13 Heavens: Rise Of The Bloodline Dreg

Door in The Dark

The hum of the chaotic lake was a physical force, vibrating in Leo’s teeth and bones. The energy he’d swallowed the Chaotic Core thrummed in response, a hungry prisoner rattling its cage.

The black temple in the center of the madness was the only still point. It didn't glow. It was a hole in the world, a silence at the heart of the scream.

It is the source, the System had said. And the energy inside him was a piece of it.

He had to reach it. It was the only possible answer. A place that absorbed chaos might be able to contain the bomb in his chest. Or, it might be the catalyst that set it off.

There was no path down the sheer cliff face. Only the swirling, bubbling lake of liquid madness below.

He looked at his hands. The silvery-purple scars from the stag’s corruption were now dark, throbbing lines. He felt the chaotic energy inside him, pressing against the walls of his marrow. He had an idea. A terrible, stupid idea.

He focused on the energy in his bones. He didn't try to control it. He tried to invite it. To let a little of its nature bleed to the surface.

He let his will relax, just a fraction. He stopped fighting the dark pulse that wanted to match the rhythm of the lake.

His skin began to emit a faint, purple-black aura. The same color as the lake.

He took a step to the edge of the ledge. He looked down at the seething energy. It wasn't water. It would dissolve anything pure.

But he wasn't pure anymore.

"Here goes nothing," he muttered to the howling void.

He jumped.

He fell for what felt like a long time. The chaotic air whipped past him. He braced for impact, for dissolution.

He hit the surface of the lake.

It didn't splash. It accepted him.

The liquid chaos was thick, like cold oil. It pressed in on him, probing, testing. He felt its hunger, its desire to unravel him. But the dark aura he was emitting from his Chaotic Core acted like a camouflage. It whispered to the lake: I am one of you.

He didn't sink. He floated, bobbing on the surface of the impossible lake. He was a piece of driftwood on a sea of nightmares.

He began to swim. Or rather, he willed himself forward, and the thick energy carried him. It was slow, exhausting. Every stroke was a battle of wills, a reminder to the lake that he belonged.

The black temple loomed larger. It was even more unsettling up close. The stone wasn't carved. It looked grown, or perhaps frozen in the moment of some unthinkable violence. There were no doors or windows he could see, just seamless, sloping walls.

As he got closer, the pull from his Chaotic Core grew stronger. It wasn't just similar energy. It was the same. The Core inside him was reaching for home.

He reached the "shore" a jagged lip of the same black stone, rising from the lake. He hauled himself out, collapsing on the cold, utterly silent surface. The moment he left the lake, the chaotic hum lessened. The temple stone drank the sound.

He stood up. The air here was still and dead. No energy, pure or chaotic. Just nothing.

He walked along the base, looking for an entrance. There was nothing. Just smooth, seamless obsidian.

Frustration bubbled up. He had come all this way. He had a time bomb in his body, and the only lock it might fit had no keyhole.

He slammed his fist against the wall in anger.

THUD.

His fist, still wreathed in the faint purple-black aura of his Chaotic Core, didn't bounce off. Where it struck, the black stone rippled. Like the surface of a dark pond.

A circle of intricate, glowing purple lines spread out from the point of impact, etching themselves into the stone. They formed a pattern a spiral of alien symbols that hurt his eyes to look at.

In the center of the spiral, the stone simply… vanished, revealing a dark, square opening.

A door. It had opened for the key. For the chaos he carried.

He hesitated. This was it. The point of no return.

[CONTAINMENT INTEGRITY: 68%. TIME TO BREACH: 51 HOURS.]

He had no time to hesitate.

He stepped through the doorway.

Inside, it was dark, but not pitch black. The same glowing purple lines ran along the floor and walls, providing a faint, eerie light. The air was bone-dry and tasted of dust and ozone.

The silence was absolute. He couldn't even hear his own breathing; the stone absorbed the sound.

The corridor was narrow, sloping downward. He followed it, his footsteps making no noise. The purple guide-lines pulsed slowly, in time with the throb of the Chaotic Core in his bones. It was leading him somewhere.

