Kael woke to unimaginable pain.

[Pocket Dimension Created]

It wasn’t just agony—it was pressure, raw and titanic, building inside him like his very bones were trying to shatter outward. His skull throbbed as if it were too small for his brain. His blood felt like boiling ice. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t scream.

Then came the cold—so pure, so absolute, it eclipsed anything he’d ever known. This wasn’t the frost of winter, or the chill of ocean spray in Brinewatch’s night air. This was void. An arctic silence that stripped heat from thought and feeling alike.

He tried to draw breath. Nothing. There was no air.

He tried to scream. His throat stretched, mouth wide. No sound. There was no atmosphere to carry it.

His vision swam in a black so deep it felt like falling into ink. No stars. No sky. No light. His body floated—weightless, boneless. Was this death? Had he slipped past pain into some purgatory?

Why am I still thinking? Why can I feel this?

Something inside him cracked, not physically but mentally, his instincts shrieking in terror.

[No Atmosphere Detected]
[Atmosphere Needed]
[Core Temperature: 280°V and falling]
[Heat Source Needed]

[Initiating Emergency Stabilization...]
[Allocating 1.004 Units Aura]
[Allocating 1.001 Units Mana]

STABILIZATION: 6%... 32%... 89%...

A sudden warmth swelled around him like a blanket wrapping his naked body. A pocket of pressurized air formed—thin, but real. His lungs convulsed, then sucked in a gasp. He coughed hard, choking on nothing and everything at once, every nerve raw.

The pain receded—not fully, but enough for him to register a new horror: he was floating in a vast emptiness.

No ground. No direction. No tether.

He thrashed, his limbs spinning wildly, like a baby dropped from a ten story building.

[No Base Stability Detected]
[Artificial Gravity Needed]
[No Substratum Detected]
[Substratum Needed]

Suddenly—there was weight. Kael felt himself being suddenly pulled downward. His bare feet struck something solid and dry. It crumbled slightly beneath his toes—grit and dirt, rough as Brinewatch’s cracked alleys.

[Artificial Gravity: Active]
[Atmospheric Composition: 72% N, 24% O₂, Trace Elements… STABLE]
[Temperature Regulation Active — Drain Rate: 0.0041 Mana/sec]
[Artificial Magnetosphere Active — Drain Rate: 0.0023 Mana/sec]

Total Energy Remaining:
— Chakra: 0.00 Units
— Prana: 0.00 Units
— Aura: 0.088 Units
— Mana: 0.011 Units
— Force: 0.10 Units
— Ki: 0.22 Units

[Sustained Energy Output Unsustainable]
[Environmental Stability Time Remaining: 3 minutes, 17 seconds]

STABILIZATION: ...100%

[EMERGENCY STABILIZATION COMPLETE]
Welcome, Creator.

Words appeared in his mind—not whispered, not spoken—just present, sharp and absolute.

Universe Classification: Pocket Dimension (Seed-State)
Dependency Status: Tethered to Host / Anchor: The Creator
Dimensional Anchor: [Active — Linked to Outer Talent Vessel]
Outer Dependency: The Cosmos
Dimensional Link: [Active]
Natural Law Framework: The Cosmos (Default)
Environment Framework: The Creator's Preference (Ashport)
Natural Law Modification: [Locked] — Prana Required
Environment Alteration: [Locked] — Insufficient Chakra

Kael stumbled forward in the darkness, gasping, heart slamming in his chest. The world remained pitch-black, but beneath him he could feel land—uneven, scarred, dusty. Something was here.

“This... this can’t be real,” he whispered hoarsely. His voice carried, so there was air.

His voice cracked. “Is this… my mind?”

But the chill on his skin, the air in his lungs, the sharp scent of mineral dust told a different story.

This was real. Or... something close.

He touched his torso. Skin. Flesh. Whole. His left arm—back. His spine—intact.

He stumbled forward a step, nearly falling as the ground beneath his feet expanded outward, stretching in every direction. Terrain unfolded like canvas—loose stones, ruddy soil, hints of microflora trying to take root. A landmass, forged from subconscious memory of Celestria’s crust and Brinewatch’s volcanic grit.

A flicker in his mind’s eye—no, a projection inside him—unfolded like a thought forced to bloom.

[Initializing Environmental Simulation: Ashport Surface Pattern Detected]
— Landmass Formation: 3.10% Complete (Insufficient Aura; Insufficient Mana)
— Sea Generation: 0.00% Complete (Insufficient Aural; Insufficient Mana)
— Celestial Simulation—Sun/Moon: 0.00% Complete (Insufficient Chakra; Insufficient Prana; Insufficient Aura + Mana)
— Flora Genesis: 0.00% Complete (Insufficient Chakra; Insufficient Aura)
— Fauna Genesis: 0.00% Complete (Insufficient Chakra; Insufficient Aura + Force + Ki)

Current Power Sources:
— Aura reserves from consumed materials
— Mana reserves from consumed materials
— No renewable energy systems detected
— New energy must be consumed

Kael stared at the floating display.

“Creator...?”

It didn’t call him Kael. Didn’t call him by name at all.

Creator. Anchor. Source.

He wasn’t just inside something. He was tethered to it.

“This is me,” he whispered. “I’m... I made this?”

“This has to be my mind,” he muttered. “Some dream. A coma. Something.”

But the taste of ash in the air... the pressure underfoot... the sweat on his back...

Too vivid. Too consistent.

