The Cataclysm sky was a wound that never closed. It pulsed above Silas in torn streaks of light and shadow, as if the world itself were bleeding. He stood on the shattered boulevard, a jagged stretch of stone and steel suspended over nothing, the ruins of the Aether Conclave fortress smoldering far behind him. His shards orbited in slow, weary arcs, dim from overuse, but his posture remained upright, defiant.
The ground beneath his boots cracked, edges crumbling into the void. Dust swirled in the air, glowing faintly before dissolving like ash. Silas' breathing was heavy but steady. Each exhale came with the copper tang of blood. The battles inside the fortress had left their mark—on his body, his mind, his hybrid core.
And still, there was no peace.
His HUD flickered, once, twice, then drowned in static. Letters scrawled themselves across the black, jagged as broken glass.
[DATA INTERCEPTION: UNKNOWN SOURCE] [UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED]
The noise gave way to a voice. It was not mechanical, not the sterile commands of the System. It was fragmented, layered, overlapping male and female tones, sharp and grating like iron tearing on stone.
"You shouldn't have survived," it said. "But you did."
The words carried weight, pressing against the air itself. Silas gritted his teeth, shards vibrating with the rhythm of his pulse.
"Another test?" His voice was low, steady.
"No." The sound fractured, echoing in his skull. "A warning."
"From who?"
The voice warped, shifting, as though trying on different shapes. "Judgment makes you no less of a tyrant. And tyrants always fall."
The HUD went black. Silence descended once more.
Silas remained still for a long moment. The words wormed their way inside him, tapping at the doubts he had buried under steel and fury. He had told himself his judgment was pure, that it was consequence, not control. But was there truly a difference? He shook his head violently, shards cutting the air in agitation. Doubt was a weapon, and he would not let it pierce deeper.
Then came footsteps. Real, not illusion. Echoing across the broken stone.
He turned, shards rising in sharp formation.
From the shadow of a collapsed spire stepped a figure. A woman, cloaked and ragged, armor stripped down to essentials, her movements wary but not hostile. Her eyes caught the faint Cataclysm glow, reflecting the shimmer of embedded runes.
She stopped when she saw him. Froze like prey before a predator.
"You're him," she whispered. Her voice cracked from disuse, dry with exhaustion. "The Unauthorized Entity."
Silas' gaze was cold, shards circling tighter. "And you are?"
The woman raised her hands slowly, palms open. A gesture of surrender. "An exile. I left the Conclave before the Cataclysm consumed me. I've been scavenging, hiding, surviving. But I saw what you did in the fortress. You destroyed it. No one has ever done that."
Silas studied her in silence, his eyes unreadable. Her aura was fractured, her resonance uneven. She wasn't polished like the enforcers, nor sharp-edged like the champions. She was something in between—raw, unstable.
"What do you want from me?"
Her lips tightened. "Not what I want. What the world needs. The Conclave pretends to be unbreakable. You've proven otherwise. People will rise if they know it's possible. Let me help you spread that spark."
Silas' mouth twisted into a humorless smirk. "Help me? You think I'm building a rebellion?"
Her eyes didn't waver. "Aren't you?"
The question lodged deep in him, heavier than he expected. He had carved his path through necessity, driven by the sins he had seen, by the chains of order masquerading as law. His war was survival, vengeance, consequence. But the thought of people rising behind him, carrying his defiance like a torch—it unsettled him.
He said nothing.
"What's your name?" he asked finally.
"Kaelen," she answered, her voice steadying with the weight of declaring it. "I was trained to enforce their law. Now I want to tear it down."
Silas' gaze lingered on her for several seconds, shards orbiting like watchful predators. Then he turned back toward the horizon, where the fortress's remains continued to burn faintly against the sky.
"Stay close," he said at last. His tone was flat, edged with iron. "Don't slow me down. And if you betray me—" The shards spun faster, slicing the air with sharp hums. "—I'll cut you down."
Kaelen flinched at the hiss of the shards, but her voice remained even. "Understood."
They began walking, the silence between them broken only by the howl of the Cataclysm winds. The fractured road stretched ahead, pieces floating and drifting, a path that could collapse at any moment. Silas moved like a shadow given form, precise and efficient. Kaelen followed, her steps hesitant but steady, her eyes flicking constantly toward the shards orbiting him.
The Cataclysm itself seemed to watch them, light rippling in strange patterns as they passed. Sometimes the fragments of the world whispered, voices of those lost in the rupture. Silas ignored them, but Kaelen shivered each time.
"Do you hear them?" she asked once, her voice trembling.
"I hear noise," Silas replied. "Nothing more."
"To me it sounds like… begging."
"Then stop listening."
The answer silenced her, though unease lingered in her expression.
They traveled until the fractured boulevard ended in a gap wide enough to swallow cities. Floating fragments bridged the abyss, shifting slowly in the Cataclysm currents. Silas leapt without hesitation, shards stabilizing his path. Kaelen hesitated before following, her balance faltering but recovering with a desperate scramble.
"Keep up," Silas said without looking back.
As they pressed on, Kaelen's questions began to spill through the silence.
"Why do you fight them? What drives you?"
"Judgment," Silas answered.
"That's not a reason. That's a word."
He didn't respond.
"You've made enemies of the Conclave. You've torn down their order. But what do you want after? If you break them, what remains?"
Still silence. His shards whispered for him, humming with restless energy.
Kaelen's jaw clenched. "If you don't know, then someone else will decide. And maybe that someone won't care who gets crushed."
Silas stopped. The shards froze in orbit. He turned his head slightly, just enough to let her feel the weight of his gaze.
"You think I don't know that? Every step I take, the System brands me a threat. Every strike I make, the Conclave twists into proof of chaos. I don't fight for what comes after. I fight because someone has to answer for the sins carved into this world."
His voice was low, sharp, each word carrying the steel of conviction.
Kaelen looked at him, something flickering in her expression—fear, admiration, or both.
They walked on.
By the time they reached the skeletal remains of an old transit hub, the voidwinds had risen, howling through twisted beams and shattered glass. The ruins gave them shelter, a hollow space where fragments floated lazily above like fractured stars.
Silas sat, leaning against a half-collapsed pillar. His shards dimmed, orbit slowing. He closed his eyes for the briefest moment, his body aching from battles fought without rest.
Kaelen remained standing, watching him carefully. "You're not invincible," she said quietly.
"Never claimed to be."
"You bleed. You tire. You can be broken."
He opened one eye, shards twitching awake like wolves disturbed. "Do you plan to test that?"
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. "No. I plan to keep you alive. Because if you fall, the spark dies with you."
Silas closed his eye again, saying nothing.
The silence stretched until Kaelen finally lowered herself to the ground opposite him. The Cataclysm's glow painted her features—tired, scarred, but determined. For the first time, Silas allowed the thought that maybe her presence would not be a burden.
Sleep came in fractured moments. Dreams of glass and fire, of voices chanting judgment and tyranny, of a world that broke and never healed. When he woke, the Cataclysm sky remained unchanged, eternal in its wound.
Kaelen stirred beside him, her hand resting on the hilt of a scavenged blade, eyes heavy but alert.
"We keep moving," Silas said, rising to his feet. His shards flared to life once more, circling like halos of broken light.
Kaelen nodded and stood. Together they stepped out of the ruin, walking into the horizon of fractured roads and falling stars.
For the first time in his journey, Silas was not alone. Yet the echo of the voice returned in his mind, colder now, a shadow behind every thought.
Tyrants always fall.
His hands clenched, shards answering with a sharp hum.
"We'll see about that."