The rain had thinned to a mist by the time Xang left the hospital.
Dalen's streets were slick with oil and runoff, reflecting the blue glow of failing Qi-lamps that guttered like dying fireflies.
The slogans of the Dominion still echoed from distant drones — "Resonance is Virtue." "To lack Qi is to lack purpose."
He kept his head low, envelope pressed against his chest.
The chill sank through his threadbare cloak as he passed rows of low-tier cultivators slumped in alleyways — men and women with dull eyes and Qi-scars etched across their skin, remnants of failed ascensions.
Their breathing rasped like old machinery struggling to restart, every exhale steeped in the Dominion's neglect.
One stumbled into his path, a frail old woman whose arms shook as she tried to stand.
Xang immediately bent down, offering his hand.
Her grip was trembling, papery — the skin webbed with blackened veins of Qi stagnation.
She looked up, met his eyes — and froze.
A glob of spit struck his cheek.
He blinked once, wiping it away with his sleeve.
The woman's lips curled in disgust. "Nullborn," she hissed, the word carrying the same venom as a curse.
She snatched her hand back as if burned and stumbled away, muttering prayers under her breath.
From the shadows, another passerby snorted.
"Should've known better," he said, tossing an empty ration ticket into the gutter.
The slip fluttered down and stuck to Xang's boot — a useless token, same as him.
Xang said nothing.
He simply bent, picked the ticket up, and placed it beside a nearby crate where the woman might find it later if she came back.
His shoulders lifted faintly, and he smiled — not in defiance, but as if to forgive the world for forgetting how to.
---
The rain eased, but its echo clung to the alleys like breath on glass.
For a moment, he stood still beneath the flickering lamp, watching ripples distort the reflection of the Dominion's motto painted on the wall.
"Resonance is Virtue."
The words blurred with every droplet until only the shape of light remained — a creed without meaning, a prayer without warmth.
Then, quietly, he moved on toward the tram.
The tram station loomed ahead, its Qi-lamps pulsing weakly through the mist.
Xang stepped aboard as the doors sighed open. The operator barely looked up — just a flicker of distaste as Xang placed a coin on the counter instead of a Qi donation.
The coin struck the brass plate with a hollow ring — a sound that lingered longer than the conductor's silence.
The tram lurched forward, humming low as rain streaked the windows — each droplet tasting faintly of the Dominion's metallic breath.
When it slowed again, the mist had thickened, cloaking the lower sector in a dull, electric haze.
The Collectors' Den outpost rose from the cracked pavement like a bunker left behind by progress — Qi conduits crawling across its walls like veins under scarred skin, their light pulsing faintly through grime. Inside, the air was stale with ozone and oil; the hum of resonance converters bled through the floors in uneven rhythm.
A dozen Freelance Collectors loitered in the hall, spirit-tools glimmering faintly in the half-light.
Ren Daoqin stood near a table cluttered with resonance charts and fragmented ore cores, his coat still marked by the night's labor. His frame spoke of decades in the field — scarred hands, weary posture, eyes that missed nothing.
"Xang."
His gravel voice carried more exhaustion than reproach. "Didn't think I'd see you today."
"Treatment day," Xang said softly.
Ren grunted. "How's she holding?"
"Stable."
Ren nodded once. "Good. Then let's keep her that way." He tapped a holoplate awake with two fingers. "We've got a low-class tear — F-088. Sub-minimal ore yield, but it keeps the Den running."
Light from the holoplate flickered across his face as the data scrolled:
---
HOLOPLATE RECORD — TEAR F-088
Classification: Rank F — Stable
Subcontracted By: Iron Concord Martial Alliance
Operational Control: The Collectors' Den — Lohvar Branch
Projected Yield: Sub-minimal dimensional ore / Non-hazardous fauna
Registered Coordinates: Sector 9, District Twelve
Warning: Standard Resonance Fluctuation Level — Green (Nominal)
---
Xang's eyes lingered on the faint crest of the Iron Concord, half-buried in static.
"Sub-minimal," he murmured.
"Means the payout's garbage," Ren said dryly. "But garbage still feeds the Den. Gear up — transport leaves in ten."
He motioned toward the corridor. The metallic hum grew louder as Xang followed him past cracked walls and rusted grates that leaked pale mist. The Den smelled of iron and stale Qi — the Dominion's breath gone sour.
---
In the loading bay, the transport engine roared awake. Azure exhaust flared from its vents, painting the walls in trembling light.
The Collectors' insignia — a serpent circled by fractured stars — was etched into the hull, paint long faded and scored with dents. Dominion registration marks ghosted beneath it like scars that refused to heal.
Inside, twenty seats lined the narrow compartment, every one occupied. The air was dense with the scent of metal and ozone — the smell of those who'd worked too long around power that never loved them back.
Ren stood near the forward bulkhead, arms crossed.
"Listen up," he called over the hum. "Tear F-088's listed stable. That doesn't mean you get careless. Watch your footing, follow extraction protocol, and keep your D.R.I.L masks sealed."
