The air was still inside the chamber, filled with the slow rhythm of Raime’s breathing. Dust hung suspended in the faint light that filtered through the carved fractures in the ceiling, swirling gently each time he exhaled. His legs were crossed, but they didn’t touch the floor, he floated in place. All his focus lay inward, on the quiet space where his soul met the faint pulse of his thoughts.

  He could feel it now — dim, translucent, like a warm fog suffusing his whole body. When he reached toward it with his awareness, it shifted, touching it was a difficult process. For a brief instant, it even pulsed in harmony with his thoughts.

  That fragile connection was everything.

  Raime inhaled slowly, gathering his mind around that pulse and pressing against it with intent. The effort was like trying to squeeze air between his hands — it resisted, slipping away, reshaping instead of yielding. His aura trembled, the outermost layer of his soul, it was the only part he was managing to control. Following a technique imparted from the Sovereign, he was starting to push his soul inward, toward a single point.

  He groaned under his breath. The little he’d managed to compress scattered again, returning to its loose, mist-like form. The sensation of increased density vanished, leaving behind only fatigue.

  “Haa…” He exhaled sharply, opening his eyes. “This is so damn hard. I barely managed ten percent compression before it all went to waste.” His voice was quiet, but the frustration clung to it. “How much time will it take to shrink this thing to the size of a peanut?”

  From the space beside him — Neimar’s voice resonated. Deep, calm.

  “Two decades,” he said. “That’s how long it took me to begin manipulating my soul with any true precision.”

  Raime blinked. “Twenty—?”

  “Do not be discouraged, Raime.” The echo of a smile flickered through Neimar’s tone. “You’ve done in days what most cannot touch in decades. Your human nature, and your peculiar state, allows you to sense the soul without the long meditation of our kind.”

  Raime rubbed his face, sighing. “I know that my situation is abnormal and I’m trying to take advantage of it as much as I can, but touching my soul leaves an ache I can’t really understand, and it’s exhausting.”

  “That pain is the sign of progress,” Neimar replied, his tone almost indulgent. “The soul resists change because it defines the self. You are reshaping what you are. No being can do that painlessly.”

  Raime closed his eyes again, letting those words sink in. Beneath the pain and weariness, there was something else — a subtle thrill. To feel his own soul, to touch it, to mold it even slightly — that was something people back on Earth could only dream of. It was a mystery to his kind. And yet here he was, trying to forge it into something new.

  “So,” he murmured after a while, “how exactly does this all work? The fusion part, I mean. You said the timing has to be perfect.”

  “It must be,” Neimar said. “Listen well, for this is something you won’t find in the tablets and texts we perused.”

  Raime straightened slightly, focus sharpening.

  “When your proto-core begins to form,” Neimar continued, “you will draw your threads inward. Their essence will converge around your condensed soul, weaving a shell of psychic energy around it. That shell will serve as the vessel — the first mold of your mind’s new center. You must then guide your consciousness to wrap around the soul itself, as though embracing it from within. I will provide you with the correct technique when you are able to condense your soul to the optimal state. Next, you weave — threads and soul together until they are indistinguishable. Then, you suffuse your will through every fiber of that construct, imprinting your essence upon it. When that act is complete, the construct will solidify. The soul will cease to diffuse throughout your body and instead merge wholly with your consciousness. From that moment on, your core will be your being — a nexus of mind and soul.”

  Raime listened in silence, trying to imagine the process. Given all he knew already, it sounded impossibly complex, yet somehow… he would have to follow it to the end. Or dying.

  He nodded faintly. “And so the soul becomes one with the mind.”

  “Yes. A fusion of will and essence,” Neimar said softly. “From then on, your thoughts will shape your essence directly.”

  “I feel the process will be even more dangerous than I thought,” Raime muttered.

  A low hum, almost amusement. “All great power is dangerous. But for you, it will mean freedom. No longer will the body be your limit.”

  Raime couldn’t help but smile at that. “Freedom, huh? I’ll take it.”

  Neimar didn’t answer right away. When he spoke again, the words carried an older, heavier weariness. “Do not take it lightly. What you’re attempting has not been done before — not like this. Even I… can only theorize this kind of fusion. The method we found on the tablets offers guidance, but we have to adapt different methods to reach the desired result, a result that will depend on you. Your Will must be absolute.”

  “Yeah,” Raime breathed. “No pressure, right?”

  The air rippled faintly, like laughter hidden in a sigh. Then Neimar’s tone grew distant. “Continue your practice. I have my preparations to attend to.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Raime opened one eye. “Preparations?”

  Neimar’s answer came after a pause. “For your awakening. There are rituals and formations that have to be set before you begin.”

  That was something new. “Can I help?”

  “Do not concern yourself about it,” Neimar said. “Focus on your soul. The rest is my responsibility as teacher to handle.”

  Before Raime could press further, the presence of Neimar disappeared — like a tide receding from shore. The echo of the Sovereign faded, leaving the room in silence once more.

  Raime stared at the ground for a long moment, unsure whether to be reassured or not.

  Then he sighed and closed his eyes again. “Back to it, I guess.”

  The faint shimmer of his aura flared around him once more, then began to compress — slow, trembling, and stubbornly resisting his will.

  Far above the meditation chamber, past winding corridors of carved stone and lightless halls lined with ancient runes, Neimar glided across the empty expanse of the palace.

  Everything was silent, save for the hum of residual power that had not faded in millennia.

  The Throne Hall awaited him at the end of the passage — a vast hall carved from the most precious stone, etched with a thousand glyphs that once channeled the psionic resonance of an entire civilization.

