High above the raging seas, where winter storms never ceased and the ocean swallowed all who dared cross its wrath, there stood Warden's Maw—the world's most impenetrable prison. The pride of the World Council, a symbol of their absolute authority.
Carved into the jagged cliffs, surrounded by sheer walls of black stone and psine reinforce alloy, it was a fortress where the world's most dangerous criminals, traitors, and rogue psions were locked away.
No one escaped.
No one even tried.
Until tonight...
The Prisoner
Deep within the lowest level of Warden's Maw was Pandora's box. A room within a cell, reinforced with psine suppressors, and in that room was Tulburo Lume, one of the most powerful and infamous psion ever.
A decade ago, his nickname had been spoken in fear. A man who could tear apart entire armies with a thought. One whose power had reshaped nations.
Now, he was little more than a caged animal. His once-mighty form weakened by years of imprisonment, his mind shackled by the dampeners that drained him of his strength.
But even in chains, his presence was suffocating, and no one dared came close to his confinement cell, let alone his room. His eyes, silver like the storm outside, burned with an unnatural intensity.
And on this night, something changed.
For the first time in years, he felt it—a shift in the air.
Footsteps echoed through the halls, steady and deliberate.
A presence, quite powerful.
Not the guards. Never the wardens.
They wouldn't come close. They were all too afraid.
It was someone else.
Someone who did not belong.
Tulburo lifted his head. Someone was coming.
"Interesting." He smiled.
The Infiltrator
In the upper levels of the prison, alarms blared. Guards rushed through the corridors, their weapons drawn, confusion painted on their faces.
"The containment field is failing!" one of them shouted, his voice shaking, not because of the freezing temperature he had grown used to on Salvation Island, deep within the Alwinter Zone. It was a hint of fear.
"That's impossible!" another guard snapped, nervously checking the control runes. "The only way to disable the field is from inside the main core, and no one has access except—"
A sound cut through the chaos. A low hum.
A flicker of light.
Then—silence.
The guards stood frozen. A shadow moved among them, unseen yet unstoppable. One by one, they fell, collapsing as an invisible force crushed their minds, leaving them unconscious before they even realized they were under attack.
A lone figure strode through the dim corridors, stepping over the bodies of guards and prisoners alike. Their identity concealed beneath a dark hood, their presence barely detectable even to the most sensitive of psions, their movements precise and deliberate.
Each turn they made, each security measure they bypassed, spoke of a knowledge that should have been impossible. They knew this place as if they had built it.
Whoever they were, they had planned this down to the second.
They had come for one man.
And nothing would stop them.
The Escape
Tulburo heard the footsteps approach his cell. A voice—calm, controlled—spoke through the reinforced door.
"Tulburo Lume."
He smirked. "No one has said my name in years. Who are you?"
The voice did not answer. Instead, the lights flickered, and then—the dampeners in his cell shut off.
Psine rushed back into Tulburo like a flood, breaking through a shattered dam. So much energy! His breath hitched. His fingers twitched. He was almost whole again.
The door shuddered, then—without warning—it was crumpled inward as if crushed by an invisible fist. Smoke and dust filled the air as Tulburo stood, stretching his arms, feeling the weight of his shackles fall away.
His visitor stepped forward, the hooded figure's face still hidden.
"Time to leave," they said simply.
Tulburo exhaled, rolling his shoulders. He flexed his fingers, and the very air around him trembled.
"I fear even you don't know exactly what you just did," he murmured, his silver eyes gleaming. "But I've been waiting for this," he added, sounding slightly grateful.
Dismay
Across Warden's Maw, chaos erupted. Alarms screamed. Other prisoners try to make their escape. The warden's forces rushed to contain the breach, but it was already too late.
A force unlike anything they had ever faced tore through the prison. The great iron watchtower, a symbol of Warden's Maw's inviolability and the authority of the World Council, now bent like wet paper under Tulburo's rage of psine release.
Such destruction, and he was far from being back to full strength yet.
A single psine wave shattered entire corridors. Other guard towers collapsed. The storm outside howled in response to Tulburo's release.
By the time reinforcements arrived, there was nothing left but ruins, and in the night sky, two figures vanished into the storm.
The world's greatest prison had fallen, and the most dangerous psion alive was free once more.
Somewhere, in the halls of power, rulers would awaken to a nightmare, for the war they had long feared had just begun.
The great Warden's Maw had fallen. Tulburo Lume, the Walking Calamity, was free. And no one knew where he had gone.
The news would soon spread like wildfire, a chilling wind sweeping through all halls of power. In the gilded chambers of kings and the austere offices of prime ministers, leaders of the Ten Great Sovereigns and beyond, whispers of fear would turn to shouts of urgency.
Some would call for an emergency summit, picturing Tulburo's destructive path like a ravenous wildfire.
Others would demand immediate action, their voices tight with the dread of a world teetering on the brink. But one truth would be undeniable—this was not just the escape of a dangerous prisoner...
This was the spark that could ignite the world, a fuse lit in the powder keg of ancient rivalries, the scars of the Convergence War.