Ethan had always imagined stepping into the unknown as a leap,a moment of weightlessness before the plunge, an instant where fear and anticipation blurred into a single heartbeat.

  But the Rift was not an abyss one simply fell into.

  It took him.

  One moment, he was standing at the edge of the known universe, staring into the black, and the next, the world collapsed. Not darkness. Not light. But something beyond both. A pulling sensation unlike gravity, unlike inertia. It was an unraveling. He could feel his body folding inward, each molecule splitting apart, stretching across realities.

  There was no air. No space. No time.

  Only transition.

  A thousand images flooded his mind, flickering like dying stars, echoes of something vast and unseen. Mountains suspended in the void, cities floating on oceans of liquid metal, creatures that should not exist twisting in slow, impossible motion. His thoughts fractured, expanded, reformed. Was he still himself? Or was he being rewritten?

  The void whispered. It breathed. It hungered.

  Then,impact.

  The Rift

  Ethan landed hard, boots sinking into something that was neither solid nor fluid, an endless plane of shifting color and undefined texture. The ground pulsed beneath him, deep veins of luminescent blue threading through an expanse of blackened stone that looked half-formed, as if reality had hesitated to finish constructing it. Above, the sky,or whatever passed for a sky,was a storm of broken constellations and spiraling voids, entire galaxies twisting in slow, surreal dances.

  And in the distance, the horizon curved upward.

  Not an illusion. Not perspective. The Rift had no rules. No up or down, no left or right. Only madness made tangible.

  He exhaled sharply, his breath visible despite the absence of air. He should be suffocating, yet something,something unseen, something watching,was allowing him to exist here.

  Then came the memories.

  A sudden rush, like a dam breaking, flooding his mind with information that had always been there, buried beneath a lifetime of falsehoods. His training. His abilities. The truth of what he was.

  His hands moved before he even had to think, running over his gear with the familiarity of instinct. His armor was different now,an obsidian exosuit, sleek yet angular, lined with faint energy conduits that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. The material was impossibly light yet impenetrable, shifting with his movements as if alive.

  On his back, an energy rifle rested snug against the armor’s magnetic hold. His hips carried dual pistols,sleek, black, cold. Not projectile weapons. Not plasma. Something else. Something that didn’t fire bullets, but tore through the fabric of existence itself.

  He flexed his fingers, and for the first time, he felt power.

  Not just strength. Not just speed. But command over time itself.

  With a mere thought, he willed himself forward,and the world slowed.

  The pulsing terrain beneath his feet distorted as he moved, each step stretching into infinity, yet passing in the blink of an eye. His perception fractured, doubling, tripling, processing every possible moment in parallel before settling back into the now.

  He gritted his teeth.

  What the hell am I?

  Then the Rift answered.

  With violence.

  The Brutes.

  Ethan squared his stance as the first of them fully materialized. In the dim, shifting light they were gargantuan silhouettes, and as they lumbered closer the pale luminescence of the Rift’s eerie glow revealed more of their features.

  Each Brute stood easily a head and a half taller than Ethan, with shoulders twice as broad. Their bodies were encased in jagged, armor-like hide, and bony spines jutted from their forearms and backs. Small, furious eyes glowed ember-orange in their brutish faces. They carried crude weapons – massive cleavers and spiked clubs – but Ethan knew their raw strength was as dangerous as any blade.

  A half-smile tugged at Ethan’s lips at the old mantra as he drew his weapons with deadly grace. Calm and calculated, he eyed the pack of Brutes thundering toward him through the gloom. There were five, at least, that he could count – each moving with savage confidence, expecting to crush this lone human with ease. Time to welcome them, Ethan thought.

  The first Brute let out a guttural roar that reverberated through the cavernous expanse of the Rift. It lunged forward, faster than something of that bulk should move, cleaver raised high to split Ethan in two. But Ethan was ready – he had seen the slight tensing of its massive arm, the shift of its weight a split-second before it attacked.

