The world below was a blur of chromatic chaos.

  Under the influence of the Essence Flood, the strange geography of the Confluence had started making even less sense. I was thousands of miles west of Bastion now, traversing a landscape that looked less like geology and more like the fever dream of a divine artist.

  Rivers of neon-blue slurry cut through canyons of crystallized bismuth, casting an eerie glow that defied the daylight. Forests of towering mushrooms — some the size of office buildings — released spores that detonated like tiny fireworks upon hitting the ground, creating a perpetual, rolling thunder that echoed for miles.

  I stood atop a spire of floating rock, the wind whipping my Ashen Raiment cloak around me, catching my breath not from exhaustion, but from sheer exhilaration.

  “Two years,” I muttered to myself. “And I’ve been walking like a pedestrian.”

  The memory of the Black Pyramid lingered in my mind. Not the trap itself, but the approach. Watching that massive, gravity-defying fortress ascend into the stratosphere, being completely out of reach had I not learned [Void Walk], ignited something in me.

  Being locked to the ground was fine for now. But to truly broaden my options, I also needed to dominate the sky.

  I looked down at the expanse below — a valley filled with clouds of shifting razor-glass.

  “Let’s try this again.”

  I closed my eyes, centering my Mana. I pulled on the concept of the [Domain of the Ashen Phoenix]. Usually, I projected this outward as a sphere of entropic destruction. This time, I inverted the flow. I condensed the concept of ‘Blast’ — of sudden, violent expansion — into two dime-sized points beneath the soles of my armored boots, shaping my Domain into cones resembling a rocket booster.

  “Three. Two. One.”

  I detonated.

  A localized explosion of pure thermal force kicked against the atmosphere. I was launched upward, hitting forces that rattled my teeth. My stomach lurched as the ground fell away, replaced by the rush of clouds and wind screaming in my ears.

  “Whoaaaa!”

  The laughter ripped from my throat, raw and uncontrolled.

  I wasn’t flying gracefully; I was careening through the sky like a malfunctioning missile. I spun wildly, my left foot outputting slightly more thrust than my right, sending me into a corkscrew.

  “Stabilizers! Stabilizers!” I yelled, fighting the vertigo.

  I flared my palms, dumping mana into [Apex Mana Authority] to create solid pads of air resistance to push against. It was crude mechanics, wrestling conceptual physics into submission. I leveled out, hovering momentarily on columns of smoke and heat, my heart hammering against my ribs.

  I looked around. I was higher than a pack of birds that looked more like Wyverns circling in the distance. The world stretched out endlessly — a patchwork quilt of dangers and wonders.

  “Not stealthy,” I critiqued, noting the trail of black smoke I’d left. “But the mana cost isn’t too bad.”

  My Core was used to maintain the thrust, like holding a flamethrower trigger open. With the improved ambient recharge, this was sustainable for long-haul travel.

  And for tactical positioning? Or simply just for the cool factor? It was a card I wanted in my deck.

  “Style points: Ten,” I concluded, grinning like a kid.

  I cut the thrusters. Gravity reclaimed me.

  As I plummeted toward the razor-glass clouds, I didn’t panic. I blinked.

  [Void Walk].

  Silence.

  The roar of the wind vanished. The pull of gravity ceased. The frantic blurring of the world froze into a grey, ethereal stillness.

  I stepped sideways into the Void.

  This place… the ‘Between’… was becoming more familiar to me than reality. The Strings of the Lattice — the silver lines of causality and dimension — were vibrant here.

  I decided to push it. Usually, I used [Void Walk] as a blink. Step in, quick Leaps to my destination, step out. But my Core was overflowing.

  “Let’s see how deep the rabbit hole goes,” I whispered in the silence.

  I didn’t step out. I stayed in.

  I began to walk through the Void, moving across the physical world while completely untethered from it. It was like swimming in a ghost ocean. Below me, I passed through the glass-cloud without a sound.

  I looked down at the landscape through the filter of the Void. It changed my [Void Perception].

  Normally, my sensory range was limited by physical obstruction and mana interference. But in here? In the Void? Distance was irrelevant because light didn’t need to travel to reach me.

  I saw them.

  Thousands of feet below, deep in a ravine, I saw a glowing red heat-signature. A creature with Magma affinity — mid Tier 4. I saw the knot of its soul, the dense weave of fire affinity radiating from its chest.

  Further north, hundreds of miles away, I saw a cluster of blue sparks. A pack of Tier 2 thunder affinity wolves hunting a herd of strange elk.

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  “It’s an extremely powerful radar,” I realized, awestruck.

  The Void acted as a massive amplifier for my perception. The denser the Soul, the brighter it shone in the Lattice. I could track Apex Predators from thousands of miles away simply by looking for the biggest dents in the fabric of reality.

  I turned my gaze westward, sensing the strange ripple in Space I was tracking again.

  The landscape ahead was rugged — a mountain range that looked like a jaw of broken teeth. The mana density there was heavy, hostile. Massive red and black flares of monster signatures crowded the peaks.

  But past that?

  I squinted, pushing my Perception to the limit, straining against the headache that bloomed behind my eyes.

  Beyond the jagged peaks, the signals… dipped.

  The violent reds and heavy purples faded. In their place were softer greens and whites. The massive Tier 4 and Tier 5 signatures vanished, replaced by a carpet of Tier 1 and Tier 2 readings.

  “My Compass Theory might be on to something,” I muttered.

  It seemed the Prime System’s ‘Green Zone’ protection suppressed high-tier evolution near settlements. If the monsters were getting weaker, it could mean a settlement was close. They might know something about the strange Space fluctuation I sensed in the Void.

  “Time to say hello,” I decided.

