I took a while to realize I was still breathing.
The scent of damp earth, sweat, and blood anchored me to reality. The pain pulsed in waves, no longer a scream—but a continuous whisper, deep, like the echo of a bad memory. I rose shakily, my knees trembling like branches in the wind. My hands pressed against my shoulder and side, trying to contain the burning discomfort of my wounds, but there was no time for pity.
And then I saw it.
There, embedded in the ground as if the world itself had birthed it: a purple core, pulsing, vivid. It didn’t shine intensely, but with a hypnotic consistency, as if it were breathing… as if it were alive. Its glow was deep, dense like the night, and even in daylight, there was a somber, almost ritualistic aura surrounding it.
I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed it before. Perhaps it had only revealed itself now. Perhaps only now I was “ready”—whatever that meant.
My body, in tatters, hesitated. But my soul did not.
I took a step.
The air around me felt heavier, dense like an ancient vow. With each step, a strange electricity crawled down my spine. It wasn’t fear. It was worse.
It was familiarity.
As if I had been born to be here. As if that thing knew me. Had waited for me. As if all the suffering, every scratch, every drop of blood shed until now, had led me directly to this moment.
The core pulsed slowly, emitting a muffled sound, almost a whisper—or perhaps it was my mind playing tricks on me. Either way, I kept moving forward. My skin bristled, my throat dry, my eyes locked on that silent, purple gravitational center.
I didn’t know what it was.
I didn’t know what it wanted.
But something inside me whispered:
“You already know. You’ve always known.”
And I… kept walking.
There it was.
Just a few steps away.
The purple core floated slightly, as if weightless, spinning in slow circular motions, leaving trails of particles in the air—like stardust.
Its presence surrounded me subtly and inevitably—like the scent of something I didn’t recognize, but somehow belonged to me. My stomach twisted, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood when I finally reached out.
And then… it responded.
Not with words. But with intent.
The surface of the core trembled slightly, as if reacting to the touch of my mind. A sound—deep, profound, distant—resonated around me, like the world exhaling a breath held since creation. Then, a translucent window materialized before me, hovering in the air as if space itself had bent to reveal it.
> You have been recognized by the Nexus Core.
This artifact is an existential anchor. A singularity.
Do you accept to bind?
I stood still. Silence.
My feet were rooted to the ground. My heart still pounded—more from the strangeness of the situation than from the pain in my joints. What was that? An artifact? An item? Some kind of isolated system?
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
It was as if fantasy itself were proposing a pact. One of those turning points that change absolutely everything.
“Bind.”
A strange word.
It wasn’t use, or take, or absorb.
It was belong.
As if the thing demanded more than flesh.
As if it wanted a soul.
For a moment, I thought about refusing.
What if it was a trap? What if I bound myself to something that rotted from within?
But… looking around—the wind tousling my wet hair, the sun filtering through high clouds, and that green wilderness stretching out—I understood one thing:
I had no choice.
This world was not kind.
And nothing ahead seemed safer than what was now before me.
I raised my hand. Took a deep breath.
And said:
— I accept.
The response wasn’t immediate. It was total.
The core vibrated, its glow bursting into a silent dance of lights and runes that spread in concentric circles through the air, forming spirals of symbols I couldn’t read—but somehow understood. Not with my mind. But with my body.
Then it cracked.
With a dry sound, like glass shattering underwater, the core broke.
First into two. Then four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. Sixty-four. And finally…
Seventy-seven fragments.
Each fragment floated away, as if carried by invisible currents. A hypnotic spectacle. A ballet of mystical shards. Seventy-six of them vanished into the sky, scattering like new constellations. But one… just one… remained.
Floating in front of me, it was small—a clear and perfect fraction of the original core.
As if that piece was mine.
As if the Nexus had left me exactly the portion I could bear.
And then, without warning…
It happened.
One of the fragments—larger, brighter, beating like a heart on fire—shot straight into my chest.
I had no time to react. The pain was sharp, like liquid fire ripping through flesh and spirit. My body arched, eyes rolled back, and for a moment, there was no ground, no sky, no sound. Only the core, merging with what I was.
When I collapsed to my knees, gasping, sweating, hands buried in the grass, I knew:
I was no longer just a naked wanderer in a strange world.
