The sky burned.
Kael was walking home alone, the city quiet around him. Suddenly, a streak of fire cut across the horizon—a blazing meteorite unlike anything he had ever seen. It wasn't like a shooting star. It was sharper, heavier, almost alive. The trail it left behind shimmered with a faint black glow, and the air around him seemed to hum.
No one else seemed to notice. No lights flickered, no distant voices called out. Kael's heart raced. Something about it felt… wrong. Magnetic.
Without thinking, he started following it. The streets narrowed, streetlights flickering as if acknowledging the strange presence above. He ran past familiar alleys, over empty sidewalks, across the outskirts of the city, until he reached a small clearing near the woods—a place where no one came at night.
The meteorite had struck.
A crater smoked in the center, jagged rocks scattered around it, the ground scorched. At its heart was something that didn't belong in the natural world: a black stone, smooth and almost geometric, pulsing faintly as if it had a heartbeat.
Kael's instincts screamed at him to stop, to run. But his curiosity, his sense that this was something extraordinary, pushed him forward.
He crouched and touched it.
A shock ran through him like lightning, freezing his breath and setting his nerves alight. The stone stuck to his fist instantly, cold and heavy, yet alive. Shadows in the clearing twisted, stretching, forming sharp geometric shapes—diamonds, rectangles, and rhombuses—that hovered in the air around him.
A voice, calm and mechanical, echoed inside his mind:
"SYSTEM ACTIVATED. OWNER DETECTED: KAEL. VOIDSTONE LINK ESTABLISHED."
Kael staggered backward, staring at the black stone fused to his hand. His heartbeat synced with the stone's pulse, a rhythm that was unnerving but intoxicating.
Then, a new interface appeared—visible only to him, floating in the darkness of his mind:
VOIDSTONE LEVEL: 1
ABILITIES UNLOCKED: VOID PUSH, VOID PULL
ENERGY RESERVE: UNKNOWN
OWNER: KAEL
He clenched his fist instinctively. A pulse of black energy erupted from the stone, tearing through the clearing in a wave of shadow that warped the nearby trees and rocks. Kael barely managed to hold his footing as the energy dissipated.
The thrill, the power—it was intoxicating. And with it came clarity. His ordinary life, his small routines, the bullies, the quiet streets—they all seemed like a distant memory. A single thought burned in his mind:
"If I have this… I can protect the weak. I can become someone who stands in the gap."
But the stone whispered at the edges of his consciousness, faint and dark:
"Power comes at a cost. Use me, and you will change."
Kael froze. Fear and excitement warred inside him. He didn't understand the full extent of the stone, but he felt its pull, and he accepted it. His ordinary life had ended the moment he touched it.
The world around him shivered. The shadows twisted once more. And then… the ground beneath him seemed to vanish.
In an instant, Kael felt himself lifted, weightless, and then thrown through a tunnel of light and darkness. The world blurred into streaks of fire and shadow.
When his feet touched solid ground again, the city, the streets, and the clearing—all were gone.
Kael stumbled as his feet hit solid ground. The world around him was unrecognizable. Jagged black rocks jutted from the ground, twisted shadows moved across a red-orange sky, and the air smelled sharp, metallic, and alive.
His heart raced. The Void Stone pulsed violently on his fist, syncing with his heartbeat. The interface in his mind blinked:
LOCATION: ECHOVERSE
MISSION: TRAINING – MONSTERS DETECTED
OWNER: KAEL
VOIDSTONE LEVEL: 1
ABILITIES UNLOCKED: VOID PUSH, VOID PULL
Shadows stirred in the distance. Angular, jagged shapes with glowing red eyes. They moved unnaturally, limbs bending at impossible angles. Monsters. Kael's instincts screamed at him, but he forced himself to stay calm.
"Void… Push," he whispered.
A dark geometric wave erupted from the stone, knocking the nearest creature back. Its form shattered into fragments of shadow, disintegrating instantly. Kael's eyes widened. It worked.
Another monster lunged. Faster this time. Kael raised his fist instinctively. Shadows twisted, forming a rectangular shield around him, absorbing the impact before recoiling outward in a pulse that hurled the creature across the rocky ground.
The stone pulsed with satisfaction. Kael felt an exhilarating clarity—the power, the control, the rhythm of battle. It wasn't just survival. It was… intoxicating.
Minutes—or maybe hours—passed. Kael fought, pushed, pulled, and shaped the shadows with instinctive precision, each monster disintegrating under the stone's geometric energy. The ECHOVERSE seemed alive, reacting to him, testing him, shaping him.
Then, just as suddenly as he arrived, the world blurred. The jagged sky, the monstrous forms, the twisted rocks—they dissolved. Kael's vision swam, and the next thing he knew, he was back in his bedroom.
Breathless, he sank to the edge of his bed. Everything was normal again—familiar, mundane—but his fist still throbbed with the pulse of the Void Stone. He looked down, half expecting it to disappear. But it didn't.
Something on his bed caught his eye. A book. Black cover. Letters embossed in faint purple glow:
"ECHOVERSE"
Kael picked it up slowly. The pages were filled with rules, instructions, and cryptic information: missions, training guidelines, monster classifications, and techniques he could unlock with the Void Stone. Everything he needed to grow stronger, to master his new power, was contained within.
A strange thrill ran through him. This was real. The stone, the monsters, the system—everything. And now he had a guide.
Kael exhaled, gripping both the stone and the book. One thought burned clearly in his mind:
"If I want to protect the weak… I have to master this."
The journey had truly begun.
The Shadow of the Void Stone had awakened.