The sky was wrong.
Kael wasn't one for daydreams or poetic musings. But even his practical mind screamed that this place was broken. The sun loomed vast and swollen above a horizon shattered like broken glass, pulsing in uneven waves—as if the world itself was breathing, alive yet dying all at once. It bled molten gold and scarlet light that stained the jagged ruins beneath.
Purple clouds, ragged and torn, drifted like cursed tapestries frayed by unseen storms. The very air seemed heavier, sluggish, as if gravity was indecisive, weighing and reweighing how much force to exert on the world.
He forced himself up from a crater of obsidian glass, shards glinting like frozen fire around him. His body throbbed with the memory of devastation—like it had been crushed, reassembled, and discarded atop a furnace still burning beneath the surface.
"What the hell…" His voice cracked and rasped, the sound foreign in the uncanny silence.
There was no wind to carry his words. No birdsong. No distant hum of life or civilization—only the low, almost imperceptible vibration thrumming through the ground, through his bones, like a heartbeat echoing from the void.
His fingers instinctively searched his chest. No wounds. No armor. Just a thin gray shirt smeared with soot and sweat. Jeans. Sneakers. Earth clothes. Familiar and yet meaningless here.
Because this was not Earth.
He stumbled forward, the glass crunching like brittle bones beneath his feet. At the edge of the crater stood a towering black spire—a monolith of ancient obsidian carved with glowing runes that twisted the very air. As he neared, the runes pulsed and shifted, responding to him like a living thing.
[Welcome, Kael.]
[Initializing Resonant System…]
The voice that spoke was neither inside nor outside him—it was everywhere, a cold synthetic whisper threaded through his mind.
He froze. "What—who said that?"
[Designation: Echo. I am your survival system.]
[You have entered: The Nexus.]
Then the world buckled.
The sky blinked out, reality quivered like shattered glass vibrating on the edge of collapse, and Kael crumpled to his knees as a white-hot pain tore through his skull.
FLASHBACK:Subway. Midnight. Earbuds in. A scream sliced the air. A flash of blinding light. Then… nothing.
His eyes snapped open. "No. This isn't real. It can't be real." His voice trembled, disbelief biting through his panic.
[Negative. Nexus is real. You have been selected.]
"Selected for what?!" His heart thundered in his chest.
[Survival. Ascension. Judgment.]
A low, guttural growl slid from the shadows behind him.
Kael whipped around.
A nightmare stalked the edge of the crater—an eight-limbed horror with skin like black oil slicked metal, faceless, graceful and wrong beyond reason.
[Nexus Beast: Class E — "Glass Widow"]
[Host survival rate: 3%.]
His blood ran cold. "Are you kidding me? I just woke up!"
[Recommendation: Run.]
He obeyed.
The world blurred, jagged glass and ash tearing at his lungs as he sprinted. The ground beneath seemed to shift, testing his will and his weight as gravity warped with every step.
Ahead, the landscape opened to a forest of black crystalline trees—sharp, unnatural, and silent. Kael dove beneath a fallen trunk, heart hammering.
The beast did not hesitate. It sliced through crystal like smoke, claws sparking against the alien wood.
Kael rolled free, scrambling up a jagged hill.
"Echo! Help me survive!" he screamed into the void.
[Initializing combat interface…]
[Resonant Potential: Detected.]
[WARNING: User has no weapon.]
[WARNING: User has no combat experience.]
[WARNING: Fear levels peaking. Neural overload imminent.]
He stumbled, scraping his face raw on gravel.
The beast leapt—
And in that moment, when death was certain, something ignited inside Kael.
Not fear.
Not surrender.
Instinct. A primal surge from deep within.
The air cracked like lightning, invisible energy bursting outwards in a violent pulse.
The creature slammed into the trees and tumbled backward with a thunderous crash.
Kael lay gasping, veins faintly glowing a white-blue.
[Resonance Initiated.]
Then blackness.