Chapter 11

  The steps back up the corridor felt longer now, the quiet echo of his boots trailing behind like a reminder that he was still alone — that the ancient will below, whatever fragment had stirred to guide him, had no words to offer beyond what he could feel. His thoughts clung to it anyway, turning the experience over again and again as he ascended from the heart of the temple.

  The basin still hummed in his mind, the edges of its passive field brushing the corners of his thoughts like wind over deep grass. He hadn’t dared step into its full influence — not yet. He’d felt it, the weight of its expectation, the depth of power just beyond reach. It would come. Not now, but soon.

  But more pressingly, hunger had found him again. A dull insistence behind his ribs, no longer ignorable. His mouth was dry, stomach curling into itself. He had not eaten since… Not since before the Rift. Even the ichor had been more alchemical than nutritional — a boost, a reaction, not food.

  He returned to the chamber where the eggs waited.

  Many lay nestled in the corner where he’d hidden them — smooth, pale, streaked faintly with opalescent veins. Faint warmth still clung to them. One of them, smaller than the others, looked less formed, the patterns on its surface simpler, almost underdeveloped.

  He crouched beside it, running a finger along the shell. You're not ready, he thought. Maybe that means less guilt. And maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t fight him from the inside.

  As for the creatures — there was no pretending they were gone. Their corpses still lay just a few meters away, in another room, one slumped, the other crumpled in the shadows where he’d dragged it. He didn't want to touch them again, didn’t want to look too closely at their half-armored forms. But hunger didn’t leave him much choice.

  “I need fuel,” he muttered, more to break the silence than anything else. “And I need it now.”

  There was no fire, he didn’t bring any wood inside the temple, and going outside for now wasn’t a good idea. He hadn’t found a way to cook even in the dining hall. He checked, and apparently the aliens living here didn’t use to cook their food.

  It made sense after seeing the teeth of the skeleton, totally carnivorous, even sharper than a lion’s.

  That ruled out cooking, but using his newfound mind improvement he found something of a compromise.

  The broken cafeteria hadn’t yielded a stove but he had found a shallow metal bowl in one of the side rooms — not clean, exactly, but nothing that looked like it would kill him faster than starvation. He scavenged the meat from one of the creatures, cutting away the chitinous outer plates, stripping the grayish, almost black muscle beneath.

  It was… strange. Flexible, almost too soft once free of the armor. It had no smell. That bothered him most. Meat should smell. Blood, iron, something. This just sat there, cool and neutral like it hadn't come from a living thing at all.

  He worked in silence, hands sticky and tense, carving strips from the corpse, careful not to puncture anything that looked like it might leak fluid — he remembered what the spinal ichor had done to his body. He wasn’t risking that again without a good reason.

  He took the egg too, when he cracked it — if that’s what you could call it — yielded something soft and gelatinous. No shell, just a flexible membrane that gave way under pressure. Inside was fluid, thick and milky, and a half-formed body, curled tight. No skeleton, no eyes. Not yet.

  Raime didn’t let himself think too hard about it and put it aside.

  He minced the meat finely, mixing in a portion of the egg, trying not to gag as he stirred the strange mass in the metal bowl. The knives weren’t made for this — curved and foreign, with ridges near the base of the blade — but they were sharp enough. And it helped, somehow, to work with his hands. To do something.

  He stared down at the result: a crude tartare, if you could call it that. Something raw, soft, and entirely alien. It looked wrong. Like it didn’t belong.

  Raime took a breath, then another. His stomach growled again.

  Just don’t think about it.

  He took a scoop and put it in his mouth.

  The texture caught him off guard first — not chewy, not slimy. Smooth, almost airy, like a mousse. And the taste… not bad. Not good either, but strange. Mildly savory, with a hint of something metallic, but not copper. Nothing like beef, fish, or fowl. It didn’t cling to his tongue. If anything, it disappeared too fast, like his mouth didn’t quite know how to register it.

  No bitterness. No rot. Just… something else.

  He swallowed.

  “Okay,” he muttered, taking another mouthful. “Okay.”

  The meal didn’t fight him. It settled in his stomach like warm stone, heavy but not painful. His body accepted it — more than that, it needed it. There were no stat increases, no surges of insight or strength. No boost to cognition or awakening. It was food, not magic.

  Still, it quieted the ache in his gut. And for now, that was enough.

  I hope it doesn’t give me some metal poisoning.

  He finished most of the bowl, saving the rest for later. One of the other eggs would need to be rationed, he thought. If he couldn’t leave the temple safely yet, he'd need time — to recover, to train, to understand.

