled up his fingers.
The guide steadied itself in the air, dim but functional.
"We have arrived," it murmured.
"But the location… is unstable."
Seren looked around. "Where are we?"
Rourke didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because the world around them wasn't a world at all.
A Place Between Places
The sky overhead looked shattered—
as if the fabric of space had cracked into glass panels suspended above them. Each fragment reflected a different starfield or nebula, none matching the others.
To the left: a violet cloud swirling like a cyclone.
To the right: a calm, moonless black.
Above: a constellation that bent in a full circle.
Seren whispered, "This isn't natural."
"No," Rourke agreed.
"It's a junction."
The guide hovered lower.
"A fracture-space.
A residual pocket formed when Solarii technology collapses under pressure."
Seren frowned. "So… a broken dimension?"
"Yes."
She put her face in her hands. "Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful."
Rourke scanned the horizon. There was no wind, no sound, no movement—except for faint waves of energy rolling across the ground, like ripples on a black lake.
Something compelled him to walk forward.
Seren grabbed his arm. "Rourke—hey—don't just wander off into the broken dimension!"
"I'm not wandering," he said softly. "I feel something."
The guide tilted its head.
"You sense the relic."
Rourke nodded.
The Pulse of an Ancient Mind
A vibration—low, deep, steady—reached him from a distant point across the glassy terrain.
Not physically.
Through resonance.
Seren stepped beside him, eyes narrowing. "Is it the thing you felt earlier? The… waiting presence?"
Rourke nodded again, slower this time.
"It's calling."
Seren shivered. "I hate when you say stuff like that."
The guide drifted forward.
"We must proceed with extreme caution.
Relics are powerful, but their consciousnesses are fragmented.
They may mistake intruders for threats."
Rourke exhaled. "Then we'll show it we're not a threat."
"Or," Seren countered, "we'll get vaporized for saying hi."
"Optimism," Rourke said dryly. "Noted."
The Guardian Field
They walked.
The terrain shifted beneath them—sometimes glassy smooth, sometimes textured like metallic sand. The shattered sky shifted too, fragments rotating silently above them.
After a few minutes, Rourke raised a hand.
"Stop."
Seren froze. "What? What is it?"
Rourke stepped forward—
and a wall of force shimmered into existence.
A semi-invisible boundary, humming with blue particles.
Seren poked it. Her finger bounced back with a dull thump. "Yep. Force field."
The guide floated closer.
"This is a Guardian Boundary.
A final defense designed to keep anything non-Solarii from reaching the relic."
Seren crossed her arms. "So how do we get through? Because last I checked, we're two humans and a glowing encyclopedia."
Rourke hesitated.
And placed his hand against the barrier.
The field brightened—
flashed white—
then melted away, parting like mist.
A clear opening formed.
Seren blinked. "Are you kidding me? It just let you in?"
Rourke lowered his hand slowly.
"I think it recognized the Heart's resonance."
The guide's glow steadied with relief.
"This confirms it.
The relic still possesses Solarii alignment."
Seren sighed. "Okay. Great. Let's go meet the ancient energy ghost."
They stepped through.
The Relic Revealed
They walked barely twenty paces before the landscape changed again.
A circular dais rose from the ground, shaped from the same translucent material but decorated with glowing patterns—spirals, lines, symbols that moved in hypnotic paths.
Floating above the dais was a sphere.
Not mechanical.
Not crystalline.
Something in-between.
Its surface swirled with layers of light—blue, gold, and white—shifting like paint suspended in water.
Seren whispered, "This… is it?"
The guide nodded reverently.
"A Solarii Memory Core."
Rourke swallowed.
His chest tightened.
This was no simple relic.
This was a mind.
A fragment of an ancient people's consciousness.
And it was watching him.
He felt it—
a presence brushing against his thoughts, gentle but powerful. Curious. Old. Sad.
Seren stepped back. "Rourke… something's happening."
The sphere pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Then a voice—
not spoken,
but heard inside their minds.
"…You bear the Heart."
Rourke stiffened.
"Yes. I do."
The sphere drifted closer.
"…And yet… you are not Solarii."
Rourke swallowed. "Half, maybe."
A soft tremor ran through the air.
"…Half-light. Half-shadow.
A contradiction… and a possibility."
Seren glanced at the guide. "Is it… judging him?"
The guide's glow flickered nervously.
"It is evaluating his lineage.
And his worth."
The relic's light deepened.
"Come closer, bearer."
Seren hissed, "Do NOT. Let's think first—"
But Rourke stepped forward without hesitation.
"Why did you call me here?"
The sphere's glow sharpened.
"…Because the Hunters have awakened something worse."
Rourke's blood ran cold.
Seren whispered, "Worse than the Alpha…?"
The relic pulsed brighter.
"They have begun reactivating the Obsidian Engine."
The guide gasped—its first true expression of terror.
"No.
That weapon was forbidden!
It can unravel entire systems!"
Rourke stared at the relic. "What exactly is the Obsidian Engine?"
The relic's light dimmed to a chilling, darkened hue.
"…The device that ended my people."
Silence swallowed the fractured world.
Rourke's heart pounded.
Seren stepped forward, voice shaking. "You're saying—"
The relic interrupted with a booming resonance that echoed across the broken sky:
"If the Hunters activate it fully…
the universe will fold."
Rourke's breath caught.
Everything suddenly changed.
The stakes weren't the sphere anymore.
They weren't even about him.
They were cosmic.
He took one long, steady breath.
"Then tell me how to stop it."
The relic's light flickered—
As if it had been waiting for that question.
"…Step closer, Rourke Talon.
There is much you must see."