The Rift swallowed them whole.
Steven followed Lyssaria into the unnatural calm of the Absence's Domain, where gravity bent sideways and time felt stretched—like walking through the memory of a dream. The towers around them hovered without support, some inverted, some cracked, and others bleeding shadows like ink in water.
No sun. No sky. Only the ever-watching gaze of something deeper, something buried within this fractured realm.
"This place wasn't built," Lyssaria whispered. "It grew—fed by every broken spell, every lost soul, every collapse of truth in the cosmos."
Steven's magic felt muted, not weakened but… observed.
"Why are you still here?" he asked. "If you were the first Spellcaster—how did you survive?"
"I didn't," she said simply. "I lost. I became part of it. But a fragment of me—my will—resisted."
She led him into a cathedral of glass bones and suspended runes. Floating at its center was a sphere of obsidian light—the Heart of the Rift.
And around it, chained in spiraling rings of voidsteel, hovered the Watchers.
Seven beings—once mortal, now grotesquely reshaped by the Absence. Their eyes glowed with distorted knowledge, and their mouths whispered paradoxes.
"They were Codex-Bearers too," Lyssaria murmured. "Like you. Each one tried to conquer the Absence. Each one failed."
Steven's heart thundered. "What do they want?"
"To show you… your end."
The Watchers awakened.
Their whispers became a symphony of screams and promises.
One spoke: "You will kill the worlds you seek to save."
Another: "The Codex bends reality to you, but your will is not pure."
A third: "You will become the Absence… and no one will stop you."
Steven's knees buckled.
The Codex in his chest pulsed, caught between resistance and resonance.
"No…" he growled. "I won't be consumed!"
He raised his staff—and the runes along its spine blazed. Not with his magic, but with Lyssaria's echo. She had imbued him with her final gift: Remembrance.
The Heart of the Rift cracked.
The Watchers recoiled.
Steven screamed, releasing a pulse of magic threaded with memory, light, and fury.
The cathedral collapsed.
Steven fell into darkness—and saw himself.
Not a vision. Not a dream.
A future.
His hands soaked in blood. Worlds in ruin. Codex glowing like a black star.
And at the center of it all… a throne made of broken realities.
Occupied by him.
Then—
"WAKE."
Steven gasped awake, lying in a forest of silver leaves, stars blinking above.
Atheron stood nearby, his expression grim. "You touched the Heart of the Rift. And it touched back."
Steven sat up. "I saw what I could become."
Atheron nodded. "Then you understand what's at stake."
Steven's eyes burned with purpose. "Yes. I'm not just fighting to stop the Absence anymore…"
"I'm fighting to stop myself from becoming it."
---
To be continued