Raizen had walked away from the Gate of Bone with more than power—he had walked away with clarity. But clarity didn't always bring peace.
He moved through the dark valleys beyond the Gate in silence. Kael followed closely, always a few paces behind, still shaken from what he had seen—or more accurately, what he hadn't. Raizen had changed in that gate. Not in an obvious way. No sudden explosion of power. No glowing ascension. But something deeper. Something quieter. Like gravity shifting directions without warning.
The trees around them grew sparse. The sky, darker than it should've been, seemed to hang heavier. Every footstep Raizen took echoed just a bit too long. The air was still—but not calm.
Kael finally spoke. "It's like the void is bleeding into the world now."
Raizen didn't respond. His gaze was fixed on something distant.
---
They came to a ridge overlooking a blackened forest. The trees were petrified, like stone statues of what used to be life. No wind. No chirping insects. No rustling leaves. Even the birds avoided this part of the world.
Raizen stopped, breathing in.
Kael paused beside him. "What is it?"
Raizen closed his eyes. "The void doesn't want to be near this place."
Before Kael could ask more, the earth beneath them shuddered. Not violently, not like a quake—but with precision. Like something old had just turned its gaze upward.
The very next moment, space folded beneath Raizen's feet.
"RAIZEN!" Kael lunged forward—but too late.
In less than a blink, Raizen vanished.
---
He reappeared on a stone dais suspended in endless dark. It wasn't void. This was before void. This was something deeper—older. There was no air. No up or down. No borders.
And yet there it stood.
A gate.
Massive. Monolithic. Bound in runes older than any realm. Chains the size of buildings coiled across it, glowing faintly red, not with heat—but containment.
It wasn't open. It wasn't closed.
It was watching.
Raizen stepped forward slowly, instinct sharpening.
Each step he took left a whisper behind.
"You walk toward the thing even the void avoids."
He said nothing, but his hands tensed. His senses extended outward—but instead of information, he was met with silence. As if this space didn't allow perception.
A breath exhaled from behind the gate.
One exhale.
And the entire plane rippled.
Raizen's knees almost buckled—not from force, but from the instinctive realization that nothing he had could stop what was behind that door.
He wasn't alone.
The gate didn't move.
But something behind it shifted, like a beast twitching in its sleep.
Raizen's voice was low. "This place doesn't belong to the mortal world."
Another breath. Closer. Slower.
Then...
> "You reek of the rootless path."
The voice wasn't loud. It didn't echo. It simply existed in his head.
Raizen instinctively summoned the void.
Nothing.
His own energy refused to move.
The rules here were different.
The gate pulsed.
Then, one by one, the chains snapped.
Not all of them.
Just one.
But it was enough.
A crack formed in the middle of the gate—not light, not darkness. Just absence.
And from that absence, a single eye opened.
It wasn't an eye in the human sense. No iris. No pupil. Just a sensation of being seen, completely.
Raizen tried to step back.
He couldn't move.
> "You cultivate the void as though it belongs to you."
> "And yet, you do not even know what devours it."
The whisper wasn't angry. It was hungry.
Then came the truth.
> "This realm is ripe. The fruit is nearly full."
Raizen's breath caught.
> "You call yourselves kings, gods, immortals… But none of you see that this realm is meant to be eaten."
The silhouette behind the gate took form. Not human. Not beast. A devourer. Vast. Endless. It didn't descend. It hovered. Watching.
> "I have waited since your stars were young. And now, the flavor begins to bloom."
Raizen poured energy into escape. He failed. Again. Again.
Then it said:
> "Your defiance is flavor. Your resistance is aroma. Keep growing, child of nothing. You will season this realm well."
One last breath.
And the entire platform fractured.
Raizen screamed—not in fear, but in instinct. In refusal.
He broke the void. Forced it apart.
And escaped.
---
He crashed back into the forest.
Kael rushed to him. "Where the hell did you go?! What happened to your—"
Kael stopped.
A mark was glowing faintly on Raizen's back, through his clothes. It looked like a gate bound in chains.
Raizen stood slowly, trembling slightly.
His face was blank.
But his eyes were steel.
"There's something behind that gate. And it doesn't want followers. It doesn't want believers."
Kael blinked. "Then what does it want?"
Raizen stared into the distance.
"It wants to eat everything."