>Dominion Resonance Inhalation Limiter (D.R.I.L) masks were standard issue for all licensed Collectors. Each half-mask was crafted from tempered alloy and spirit-woven polymer, its inner filaments etched with runes that drew out excess Qi from every breath. When sealed, the mask harmonized with its wearer's meridians, filtering resonance through a lattice of suppressive talismans. To breathe unfiltered inside a Tear was to invite resonance itself to root in the lungs — a slow, luminous drowning.<
A ripple moved through the crew as they adjusted their gear. Rows of half-masks clicked into place, faint sigil-light tracing the rhythm of each heartbeat.
Someone at the back muttered through his filter, voice warped by static.
"Guess it pays to be Nullborn, huh?"
Laughter followed — harsh, mechanical, the sound of alloy and scorn.
Ren's gaze snapped toward the noise. "You want to test that theory? Step inside raw and see how fast arrogance chokes you." His voice cut through the engines like a blade. "The Qi's thicker in there — fills your lungs before air does. Unless you've trained your body for it, it'll drown you from the inside."
Silence swallowed the compartment. Even the engine seemed to lower its voice.
Ren turned away, but his glance lingered briefly on Xang — the one who didn't need protection from Qi, nor ever received any from it.
There was nothing for him to shield.
The convoy slowed as the perimeter pylons rose from the mist — towers of alloy and rune-stone thrumming with sealed Qi.
Ahead shimmered the wound itself: a Dimensional Tear, vast and translucent, rippling like a mirror caught in a heartbeat.
The Dominion called it a portal.
Collectors called it a scar that never healed.
Its edges pulsed with shifting veins of color — gold, blue, crimson — light braided through liquid air.
Even from this distance, the static hum was alive, thick enough to taste.
Ren Daoqin stood at the front of the line, cloak plastered to his shoulders by rain.
Runes glowed faintly beneath the skin of his forearms — the steady burn of a Stage-3 cultivator, resonance in perfect balance.
He hadn't needed a DRIL mask in years; his control over Qi was too refined to warrant it.
"Seal your masks," he called over the wind. "We've got one hour before the stabilization field dips. The Martial Alliance already cleared the boss that spawned this Tear, but when the clock runs out, this place folds itself shut."
Xang adjusted his cloak, studying the trembling light. "The Martial Alliance… they're the Dominion's military cultivators, right?"
Ren gave a brief nod. "Yeah. High-rank Resonance Corps. State-sanctioned, fully funded, and buried in red tape. They handle containment, eradication, and classification. If it glows or screams, they kill it and log the remains."
He gestured toward the convoy. "We're not them. Freelance Collector Alliances — the bottom rung. We clean up what's left. Ore, residue, fragments, data. They call us scavs; we call ourselves survivors."
His grin flashed faintly. "The pay's worse, but at least no one tells us who to save."
He turned back to the gate. "Five at a time. Keep your heads down."
The first group stepped through. The Tear pulsed once — inhaling them whole.
---
Inside the Dimensional Tear
Silence replaced sound. Then the color inverted.
A world unfolded sideways — a cavern suspended in its own gravity.
Thousands of floating crystalline spires drifted where a ceiling should be, their tips dripping with molten light.
Threads of Qi leapt between them, weaving luminous bridges through the air. Each current bled its own hue — azure, amber, scarlet — painting the fog in breathing waves.
To most, it was holy. The hum of creation rendered visible.
Their half-masks translated vibration into song; even the air seemed to chant.
To Xang, it was anatomy — structure and silence, the rhythm of pressure without sound.
He couldn't see the glow that awed them, only the pulse beneath the stone and the weight of the world folding in on itself.
To him, beauty was the echo of motion — mechanical, mournful, alive.
Ren moved beside him, eyes sharp. The ambient Qi coiled around his frame, bending to his control. "Don't let it fool you," he said quietly. "Feels like the inside of heaven, but it eats like a god."
"Still can't believe you don't need a mask," one Collector muttered nearby.
Ren's smirk was faint. "Old habit. Spent too long with the Azure Arbiters. They taught me to breathe the air no one else can stand — then buried me in paperwork when I did it too well."
The remark drew nervous laughter, quickly swallowed by the cavern's breath.
Two new recruits knelt near a glowing vein — a man and a woman.
Their gear gleamed, seals unscuffed. Their movements, too clean.
Ren strode over. "You two — names."
"Seren," said the man.
"Lyra," said the woman, tone lilting as she adjusted her mask.
Ren's nod was curt. "Fresh contracts. Fine. Stay close until you catch the rhythm. Xang, show them the pull pattern."
"Yes, sir."
Xang knelt beside the ore line, tracing the faint vibration that quivered through the rock. "You feel for the tremor," he said. "Not the sound — the pressure. Qi hums even when you can't hear it."
Lyra tilted her head. "And you can't, right?"
He smiled faintly. "No. But I can tell when the world holds its breath."
The chamber seemed to pause with him.
Then — a change.
The hum dipped, slow and deliberate.
A deeper resonance stirred beneath the surface, as though something vast had begun to listen back.
Ren's expression hardened. "Stay sharp. No chatter."
The light moved again — slower now, heavier.
And the Tear exhaled.
The Tear breathed.