Something had changed. Something deep.
And although I didn’t yet know what, I felt something familiar.
The air still felt dense as I stood, panting. My body weighed more than it should. Every muscle screamed, but not in pain—it was as if I had been… rewritten. Restarted. As if something inside me had been forcibly aligned with this new world.
But there it was.
The only remaining fragment.
Floating calmly, a few inches above the ground. Spinning slowly, as if dancing to an ancestral silence. It had the same glow as the original core, but concentrated—denser, more present. It was the size of a basketball, yet seemed to hold the weight of a mountain.
And then… it spoke.
Not with a voice. But with a thought.
Something entered my mind. A presence. Not invasive—but inevitable. Like light through an open window.
> “I am Fragment 77 of the Nexus Core.”
Its pulse echoed in my mind.
It was… clear. Precise. Without noise.
> “The others have dispersed across the world. Some sleep. Others were taken. I am the only one active. The only part of Nexus still awake.”
I stood motionless. Trying to digest the words as if chewing stone.
So it was real. Whatever this artifact, this thing was… it was alive. Not like a biological being. But like a focus of intelligence. A spark of something greater—something ancient.
> “The binding was successful. Now, part of Nexus resides within you. But my power is incomplete. I need time, and you, to restore it.”
The sphere glowed stronger at that.
And for a moment, I felt like it… hesitated. As if pondering how much it owed me.
> “Until my power is restored, I will aid you. I shall be your anchor, your compass, and your forge.”
Forge?
I didn’t fully understand the term, but I swallowed hard.
The warmth from that fragment seemed to emit a strange comfort. Like being alone… yet watched over. By something that was not man, nor god. But that, somehow, believed that I… was necessary.
I sighed, crossing my arms, the cold wind tousling my long hair.
— Fine. Sounds more useful than anything else so far.
The fragment didn’t answer. It only spun once more, gently vibrating.
And there we stayed.
Me. And it.
In the middle of a forgotten plain.
A naked, wounded, starving man… with a living jewel from another world before him.
Dawn had already begun to rise.
The fragment floated before me like a purple sun about to break.
> “Uthred.”
That voice in my mind… wasn’t cold, nor warm. It was like the sound of a bell struck on a distant mountain—reverberating until it reached my skull.
> “You now bear a fragment of the Nexus Core. An artifact that belongs neither to this world… nor any other.”
My expression remained firm, but my mind reeled.
I had read about systems, magical cores, realms, and transmigrations. But this… this felt larger.
> “I am the heart of a Realm that no longer exists. A power sealed before even gods walked among the stars. When whole, Nexus has the power to shape dimensions, rewrite reality, and make even nothing… fertile.”
I swallowed hard.
It wasn’t just a core.
It was something that… defied existence itself.
> “When restored, Nexus will become the seed of the greatest empire to ever exist. Whether called Kingdom, Empire, Dominion, Bastion or Fortress… it matters not. Nexus will be its foundation. And you will be its Sovereign.”
A chill ran down my spine. The idea sounded ridiculous—me, a damn naked wanderer, about to forge the greatest empire the universe had ever seen?
But there was something in that presence. A certainty.
As if, even without knowing how… I had been forged for this.
Then, it appeared before me.
A translucent, ethereal window, inscribed with writings that danced between forgotten tongues and good old Portuguese:
---
[NEXUS CORE – ACTIVE FRAGMENT]
Status: Incomplete (1/77 Fragments Integrated)
Mode: Foundation
Synchronization with Bearer: Stable
Dimensional Capacity: Latent
Territorial Authority: 0%
Existential Energy: Dormant
> Choose the name of your Kingdom:
This name will be etched into the essence of Nexus.
It cannot be changed.
---
For a moment, I remained silent.
So many words could represent this new beginning.
So many ambitions, titles, empty promises…
But only one name echoed within me.
A name that carried echoes of the past—not of this world, but of mine.
A kingdom that had once been real, and now, would be reborn in blood, sweat, and purpose.
Nortumbria.
I typed slowly. Letter by letter.
And when the final character touched the void, the window glowed a deep violet—and vanished in a blink.
The fragment spun faster. It vibrated. It pulsed.
> “So be it. Let Nortumbria be reborn beneath your shadow.”
Destiny, once more, had taken shape.