  I exited the Void. The world snapped back into color and sound, landing me gently on a mossy ridge overlooking a winding game trail.

  I was hundreds of miles past my target from earlier. I had traversed half an Old Earth continent in an afternoon.

  I checked my bearings. The “Weak Zone” lay to the South-West, nestled in a caldera past the mountain range.

  I began to make my way toward it, not flying, but flitting through the treeline, practicing my stealth against the local fauna.

  The forest here was ancient and strange. The trees weren’t wood; they were petrified stone, sprouting leaves of living metal. I saw squirrels the size of cats with metallic fur, chewing on iron-nuts with audible crunches.

  “Metal biome,” I noted. “High defense monsters.”

  As I neared the edge of the suppressed zone, the air grew noticeably calmer. The oppressive feeling of encroaching on territory — a constant pressure in the deep wilds — lifted.

  I paused atop a ridge.

  Below, moving along a ravine trail, was a group.

  Adventurers. Five of them.

  I blended instantly into the shadow of a stone-tree, enveloped by my [Veil]. I watched.

  They were human. At least, mostly. The lead tank — a woman clad in heavy plate armor that looked crafted from the salvaged material of a Kyorian droid — was unmistakably human. But the ranger scouting ahead had skin the color of twilight and ears that tapered to points. Neither Elf, Lorian nor Dweorg. Something else.

  “Keep tight!” the Tank ordered, her voice carrying up the ridge. “Scanner says ambient flux is spiking. Another Tidal wave hits at dusk.”

  “I’m telling you, Liss, the readings are wrong,” the Mage in the back argued, consulting a floating runestone. “The interference isn’t coming from the North. It’s West. The Red-Scar Canyon.”

  “We stick to the patrol route, Kyle,” the Tank snapped. “The Council wants the trade road clear for the convoy from New Haven. We aren’t chasing anomalies today.”

  “It’s not an anomaly! It’s loot!” Kyle whined. “If that Canyon Awakened, the gravity shards in there could buy us a Legendary weapon from the shops!”

  “Or turn you into paste. Shut up and watch your flank.”

  I watched them pass.

  Tier 3. High Tier 3.

  They were organized. Their gear was mixed — Imperial salvage jury-rigged with magical enchantments. It spoke of a scavenged, hard-fought existence.

  “Maybe they belong to Iron Hold?” I wondered, recalling the name from the chatter I’d heard months ago during the tournament in Akkadia. Or maybe an independent enclave I haven’t heard of.

  I waited until they were well down the trail before I dropped from the ridge.

  The Mage had mentioned “Red-Scar Canyon.” West. And “Gravity Shards.”

  My interest piqued.

  I decided to scout the settlement first. If there was a trade road, there was intel. And if they were trading with New Haven, they had a communication network I could potentially tap into.

  I moved closer, skirting the edge of the “Safe Zone” shield I could feel humming in the air.

  Soon, I crested the final hill and saw it.

  It wasn’t a city. It was a fortress built inside a giant stone formation that looked more like a hollowed-out skull of some ancient, fossilized Titan.

  Buildings clung to the inner walls of the bone-white cavern. Bioluminescent moss provided light. A shimmering golden dome — the System Shield — capped the open top of the skull.

  “Metal,” I whispered. “Titan-Bone. Good defensive position.”

  I observed from a distance. Thousands of people moved inside. Humans, yes, but mixed with other humanoid variants — including Dweorg and a few Lorian. A melting pot of survivors who didn’t fit the Kyorian purity tests.

  I needed to get inside without triggering an alarm.

  I switched to [Void Perception].

  The Shield was a solid wall of ‘Authority: No Entry.’ Similar to Bastion’s. The System said it recognized Natives.

  But I was a Native who was not part of this settlement. Would it recognize me? Or reject me as an intruder?

  “Risky,” I murmured.

  Instead of trying to breach, I sat down and listened.

  I used the Void again, tuning my Perception to audio vibrations rippling out from the gate guards below.

  “…last convoy brought bad news,” a guard — a heavy-set man with rock-skin arms — was saying to his partner. “Empire locked down Sector 65 completely. No one gets out.”

  “They are getting desperate,” the partner, a sharp-eyed sniper, replied. “The Tide is eating their supply lines. Their loyalists are abandoning them. I even heard a Pyramid went down in the East two months back. Just… fell out of the sky.”

  “Rebel propaganda.”

  “Maybe. But I saw the Mana-Flare on the horizon myself. Someone hit them. Hard.”

  “Hope they hit them again. By the way, did you hear about the Dungeon bounty?”

  “The Red-Scar one?”

  “Yeah. The Council posted a bounty. High-Tier explorers needed to chart the rim. They think the awakening destabilized the entrance. Spatial tears are leaking out. Swallowed a scout team whole yesterday.”

  My ears perked up.

  Spatial Tears. Destabilized Entrance. Swallowed a team.

  It sounded terrible.

  It sounded like home.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” I whispered.

  I stood up, marking the location of the settlement — they called it “Titan’s Rest” according to the sign over the gate. Not Iron Hold.

  I looked West, toward the darkening horizon where the purple storm clouds of the Red-Scar were gathering.

  I came out here to broaden my horizons. To find a teacher that could push my Space affinity beyond simple travel.

  A destabilized, hungry, Spatial Dungeon? That was a Professor with a tenured position.

  I checked my mana. The prolonged Void Walking was very draining, but the ambient flood was helping my Core refill a lot quicker.

  “Settlement scouting can wait,” I decided. “School is in session.”

  I activated [Void Walk] again.

  I Lept off the ridge and turned West, aiming straight for the broken teeth of the world where reality was fraying at the seams.