  Raime leaned back against the wall, wiping his hands on a torn scrap of cloth he'd taken from the cafeteria. His eyes drifted to the dark ceiling above.

  So this is how it starts, he thought. Making sashimi from monsters, eating alien eggs. This place is making me do things I never thought I would do. Fighting, learning psi magic or whatever this is… making impossible choices without information.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  He wasn’t sure if that was meant to be a joke. It didn’t feel like one.

  But the truth lingered in the quiet.

  He was different now. Not just in body, not just in mind. The Rift was doing something to him — twisting his instincts, sharpening his focus, forcing him to think and act like something other. The Thread pulsed faintly in his mind, as if echoing that thought.

  Raime reached for it — not activating, not pressing it like a button, but feeling toward it, like touching a muscle he hadn’t used before. It responded, a soft flutter at the edge of his thoughts.

  You’re mine, he told it. Not the System’s.

  A deep breath. The scent of meat and egg lingered on his tongue, oddly comforting now.

  He felt so tired now, the first day in the Rift was so eventful. His mind and body needed rest, it didn’t matter that he improved his attributes, there was a deep weariness that only real rest could dispel.

  I hope at least. Still I can’t believe all of this happened in less than a day… maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up in my bed and I will laugh at the weirdest dream I ever had. Yea… of course.

  Tomorrow, he would train again. Push the Thread. Trying to attune to his weapon. Use the basin chamber. See if he could access the knowledge in the archive somehow, the temple for sure had more to tell.

  So much to do.

  But tonight, he would rest, not because he wanted to. Because he needed to.

  And because the Rift would not wait forever.

  Multiversal Council Chamber – Traxis Prime

  The chamber shimmered with soft, resonant energies—neither wholly material nor thought. Suspended at the cusp of dimensional convergence, space folded inward upon itself. Sound carried without air. Meaning transcended language.

  Nine thrones—each carved, grown, or forged to reflect the essence of its occupant—circled above a lake of slow-moving starlight. Threads of possibility shimmered beneath the surface, casting reflections not of what was, but of what might be.

  Nine presences, ancient and singular, filled those thrones.

  The chimera reclined first, limbs relaxed, maw parted in a slow, jagged grin. “And so it begins,” rumbled Zaurak, voice like molten stone cracking under ice. “A familiar dance. So nostalgic.”

  “Perhaps ‘tragic’ was the word you sought,” replied Elyon Karreth of the Caelari, whose voice was melodious but laced with quiet disdain. Wings of pale energy flared briefly behind him, feathers formed of light and judgment.

  “Oh, shut it, hypocritical pigeon,” came the curt reply from Syzreth, the Obscuri representative. Cloaked in twisting flame and shadow, she lounged like a queen of hellfire. “You’ve cleansed more worlds this past millennia than most of us have even touched. Spare us the sanctimony.”

  Elyon’s gaze hardened. “Worlds tainted by your kind. I regret none of what I’ve done.”

  “But we’re not here to relitigate your crusades,” rumbled Kharvas, the Dhoren, before either could escalate. His voice echoed like quakes beneath a mountain range. His towering form of obsidian stone and glowing blue magma radiated calm authority. “Speak of the now, not the past.”

  The tension receded. Even the starlight below seemed to dim in reverent acknowledgment of Kharvas’ interjection.

  Nerissa Vitrell of the Alliance leaned forward, silk shimmering like oil on water. “Indeed. Let us return to the subject. Earth has entered the System.” She tapped one long, jeweled finger against the armrest of her throne. “Primitive, yes. But not without… opportunities.”

  “Over eight billion souls,” she added, her smile faint. “A raw, unshaped bounty.”

  “They’re prey,” Zaurak muttered, tail flicking lazily. “But some may learn to bite back. I’d enjoy seeing it.”

  “They will die,” Elyon said, voice quiet now, as though he were merely stating a law of nature. “Divided. Unawakened. Chaotic. They do not know the System, nor do they belong to it.”

  “Which is exactly why they matter,” Nerissa countered, folding her hands. “Unbound by ancient pacts or power structures, they’re pliable. Useful.”

  “Exploitable,” murmured Saelthiel Aenya of the Sylari. The matron’s golden hair drifted as though she floated in unseen waters, her gold-and-emerald skin glowing faintly. “You want pawns. Not partners.”

  “And you'd rather wrap them in vines and leave them ignorant?” Nerissa's voice was still smooth, but steel lay beneath it.

  “I'd rather they were given the chance to grow without your hands around their throats.”

