The Gatekeeper moved like a splinter torn from a dying star — fast, merciless, inevitable.
Solus barely had time to react.
The rift-blade screamed as it sliced through the space between them, carving a scar in the air itself.He twisted to the side, the edge of his tattered cloak shearing away into dust.
Instinct, not skill, saved him.
The shard inside his chest pulsed wildly, feeding raw survival into his muscles — sharpening his senses until the world slowed by half.
Even then, he was outmatched.
The Gatekeeper didn't obey the rules of flesh or gravity. Every strike blurred reality, warping the ground into impossible angles, folding the air into jagged waves.
Solus dodged, stumbled, and recovered. His breath tore at his lungs, each gasp colder than the last.
Think. Don't just run.
He needed to fight. But what could he fight with?
He glanced at his hands — empty, trembling. No weapon. No shield.
Only the burning shard, pulsing like a second heart, whispering beneath his skin.
Desperation clawed at him —And in that desperation, something answered.
A flicker of light gathered in his palm, brittle and wavering, like the last breath of a dying fire.
It wasn't a weapon. Not yet.
But it was a beginning.
Solus gritted his teeth and thrust his hand forward.
The light splintered outward — not a beam, but a fracture — tearing a crooked line through the dark between him and the Gatekeeper.
For the first time, the ancient guardian hesitated.
Only for a heartbeat. But it was enough.
Solus lunged through the gap, heart hammering, the shard's warmth flaring into something more than mere survival — a thread of defiance burning into the cold.
He didn't know how to win. He didn't know if it was even possible to win.
But he knew one thing:
He was not ready to die.
Not here.Not yet.
The Gatekeeper reacted — too fast, too brutal.
Its form, once humanoid, stretched and twisted into a jagged silhouette of armor and void.
The rift blade reversed course, carving arcs of burning emptiness through the space where Solus had just stood.
He hit the ground hard, rolling beneath a shattered archway.
Dust and fragments rained down, the world itself rebelling against the Gatekeeper's existence.
The shard inside Solus didn't pulse now — it roared.
Light pooled in his veins, erratic and blinding, driving needles of heat through every nerve.
He staggered to his feet, fingers clenched around the growing fracture of energy in his hand.
The Gatekeeper stalked forward — slow now, almost patient.
It raised one jagged hand, and the ground responded, rising into sharp spears aimed at Solus's chest.
He didn't wait.
He hurled the unstable light at the Gatekeeper, a reckless act born of instinct rather than strategy.
The fracture struck — not with force, but with disruption.
Where it touched, the Gatekeeper's form wavered — momentarily undone, the rift-blade sputtering into static.
It wasn't enough to kill.
Not nearly enough.
But it was proof:
The shard's power could hurt it.
"More," Solus whispered, his voice hoarse with fear and exhilaration.
"Give me more."
As if answering, the shard deep inside him cracked further.
It hurt — gods, it hurt — but with the pain came something else:
Strength.
A thin, shimmering thread of existence wound itself around Solus's body, wrapping him in a mantle of faint, unfinished light.
He didn't understand it.
Didn't have time to.
The Gatekeeper recovered, its mask splitting open into an abyssal grin.
With a screech like a thousand grinding tombstones, it lunged — this time faster, wilder, utterly intent on erasing him.
Solus clenched his fists, light gathering again, the weight of impossible choice bearing down on him.
The Gatekeeper struck, rift-blade howling downward in a fatal arc.
Solus moved.
Not by skill.
Not by knowledge.
But by sheer, burning instinct — his body pulled along the thread of unfinished light that wreathed him.
The rift-blade missed by inches, carving a scar into the ground that bled not stone, but shadow.
Solus answered with a roar of his own — raw, wordless — as he thrust the gathering light straight into the Gatekeeper's exposed chest.
There was no explosion.
No grand blast of force.
Only a violent stillness — a silence so complete it howled in his bones.
The Gatekeeper froze.
Cracks spread through its armor of void, leaking slivers of nothingness.
Its rift blade trembled, faltered, and shattered into dust.
The creature stumbled back — confused, enraged — reaching for Solus with one fractured hand.
Solus didn't retreat.
He advanced.
Each step he took burned the ground beneath him, his body shedding motes of half-formed existence.
The shard within him blazed brighter — threatening to consume him — but he willed it into shape, dragging it into something that answered to his need.
Light burst from his hands, and he struck again.
The Gatekeeper howled — a soundless shriek — as it crumbled, collapsing inward, devoured by the very Rift that had birthed it.
And then... it was gone.
The ruins fell silent.
No witnesses.
No celebration.
Only Solus — breathing hard, shaking, standing atop a broken world that no longer made sense.
The thread of light around him dimmed, fading into his skin.
The shard within him pulsed once — satisfied — and fell quiet.
Solus stumbled back, collapsing onto one knee, staring at his trembling hands.
"What... am I?" he whispered.
Above him, the sky cracked wider — a gaping wound that dripped more silence into the world.
And in the distance, beyond the ruins and the Rift...
Something else stirred.
Something watching.
The First Light had awakened.
And it was far from finished.