Rayon moved with steady purpose across the cracked obsidian fields that marked the border of the Vessels Continent. Wind howled across the wastes like a warning, but he did not slow. Vorthalaxis slithered in shadow beside him, its serpentine form cutting through the dim light like a moving tear in reality. Erethon drifted at his back—lazy, amused, and more alert than he looked.
Ahead laid their destination.
The one place in all of Averis where strength mattered more than breath.
The one place where no rules existed because no one could enforce them.
The continent where monsters, gods, fallen divinities, and beings considered "impossible" in the old age roamed freely:
The Vessels Continent.
"Before the Vessels claimed it," Erethon said, stretching as he drifted above cracked black stone, "this place was called Ashal'terr. Land of Ten Crowns. Ten monarchs ruled ten great tribes… until the Vessels arrived."
Rayon nodded. He remembered the stories.
Ashal'terr had once been the largest human domain in Averis—ten cities, ten cultures, ten kings and queens who believed themselves absolute. Until the descendants of the Vessels—the reincarnated Primordial wielders—returned from the Void. They had rewritten the continent in less than a generation.
One city swallowed ten.
Blood drowned the land.
Weapons turned to dust under the weight of primordial resonance.
And when the Vessels rose to power, the name Ashal'terr vanished like a whisper.
Now it was simply known as:
The Vessels Continent.
Because no other title mattered.
Power walked here without disguise.
The strongest did not hide.
The strongest did not kneel.
And the strongest did not obey.
Rayon's steps slowed as the dark skyline formed in the distance—mountain-sized spires, floating bastions, and shifting anomaly-veins pulsing like open wounds in the air.
"This world… it isn't the same one Forspinner left behind," Rayon said quietly.
Erethon glanced at him, slightly surprised. "You've been thinking."
"I always do," Rayon replied. "The power system everyone uses—String-bearers, Weavers, Thread Masters, even Void-threaders—it all came from Forspinner's architecture. But Forspinner disappeared, and the system… stalled. It grew flawed. Incomplete."
He let black resonance hum through his fingers, each pulse the pure original essence Erethon once described in the lost history of the universe.
"I've already surpassed everything that came from the Strings system," Rayon continued. "I've outgrown it. even the strongest string weavers aren't my enemies anymore. Because I'm no longer operating within that architecture."
Erethon smirked. "Say it."
Rayon's voice was cool, steady.
"I am wielding the original source. Resonance. The pure version. The one before Forspinner diluted it to build the power system mortals could survive."
Erethon nodded approvingly. "Truth."
"And awakeners," Rayon continued, "are unknowingly using resonance too. Just the weaker, fractured form. They're closer to the truth than the old Weavers… but still far. Which means the entire power system of this world is shifting. It's only logical the ranking system shifts with it."
He raised one hand. Resonance pulsed, black and absolute.
"Resonance tiers," Rayon whispered.
"A system no longer borrowed from Forspinner's Strings… but born from the universe itself."
He recited them:
• Novice
• Normal
• Master
• High Disaster
• Calamity
• Catastrophic
• Error
• Unmeasurable
• Resonance Ruler
• ???? — the state beyond definition
Erethon chuckled softly. "Poetic."
Rayon didn't smile.
"I stand at Error Rank. One step beyond what a normal Primordial Vessel can reach."
"Most of the primordial vessels," Erethon added, "sit comfortably at Catastrophic Rank. And the powerful ones—Oblivion, Ruin, Dominion—they touch Error Rank just as you do."
Rayon's eyes flickered darkly.
"Then I'll meet them at their level."
As they walked, Rayon's mind drifted over the structure of existence itself.
"In Averis," he murmured, "there are layers of being."
He listed them quietly:
• Mortals — humans, elves, dwarves, draconi, and all the fragile lights that fill the lower world.
• Forsakens — abandoned by the system, mutated by resonance, rejected but powerful.
• Awakeners — those who tear open their inner walls and channel primitive resonance.
• Mythical Beasts — Nexus-beings born between reality folds.
• Primordials — cosmic infancy made flesh; living concepts.
• The Ancient Greys — beings of higher-dimensional perception who watch without touching.
• The Watchers — entities stationed at the edges of creation.
• The Arcana — will-made constructs that govern universal laws.
• The Resonant King — the one at the apex, the ruler of the original Resonance.
Rayon exhaled slowly.
"And somewhere between those tiers… I walk now."
Erethon said nothing, but the faint grin at his lips spoke volumes.
The world was massive—far greater than any map could capture. Twenty continents spanned Averis, each one carved by a different era of gods and monsters.
Rayon listed them quietly as they approached the outskirts of the Vessel's domain:
• Veynar — his home, where he grew up in Krylos.
• Ballasios — land of the ancient seals.
• Isola Krein — once a great supercontinent, now Azelar's land.
• Vessels Continent — the lawless cradle of strength.
• Ardenthal
• Kora'myss
• The Southern Crown
• Eldrevan Reach
• Thal'myr Coast
• Varnoss Wastes
• The Red Meridian
• Aul'Rhena
• Dreigol Peaks
• The Far Reaches
• Orelian Expanse
• Tressel'dor
• Blackwave North
• Sera'thel
• The Crests of Vaelor
• Draxis Null — the abandoned land where nothing grows.
Averis was a living world. A dangerous one. And Rayon walked its deadliest path.
At last… the skyline emerged fully.
The main city.
A metropolis built on the bones of extinct gods, stitched together with void-steel and resonance glass. Towers crooked at impossible angles. Streets flowed like shifting veins. Constructs walked beside humans. Primordials lounged on rooftops like lazy dragons.
And above everything… a colossal floating citadel pulsed like a beating heart.
Erethon spoke softly.
"This city was once called Korridan. Before the Vessels took it and renamed it to what it is now."
Rayon lifted his gaze.
N O X I S.
City of the Vessels.
City of the strong.
City without law.
Without right or wrong.
Only power.
Only truth.
Rayon stepped forward.
Vorthalaxis slithered at his side.
Erethon drifted above him.
And power, in its rawest form, turned its eye toward the newcomer.
Rayon whispered:
"Let them look. Let them come."
He entered Noxis, and the continent felt the arrival of something it had not sensed in centuries—
A being of Error Rank resonance.
A being who demanded attention.
A being who would no longer be ignored.