After several minutes, the corridor opened into a vast, circular chamber. In the center of the chamber was a dais. And on the dais was a single object.

It was a pedestal, made of the same black stone. On top of it floated a perfect, smooth sphere about the size of a basketball. It was not stone or metal. It looked like a hole in reality, a sphere of absolute nothingness, rimmed with a faint, shimmering silver light. Around it, the air warped and twisted.

This was the heart of the temple. The source of the Chasm.

And floating in the air around the sphere, arranged in a circle, were nine figures.

They were human. Or had been.

They sat cross-legged in the air, suspended by threads of silver light that connected them to the dark sphere. They wore robes of a style Leo had never seen simple, elegant, and impossibly ancient.

Their skin was like porcelain, untouched by time, but their eyes were closed, their faces serene and empty. They were not breathing.

They were cultivators. But their cultivation felt… final. Complete. As if they had reached the end of a path and stopped.

Leo approached slowly, his senses screaming. The Chaotic Core inside him was silent now, perfectly still, as if in reverence.

He reached the edge of the dais. One of the floating figures was directly in front of him. A man with long, white hair and a gentle face.

As Leo stared, the man's eyes opened.

They were not human eyes. They were pools of swirling silver and black, like miniature galaxies. There was immense age and profound sadness in them, but no malice.

A voice spoke directly into Leo’s mind. It was soft, echoing, and used no language he knew, yet he understood it perfectly.

"A bearer of the Fragment has come. So soon? The world is not yet ready."

Leo swallowed, his own voice sounding tiny in the mental space. "What is this place? Who are you?"

"We are the Wardens. The Last Compact. We contain the Breach." The figure’s gaze seemed to look through him, at the storm in his bones. "You carry a Fragment of the Breach within you.

You have walked the Path of Foundation. An imperfect path, but… purer than we dared hope for in this age."

"The Breach?" Leo asked. "The Chasm outside?"

"A symptom. A leak. This," the Warden’s eyes indicated the dark sphere, "is the Breach. A wound between our reality and… another.

A place of unmaking. The energy you call 'chaotic' is the breath of that other place, seeping through."

Leo’s blood ran cold. "You’re containing a hole in the world?"

"We are the Seal. We have been for ten thousand years. But the Seal weakens. The Revival of your world's Aura… it was not a natural event. It was a shockwave from the other side of the Breach. It strained us. Created the Chasm you see." The Warden’s gaze intensified.

"And now, you arrive. A living creature who has not only touched the leaking energy but has integrated a Fragment of it into a Foundation of startling purity. This is unprecedented. This is either a great hope… or the final catalyst."

"What do you mean?" Leo asked, dread coiling in his gut.

"The Fragment you carry is unstable. It will destroy you. To save yourself, you must refine it. You wish to refine your Heart, do you not?"

Leo nodded, stunned.

"You cannot use the Fragment as it is. It is pure entropy. It will unmake your Heart. To refine it, you must first… calibrate it. You must touch the Breach directly. You must align your Fragment with the source."

The Warden’s silver-and-black eyes held his.

"But know this, child of a new age. If you touch the Breach, even for a moment, two things will happen. First, the Wardens our already failing concentration will be disrupted. The Seal will weaken further. The Chasm will grow."

Leo’s heart sank. "And the second?"

"Second," the Warden said, his mental voice grave, "the Breach will look back. It will know you are here. And things from the other side… may find the crack you create, and try to widen it."

The choice was monstrous. Save himself and potentially unleash a greater evil upon an already broken world. Or die here in three days, taking the secret with him.

He looked at the dark, silent sphere. The source of all the pain, the mutation, the madness.

He looked inward, at the storm in his bones, counting down the hours.

He made his choice.

"Tell me what to do," Leo said, his mental voice firm.

The Warden slowly raised an arm, pointing a slender finger at the sphere of nothingness.

"Step onto the dais. Place your hands upon the Breach. And prepare to refine your Heart in a fire no human was ever meant to survive."

The other eight Wardens, their eyes still closed, began to glow with a strained, silver light. The threads connecting them to the sphere thrummed with tension.

The Seal was ready to be tested.

Leo stepped forward.