  And at its center stood the Throne.

  It was not a seat, not truly — but an artifact. A lattice of crystal and metal veins was hidden just beneath the stony surface, away from prying eyes. It pulsed faintly, bound to Neimar’s very soul.

  He stopped before it, placing one hand on its frame. A faint tremor ran through the hall.

  The moment he made contact, the illusion of stillness shattered.

  The bindings that held the Rift’s heart began to stir — threads of psychic energy reaching outward, converging on the Throne like rivers feeding a storm.

  And from far away, following many of those threads, a voice rose.

  “Neimar.”

  The sound was not sound at all — it was the pressure of a thought that pressed against the Rift itself. Ancient. Vicious.

  “I see you still hide behind your throne.”

  Neimar’s jaw clenched. “You speak too freely, Orrhal.”

  A pulse of laughter echoed through the void — cold, mirthless. “You grow tired. I can feel it. Every time you strengthen the chains, you bleed more of your essence. Soon, there will be nothing left of you but a husk.”

  The glow around Neimar flared, runes on the Throne igniting one by one. “It is of no importance. You will not escape.”

  “Escape?” The voice coiled, whispering through the hall. “I will not merely escape from these wretched bindings, I will take everything. You cannot contain The Hunger, Neimar. You can only delay it.”

  The air trembled. Cracks of black light rippled across the stone before sealing again under Neimar’s will. He stood motionless, eyes closed, weaving layers of psychic force — symbols upon symbols, an intricate web of command.

  “Enough,” he hissed. “Go back to your cage.”

  The ground shuddered. Chains of purple fire erupted from the throne, warping through space and reaching the mountain in an instant. A roar tore through the hall, shaking the foundation of the temple.

  Then — silence.

  Only the slow hum of energy remained.

  Neimar stood still, his form flickering faintly as he stabilized the bindings. The strain gnawed at him. Even now, after countless years, every time he faced Orrhal, it felt as though a piece of himself was torn away.

  He let out a slow breath. “You will not win. Not yet.”

  As the bindings quieted, his thoughts drifted — unbidden — to the past.

  He remembered the sky of Ithural before the fall. The spires of glass and light that reached toward the clouds, the minds of millions resonating in harmony. The laughter, the music that filled the halls.

  Then came the System’s challenge.

  An “opportunity,” they had called it — a test of ascension. Prove their worth, and join the multiversal hierarchy as a recognized civilization.

  But the challenge had not been a test of wisdom or unity. It was pure survival.

  The invaders came one after the other, they faced them, defeated them. Until one day, from beyond the veil, a being of Tier six — Orrhal, the Eye of the Endless Maw. It destroyed their strongest cities in days. Their oceans boiled beneath its power. Every mind it consumed made it stronger.

  Neimar had fought it alongside the greatest warriors of his world — and failed.

  In the end, they had turned to the forbidden. A ritual that would bound their greatest foe, in the hope of finding a way of killing it. They sacrificed their bodies, their souls, everything — to trap the abomination within the mountain.

  But the System, cold and indifferent, declared the integration failed. Their greatest enemy was not vanquished, and many of its legions still run rampant around the planet unopposed after most of their strongest perished. Ithural was fractured into rifts, its survivors scattered through the dimensions.

  And Neimar… had been left behind. The last Sovereign of a broken world. To this day he still had no idea if some survived or not.

  For millennia, he had maintained the bindings alone. His consciousness stretched thin across time, anchored only by duty and the faint pulse of hope that the gate would open, and someone — anyone — would reach this place again.

  He had waited, for so long.

  And then, at last, Raime had come.

  Neimar looked up toward the distant ceiling.

  “Just a little longer,” he whispered to nobody. “Just a few more days, and it will all have meaning.”

  He sank into the Throne, letting the energy wash over him. The threads of the artifact intertwined with his being, amplifying his strength, extending his will through the Rift. He could feel Orrhal’s raging against its chains.

  “You won’t take him from me,” Neimar said softly. “He is my last hope.”

  The void pulsed, but no voice answered.

  He could feel the creature’s frustration, and its endless hatred. It knew it was close. The bindings were weakening. The Rift itself trembled more each day, reacting to the growing instability of the ritual that binded it.

  If he breaks free before Raime completes his ascension… it will all have been for nothing.

  Neimar forced the thought away and focused on his task. He extended his consciousness across the chains, weaving new glyphs of containment, reinforcing the ancient sigils that still pulsed within the Rift’s fabric.

  Hours passed — or perhaps mere moments. Time seemed to flow strangely since a milllennium or so ago.

  Finally, when the bindings were secure once more, he withdrew. His form flickered as he stepped away from the Throne.

  He paused at the doorway, glancing back one last time.

  “So much has been lost,” he murmured. “But perhaps one life can still mean something.”

  Then, softer — almost like a prayer:

  “Oh, disciple of a dying world… how different things might have been if we’d met in another age.”

  He turned and began walking back toward the lower halls. His steps were slow, heavy, yet resolute.

  Raime would be ready soon. And when that happened, Neimar would use the last of his strength to open the path — to bring forth the remnants of his people from stasis, and give them the chance at a better life he promised them so long ago.

  The light dimmed as he vanished from the hall, leaving the Throne to its silence.

  Below, in the meditation chamber, Raime’s breathing steadied once more. Sweat rolled down his temple, his aura trembling faintly with every exhale.

  The light around him flickered, then condensed — faint, unstable, but growing deeper.

  He smiled to himself, eyes still closed.

  Maybe this is how it starts.

  The air thrummed around him. A subtle resonance that seemed to whisper through his bones.