He shuddered, glancing around at the infinite blackness surrounding the fragile land he stood on. If he wandered too far, he had the creeping sense he’d just fall off into nothing again. He needed light. Fire. A sun.

And suddenly, overhead, the void twitched. Something tried to ignite—an artificial sunrise, a flicker of celestial mimicry—but the flare died before it formed.

[Sun Genesis: ABORTED — Insufficient Chakra; Insufficient Aura + Prana]
[Moon Genesis: SUSPENDED — Insufficient Chakra; Insufficient Aura]
[Stability Timer: 2m 12s Remaining]

“Shit... it’s burning out,” he muttered, eyes narrowing. “The air. The heat. It’s fake. It’s all fake.”

And yet, it was his.

He clenched his fists, trying to think. He wasn’t safe here. Not yet. Whatever this place was, it was on the verge of collapsing. He had less than two minutes to figure something out or risk vanishing into the void forever.

****

The timer was ticking.

[Environmental Stability Time Remaining: 0m 52s]

Kael staggered forward across the barren soil, limbs trembling. The air was already thinning again—each breath grew colder, tighter. The warmth around him was unraveling like frayed thread.

"Think, Kael. Think. How the hell do I get out?"

His mind raced. This place—it was his, wasn’t it? It responded to panic, to need. The atmosphere had formed when he was suffocating. The ground had appeared when he’d feared falling.

“So if I want out... I just—what? Will it?”

He shut his eyes, chest rising and falling in shallow gasps, teeth chattering. The freezing air was slicing through him again, frost creeping along his fingers.

“I need to leave. I need to go back. To the alley. To my body.”

His heart pounded. A pressure surged behind his eyes—like something ancient and massive had just turned to look at him from inside himself. He clutched his temples.

[Dimensional Exit Request Detected]

Linking Outer Anchor...
Locating Physical Vessel...

[Dimensional Exit Initialized]

The world began collapsing in reverse.

The air turned glassy. The land beneath him cracked like porcelain. The last of the warmth was yanked away, and a scream rose in his throat—but this time, the scream tore free as light swallowed everything.

Kael came to with a jolt. He gasped as air flooded his lungs—damp, dirty, heavy with blood and smoke and rot. Real air. The sour tang of Brinewatch.

He didn’t remember falling.

One moment, he had been biting down on the rampaging beast’s snout—devouring it in a final, desperate act—and the next, he had awoken in a void of agony and frost, drowning in darkness, only to claw his way out into… this.

The real world.

His body lay atop a crumpled pile of scorched pants and shredded shirt—what was left of his clothing from before the beast’s attack. His skin was intact again, not even a scar where his arm had once been severed, but it was blue-black and blotched with deadened tissue. His fingertips were stiff, blackened. Every limb felt numb, distant. A sharp pain bloomed in his toes, his thighs, his face—like hundreds of needles pressing in from deep beneath the skin.

Frostbite.

He sat up slowly, groaning, the thin cloth of his old shirt—little more than a rag now—falling off his face where it had landed.

That’s when he realized he was also completely naked.

He had no time to puzzle it out. No time to feel shame. But shame was already there anyway—burning across his cheeks even as his limbs trembled from cold and weakness.

He was lying in the same alley—the one where the beast had mauled him. Broken barrels still smoldered nearby. Blood pooled thick on the ground in streaks and splatters. The shredded remains of three or four bodies littered the alley—gangsters, he thought. One of them still gripped a broken blade.

But the beast was gone. No fur. No corpse. No burn marks. Just the memory of the carnage—and Kael’s pulse, thundering in his ears.

“I... devoured it,” he whispered, staring at his own hands. “I ate that thing.”

And now he was back. Lying next to his clothing, but not in them.

He didn't have time to think about this.

The alley was still littered with bodies. The beast’s victims were untouched. That meant that the investigators hadn’t yet arrived. Which meant—

Not much time has passed.

He fumbled for his satchel—the one he’d tied to his waistband. Miraculously, it was still there, still warm, still sealed. Inside: his Gold Mark.

He snatched his ruined pants and clutched them to his chest with one arm, shivering violently. He couldn't walk and dress at the same time, not in his state. And he was too close to death again to waste time buttoning up.

Taryn’s Goods. The thought snapped into his mind like a flare. It’s not far. Someone was there less than an hour ago. If Lira’s still inside…

He winced as he tried to push himself off of the ground. His joints screamed, skin cracked where it bent, but he got to his feet. He stumbled against the alley wall, leaving faint streaks of blood as his fingers dragged across the stone.

Lights flickered in the distance—lanterns. Boots. Shouts.

Investigators were coming.

Kael’s breath caught. His eyes darted to the other bodies.

If they found him here—alive, with no beast, no clothes, no explanation—they’d ask questions he couldn’t answer. He couldn’t afford that. He didn't have time. He had to eat something to heal now, lest he die within the next several minutes.

He staggered down the alley barefoot, clothed only in the makeshift bundle of his pants and his own grit. The volcanic stone bit into his soles. Frostbite had numbed most of the feeling from his skin, but he could tell—every step was ripping him open anew.

He disappeared into the shadows just as two uniformed wardens rounded the corner behind him, one lifting a hand-lantern, the other unslinging a mana rifle.

“Another beast attack,” one of them muttered.

“Damn thing’s gone. Vanished. No trace. But look at this mess…”

Kael didn’t stop to listen.

He vanished into the dark, the frostbitten pain in his screaming with every step—and a single truth echoing louder than anything else:

He was still alive.

And something impossible had awakened inside him.