The winds beyond the city carried frost, sand, and distant storms, but Lucien moved as if the world itself bent around him. His aura hummed faintly, compressing around the fragment of The White he had claimed, studying it, learning from it. Every step beyond the Citadel was deliberate, precise—a predator mapping the continent before it even noticed him.
He entered the first void-corrupted zone beyond the city—a scarred forest where trees twisted impossibly, their shadows reaching like claws, and the air itself buzzed with static, the residue of The White. Creatures, warped by fragments of void energy, prowled silently, their senses attuned to human weakness.
Lucien moved through them effortlessly, aura flowing like liquid, each strike precise, each motion predicting outcomes before they happened.
Then, at the center of the forest, he found it—a massive stone circle, ancient, etched with symbols older than the continent itself. Aura pulsed from it in waves that made the hair on his neck rise.
And there, bound to the center by chains of dark energy, was a figure he thought he would never see again.
A gasp escaped him, though his expression remained calm, pale, unreadable.
It was… his own mother.
Not as he remembered her, not alive as the world had known, but suspended in a form twisted by the void—her hair white as snow, eyes glowing faintly with void energy, chains humming with the pulse of The White itself.
"Lucien…" Her voice came, weak, yet resonant in his mind rather than his ears. "I… was never lost. The White… chose me. And now… you must choose."
The ground trembled violently. The fragment in his hands flared uncontrollably. From the shadows, multiple silhouettes emerged—creatures more massive than anything he had faced, each one eerily humanoid yet corrupted by void energy, their eyes reflecting pieces of his memories, his battles, his fears.
And then, above the horizon, the sky cracked—not with storm, but with light bending unnaturally, rifts forming that seemed to lead to another world entirely. Through the rifts, figures appeared: beings that mirrored him perfectly, pale, powerful, yet monstrous.
Lucien's breath hitched for the first time in years.
The voice of The White whispered in his mind: "You are the exception… but you are not alone. One must fall for the world to survive."
The first continental-scale rift had opened. His mother, the void-corrupted creatures, and these mirrored beings—his own shadowed potential—stood before him.
Lucien gripped his aura tightly, aura blades igniting, yet he did not strike immediately.
Because in that instant, he realized the truth that shattered everything he knew:
He was not the Sole Exception by chance. He was the design. The White had chosen him… to fight himself.
And before he could react further, the ground beneath him split open. Void energy surged like a tidal wave. The forest, the stone circle, and everything around him were pulled into a blinding rift.
The last thing he saw before being engulfed:
A mirror image of himself, smiling, whispering—"Welcome back, brother."
The void swallowed everything.