  In a single breath, Ethan stretched out his power and the world around him obeyed. A shimmering bubble of distorted air blossomed around the charging Brute, and suddenly the creature’s ferocious charge slowed to a crawl. Droplets of spittle from its open maw hung suspended in midair; the swing of its cleaver inched forward as though moving through syrup.

  Ethan sidestepped casually out of the cleaver’s path, the motion almost leisurely in contrast to the frantic violence unfolding. As he moved, he felt the bubble of slowed time tug at the edges of his consciousness – maintaining the dilation field took steady focus. The other Brutes were just steps behind their slowed comrade, so Ethan acted swiftly.

  He pivoted on his heel and, with a flicker of thought, vanished. A sharp crack of displaced air marked where he’d stood, and in the blink of an eye Ethan reappeared ten paces away, behind the pack of charging Brutes. Teleportation always came with a nauseating lurch in his gut, but he had no time to falter. Ignoring the momentary vertigo, Ethan leveled his pulse pistol at the cluster of enemies now in front of him – who were momentarily confused, having lost sight of their target.

  He squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession. Two searing lances of blue-white energy erupted from the muzzle, hissing through the air. The first bolt slammed into the Brute trapped in slowed time, punching through its thick chest plate before it even realized Ethan was no longer in front of it. The second bolt hit the Brute just beside the first, catching it in the side of the head. Time snapped back to normal for the first Brute as Ethan released his hold on it, and both it and its neighbor crumpled mid-stride to the ashen ground, lifeless.

  The remaining three Brutes roared in confusion and rage, whirling around to find their prey. Ethan was no longer where he had been a heartbeat ago, and the sudden loss of two of their number had them momentarily stunned. Ethan’s calm gaze flicked between them – three left, spaced in a rough arc. One to his far left, one edging to his right, and the largest directly in front, brandishing a spiked club.

  They’re trying to flank me, Ethan realized. The Brutes were brutish, yes, but not entirely brainless. They hunted as a pack.

  The Brute on the left charged first, apparently having lost patience. It barreled toward Ethan with a frenzied bellow. At the same time, the Brute on the right darted in, attempting to catch him from the other side. The one with the club hung back an extra beat, ready to rush whichever way their prey might try to escape.

  Ethan moved in a way they did not expect – he dashed toward the onrushing Brute on the left instead of away. The giant swung a clawed hand low, trying to swat him like a fly. Ethan dropped into a low slide, skidding across the dust-laden ground right between the creature’s tree-trunk legs. As he slid beneath it, he slashed upward with his ion blade. The energized blade sliced clean through one of the Brute’s hamstring tendons. The beast howled and collapsed forward, its charge faltering as one leg gave out.

  Ethan was already springing up from his slide, now behind the wounded Brute. Without missing a beat, he snapped up his pistol and fired at the Brute on his right. The pulse round streaked through the gloom and struck true, catching that creature in the shoulder. It howled as the blast of energy seared flesh and shattered bone, the force of the impact spinning it halfway around.

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  There was no time to celebrate the hits. The largest Brute – the one with the spiked club – seized the opening and came hurtling in. It closed the distance in two great strides, then swung its massive club in a vicious overhead arc aimed straight at Ethan. He had only a heartbeat to react.

  Ethan willed time to bend again, but he was half a second too late. The spiked club came crashing down. He twisted desperately aside, avoiding a direct skull-shattering blow, but the heavy spikes raked across his left arm and side as they smashed into the ground. A bloom of white-hot pain flared along his shoulder and ribs, and the impact hurled him off his feet. Ethan hit the ground hard and rolled, grit and ash clinging to his suit as he came to a stop a few yards away.

  His vision blurred at the edges for an instant. The entire left side of his body throbbed; warm wetness was spreading beneath his tattered armor – blood, he realized dimly. The injury was serious, but survivable if he could end this fight quickly.

  The Brute with the club snorted in triumph at the sight of Ethan wounded and down. It started toward him again, heavy footfalls pounding the earth. The Brute with the injured shoulder was recovering too, shaking off its pain with an enraged growl. The one Ethan had hamstrung was still on one knee, bellowing its fury as it struggled to rise. Three left – though two were wounded – and they were all fixated on him with murderous intent.

