Solariis Ascendant Vaults, Planet Khora-Xi
217 Standard Cycles Ago
The ground did not quake from pressure.
It trembled from something older.
A rippling in the soulfield—like a scream held too long.
Deep beneath the silver cliffs of Khora-Xi, inside a vault carved from living crystal, light shimmered unnaturally across obsidian walls. Arcs of soulfire danced through the conduit spires, casting flickering shadows over the engineers' fluid limbs.
Na'thren stood motionless beneath the core lens, his crystalline skeleton barely outlined beneath the surface of his dark, shifting form. Lines of bioluminescent thought flickered across his skin as he pulsed a message into the mindspace.
"Containment is degrading. We've crossed 0.93 Alpha. The Vein is fracturing".
Responses flared back across the shared mental plane — terse, layered signals of focus, panic, and grim resolve.
On the far platform, Elder Va'xu stood at the convergence altar, her posture still, her aura dim in the fluxlight. When her thought surfaced, it was quieter — but heavier.
"You seek escape. But what you've made is a doorway with no return. A call the void can answer."
Na'thren's mind sharpened like drawn steel.
"The Great One moves. We are out of time. We act, or we vanish."
"Then vanish with dignity, child," came Va'xu's reply, cool and final.
But the system had already engaged.
Amplifier rings flared, then shrieked — pouring unstable soul resonance into the Vein Bridge. Symbols older than memory lit across the control stones. Space twisted. Time bent. The gate opened — not to safety, but somewhere else.
A universe not ready.
For a breathless instant, Veyuun, the soul dimension — that place beyond time and matter — pulsed in sync across two realities. One, Khora-Xi: soul-attuned, ancient, fractured. The other, cold and unaware — asleep to its own soulfield.
A ripple struck across the bridge.
A resonance.
A meeting.
There are... minds, someone broadcasted suddenly.
Foreign. Raw. Untuned. But… bright.
Then came the rupture.
Soullight detonated through the chamber — blinding, soundless, final. Amplifiers exploded like glass under pressure. Na'thren's body liquefied mid-thought, crystal brain shattering inside his lattice as he collapsed in brilliant silence.
Elder Va'xu did not move.
Her presence flickered once more, faint but intact.
You opened a door the other side didn't know existed.
When the light faded, the Vault was gone.
The city above, vitrified ruin.
The Vein Bridge collapsed.
But the crack remained.
And half a universe away — and centuries ahead — in a city of steel towers and cloudless blue skies, a boy would look up…
...and feel it.