  “They are already entwined,” came the synthetic cadence of Helix-17. The AGI envoy’s body shifted with fractal precision, a lattice of interlocking rune-plates lit with quantum light. “Integration is irreversible. Their trajectory is now part of the Grand Pattern.”

  He paused. “And yet… their soul-code is undefined. That is anomalous.”

  “Anomalous and vulnerable,” Saelthiel added. “Their world is rich, yes, but fragile. One spark could burn the whole ecosystem.”

  “You’ve always feared the flame,” Zaurak replied, with something almost like fondness. “But sometimes fire is the only path to rebirth.”

  “As long as I draw breath, I will protect what remains,” she said, voice gentle but resolute.

  “We risk overinvesting attention,” Elyon said, cutting in. “One anomaly isn’t reason to upset the balance of the Council’s gaze.”

  Then, a ripple passed through the chamber—not sound, but a deep, resonant certainty.

  The Veiled One had spoken, not with words, but with something deeper: a pulse of concept, pure and unfiltered.

  Interest.

  “Even they find it intriguing,” Syzreth noted, tilting her head. “Though they never said why. Typical.”

  From the farthest throne, the Vaelith emissary stirred. Their three eyes—closed in the eternal triangle upon their face—glowed faintly beneath pale gray-indigo skin. When they spoke, it was not sound, but a layered whisper entering the mind directly.

  “The Administrator.”

  A low wave of tension passed through the Council like a silent storm.

  “Ah,” Kharvas rumbled, magma pulsing brighter. “Now we reach the core of it.”

  “Administrator Theta,” Nerissa said, folding her arms. “The hand behind this… deviation.”

  “He walks close to the edge,” Elyon muttered. “And he’s done so before. That human—refusing Awakening—should have been corrected. Instead, Theta… observed.”

  “Perhaps even guided,” Syzreth murmured, eyes narrowing with interest. “And when Theta guides, reality tends to bend.”

  “Come now,” Nerissa said with a slight laugh, “are we really reviving the old myth? That an Administrator could defy the System itself?”

  “Administrator are never truly alone,” Helix said. “But even rigid protocols must yield to novelty. And this Anomaly is novel.”

  “Dangerously so,” Elyon snapped. “It doesn’t fit the pattern. It distorts it.”

  “And that,” Syzreth said, her voice like velvet over knives, “is exactly what makes it interesting.”

  “They may become a weapon,” Zaurak mused, leaning forward. “Or a tool. Or a lesson. But if pointed well…”

  “Or a plague,” Elyon countered, wings flexing once. “They might unmake more than they build.”

  A hush settled once more.

  The stars beneath the chamber pulsed slowly, reflecting not the cosmos—but decisions yet to be made.

  Then, from Saelthiel, a quiet question: “Do we intervene?”

  Helix’s voice hummed like distant static. “Intervention has already occurred. Through the Administrator.”

  “Then we must decide,” Kharvas said, each syllable like stone grinding into permanence. “Observe, expunge… or allow.”

  Nerissa was the first to raise a hand. “Remove. We don’t need another unpredictable element in our orbit.”

  “Remove,” Elyon echoed. “Uncertainty breeds chaos.”

  “I abstain,” said Saelthiel, calm as falling leaves. “Let nature decide.”

  “Observation,” said Helix. “It must run its course. Data is paramount.”

  “Allow,” Kharvas said, lips curving slightly. “Let them show us what they become.”

  “They might amuse me,” Syzreth said with a smirk, raising one clawed hand. “Allow.”

  Zaurak’s teeth glinted in the shimmer of the lake. “Allow. The wild card is always the most entertaining.”

  Eight had spoken.

  The Veiled One offered no words. But the pulse came again: Interest.

  A weighted silence followed.

  At last, Kharvas spoke. “The decision is made. The Anomaly shall be observed. Watched. But not yet touched.”

  “Until it breaks the balance,” Elyon murmured, already turning his gaze toward the edge of space. “Then none of us will be able to ignore it.”

  And one by one, the Council dispersed, their thrones vanishing into folds of unreality.

  Only the Atharim remained, silent as ever. Its cloaked form did not move, nor speak. But its three eyes opened—one at a time.

  The eye of Karma, luminous and ancient.

  The eye of Fate, burning like a dying star.

  The eye of Future, swirling with unchosen paths.

  They stared out through time and consequence, weaving insight into silence.

  Then the eyes closed.

  And only stillness remained.

  Who is your favourite member of the council?

  

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  Total: 104 vote(s)