  Ethan’s mind raced through the haze of pain. He could feel his heart thudding against his ribs, trying to compensate for blood loss, but he forced each breath to be slow and even. Panic would kill him faster than any Brute. He wiped his blood-slick palm on his thigh and gripped his ion blade tighter in his right hand. The oppressive atmosphere of the Rift pressed on him from all sides, as if sensing his weakness and closing in for the kill. Distant thunder rumbled through the dark skies above, or perhaps it was the growl of something deeper within the Rift itself.

  Not yet, Ethan told himself, steeling his resolve. He was not finished. Not by a long shot.

  With a grimace of effort, he pushed to his feet, swaying for only a second before steadying himself. Blood dripped from his fingertips to the dust below as he stood tall. He holstered his pistol with trembling fingers, freeing his left hand despite the fiery agony that flared with each movement. Now gripping the ion blade one-handed, Ethan extended his empty left hand out to the side, fingers spread wide, and raised the crackling blade in his right. He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, drawing in a deep breath despite the stabbing pain it caused.

  The Brutes charged at him together, a united wall of muscle and rage determined to finally crush their prey. Ethan’s eyes snapped open, and for an instant, time itself seemed to hold its breath.

  He swept his hands inward and clapped them together in front of his chest, pouring every last ounce of will into his power. An expanding dome of crackling blue-white energy exploded outward from Ethan’s body with a thunderous boom.

  The Brutes were caught mid-stride by the sudden blast of temporal force. For a fraction of a second they hung suspended within the sphere of distortion, their ferocious snarls frozen on their faces. Then the bubble of energy imploded and erupted outward in the same blink.

  The effect was catastrophic. The nearest Brute – the giant with the club – took the full brunt of the blast and disintegrated almost instantly, its massive form torn apart into shreds of shadow and ichor. The other two were flung like rag dolls by the shockwave. One was hurled back dozens of yards, slamming into a jagged outcrop of rock with a sickening crunch. The other was sent flying upward and away, disappearing into the churning dark haze above.

  When the light from Ethan’s attack faded, he was left standing amidst the aftermath, trembling with exertion. The ground around him had been scorched bare in a wide radius, marked with spiraling burn patterns where the energy had seared it. Bits of ash drifted down through the air like black snow. Of the Brutes that had surrounded him moments ago, there was no sign of life. The immediate threat was

  He cast a wary eye over the scene, double-checking that none of the Brutes would be getting up again. All that remained were broken bodies and silence. The Rift around him had gone quiet, but it was an uneasy quiet – the very air still crackled with residual energy, as if the realm itself was angered by his triumph. Ethan could almost feel an unseen presence recoiling, gathering strength for whatever might come next.

  Ethan stood amidst the bodies, half-exhausted, half-thrumming with power. His suit was scarred, his breathing ragged, but he was still standing.

  He exhaled.

  What the hell was that?

  "You lasted longer than most."

  The voice was smooth, deep, carrying the weight of old wars and quiet suffering.

  Ethan turned.

  From the shadows of the broken landscape, a man stepped forward.

  Tall, broad-shouldered, clad in armor that bore the scars of a thousand battles. His face was weathered, lined with age and war, but his eyes,his eyes were knowing.

  He did not hold a weapon. He did not need one.

  The way he moved, the sheer presence of him, was enough.

  Kressos.

  The soldier regarded Ethan with quiet amusement, his gaze flicking to the fallen Brutes. "Tough, aren’t they?" he mused. "I remember eating with some of them at the same table. Of course, back then, nobody gave a damn who they were eating with or whose blood they shared on the battlefield."

  Ethan narrowed his eyes, studying the stranger. "Who are you?"

  Kressos smirked, but there was no joy in it. "Just someone who lasted longer than most. And someone who knows what’s coming next."

  Ethan tensed. "What do you mean?"

  Kressos stepped closer, lowering his voice. "You think this was the fight? No, this was a test. Ammon is watching. The Rift is watching. And it’s far from finished with you."

  Ethan’s mind raced. "Ammon,"

  "The Rift is Ammon," Kressos corrected. "And you have a long way to go before you understand what that means."

  Ethan clenched his fists, still buzzing from the battle. "So what now?"

  Kressos met his gaze, the weight of something unspoken lingering between them. Then, slowly, he turned.

  "Now? Now you prepare for the trial."

  Ethan exhaled sharply. Nothing made sense. But for some reason, this stranger spoke to him like they had known each other for years.

  Before he could ask anything more, Kressos had already vanished into the shadows, leaving Ethan standing alone in the endless, impossible Rift.

  Ethan stood among the broken bodies of the Brutes, his breath coming in sharp, uneven gasps. His muscles burned, his mind reeled. His armor, pristine moments ago, was now scarred with deep gashes, battle-worn like the ruins surrounding him. He flexed his fingers, testing his own reality,his body still solid, his breath still present, his heartbeat still pounding.

  He had survived.

  But something felt wrong.

  The Rift was not empty.

  He turned slowly, scanning the impossible landscape. The fractured architecture of this forsaken place stretched out in all directions,buildings that looked as if they had been half-formed by a mind that had forgotten what reality should be. Towers suspended in gravity-defying angles. Bridges that led to nowhere. A place where time had surrendered.

  And in the distance, the shadows moved.

  Not the shifting illusions of a chaotic realm, but figures.

  People.

  Real people. He saw them out of the corner of his eye,ragged forms, hollow-eyed, huddling in the ruins. They weren’t warriors, not like him. They weren’t Brutes, not like the ones he had just fought.

  They were the forsaken.

  Ethan took a step forward, but as he did, they shrank back into the ruins, pressing themselves into the broken walls, slipping into the shadows. Some clutched rusted weapons, others held onto one another as if afraid he might strike them down. Fear. That’s what he saw in their faces. Not hope. Not curiosity.

  They were terrified of him.

  His throat tightened.

  He had no idea how long they had been here,trapped, abandoned, or simply forgotten.

  The Rift was not just a battleground. It was a graveyard. A purgatory.

  A place where souls came to find their final rest.

  Ethan exhaled, his boots pressing into the shifting terrain as he walked forward. The deeper he moved into the Rift, the more the ruins seemed to breathe around him,walls that twisted when he looked away, staircases that seemed to lead in different directions when he blinked. Nothing was stable. Nothing was real.

  Except for her.

  At first, she was just a silhouette in the distance.

  A lone figure standing amidst the ruin, untouched by the wind, unshaken by the whispers of the Rift.

  As he drew closer, details sharpened.

  A woman.

  Her ashen hair moved slightly in the dead air, her stance poised, unmoving. A long cloak draped over her armor,a warrior’s armor, battle-worn yet regal. And in her right hand, she held a sword.

  Not just any sword.

  Its blade shimmered with an unnatural glow, as if reality itself refused to touch it.

  Ethan stopped. His fingers instinctively curled around the grip of his own weapon, but he did not draw it.

  She stood there, waiting. Watching.

  Like she had been expecting him.

  The Rift shifted. The shadows grew long.

  Ethan took a slow breath. As if on cue, a wave of dizziness washed over him. The pain in his side, no longer masked by adrenaline, rushed back with a vengeance. Ethan hissed and pressed his gloved hand against his wounded side. It came away slick with blood. A lot of blood.

  The edges of his vision fuzzed and the world tilted. It was suddenly hard to stay upright. His body, pushed beyond its limits, was finally succumbing. He swayed on his feet, a surge of nausea mixing with the pain. Each breath was ragged, each inhale a struggle against the stabbing ache in his ribs.

  A heavy, invisible weight was pressing down on him – the Rift’s presence bearing down in his moment of weakness. The ground seemed to pitch beneath him. Ethan’s knees buckled and he collapsed, catching himself with one hand against the scorched earth. The ion blade slipped from his grasp and clattered down. He dimly felt the sting of grit grinding into his palm.

  No... not now, he urged himself, blinking hard to fight the encroaching darkness. Stay conscious. Just a little longer. He tried to push up, but his arms quivered, devoid of strength.

  And then,darkness swallowed everything.

  Fade to black.