Every Collector felt the pulse—a low, living vibration that rolled through crystal and bone alike until even breath seemed to answer it.
Light shimmered along suspended spires, drifting like lanterns through a sea of air that had forgotten gravity.
Ren raised a hand. "Flux rising—anchors down!"
Blue runes flared as the crew slammed Flux Anchors into the ground. Spirit-thread cords bit deep, resonance cords thrumming until the shifting floor stilled beneath their boots.
> [Lore Entry – Flux Anchors | Collector Technology Standard]
In resonance fields where gravity and Qi density fluctuate, Flux Anchors act as moorings between physical mass and dimensional pressure.
Each core releases a counter-pulse tuned to Dominion calibration, forming a harmonic lattice that steadies local space.
If synchronization fails—an anchor-snap—the backlash tears a Collector apart faster than sound can carry the scream.
The floor steadied—barely.
Two figures remained motionless within the chaos: Seren and Lyra.
Ren's glare cut through mist. "You two deaf? Seal those masks!"
Lyra tilted her head, visor glinting. Seren brushed his clasp—and released it.
A hiss escaped, breath mingling with air so thick with Qi it could have drowned them both.
"Idiots."
Ren gathered Qi beneath his boots. Gale Step.
Pressure folded; blue light cracked; he crossed the span in a blink—
and struck only air. Seren was gone.
Ren spun—instinct screamed—
A ripple distorted the space behind Xang. Seren re-formed there, palm extended, Qi compressed into a point so dense it bent light around it.
The Force-Palm landed soundlessly.
The detonation was pure resonance, a concussion of power that shattered three anchors outright.
Ren felt the shockwave drive through his ribs and fling him backward. He hit hard, boots gouging molten furrows across the crystal until he ground to a halt.
"XANG!" He forced another breath, Qi coiling for a second Gale Step—
—but a voice brushed his ear.
"So fast," Lyra whispered, too near, too real. "Too slow to matter."
The lightning came.
Black-violet radiance ripped the dimension open, its mass bending gravity until shards of crystal bowed toward it like supplicants.
Sound warped, lagged, then slammed forward with crushing force.
Where it struck, the world ceased.
Stone vaporized, metal turned to light, and the air became raw Qi screaming to escape its own body.
Those nearest were erased; those farther away froze mid-motion, transformed into seamless crystal effigies.
Ren braced against the current, body screaming as space itself tried to unmake him. Anchors shrieked, resonance lattices splintering like glass under thunder.
Through the storm's heart he saw Xang—suspended, weightless, cloaked in the storm's eye.
Then the air around him folded.
Space buckled first at the point he stood.
Color inverted. The entire cavern began to collapse inward, but the fold caught him before everything else. Reality twisted, and he simply slid out of existence—drawn into a focal point that had once been his shadow.
Lyra and Seren watched as the storm devoured the spot where he had been.
Ren staggered forward through the maelstrom. "Bring him back—what did you—"
Lyra's smile was soft, almost sorrowful. "Some things don't belong where they were born."
She tilted her head toward Seren. He met Ren's gaze once — unreadable — then the two faded together, their outlines shearing into ribbons of refracted light.
Lyra was the last to vanish. "Try to remember this one," she said, and blew him a kiss.
Then the Dimensional Collapse truly began.
The remaining anchors snapped with a chorus of shrieks. The cavern imploded inward, a tidal reversal of light and matter. Every floating spire was pulled toward the heart where Xang had stood, compressing into a sphere of radiance no larger than a breath — and then expanding outward again in silence.
Ren stumbled back, dragging the nearest Collector toward the exit as the shockwave flattened what remained of the pocket realm.
They dived through the gate.
Outside, the pylons screamed.
Each one exuded black-violet lightning that ripped through their runes and vaporized them instantly. The ground beneath the Tear and for hundreds of meters beyond transmuted into mirror-smooth crystal—so flawless it reflected the storm above like a lake of glass.
No Collector had fallen—except one.
Ren stood in the rain, breath ragged, hands shaking.
"That wasn't a collapse," he whispered. "It was a world ending itself."
Far overhead, threads of black-violet lightning still coiled through the clouds—
slow, deliberate, as if something beyond the Dominion had noticed its own reflection.
Dominion Bureau of Resonance Regulation
Field Debrief — Holo-plate Transcript DCP-04-F-088-INT-01 (Canon-Aligned Reconstruction)
Location: Dominion Bureau Substation 9 — Lohvar
Date: Year 302 A.R. / Cycle 43
Participants:
Investigator Veris Kaal — Bureau of Resonance Regulation, Division of Cataclysmic Phenomena (DCP-04)
Ren Daoqin — Regional Lead, Freelance Collector Alliance (Collectors' Den, Lohvar Branch)
Recorder: Holo-plate Mk IV, Tri-Sigil Audial System
Authorization Code: Δ-Sigma-3
---
[00 : 00] Kaal: State your name, occupation, and Dominion registration code for the record.
[00 : 02] Ren: Ren Daoqin. Freelance Collector. Dominion Registration LD-02-886-R. Regional Lead, Lohvar branch.
[00 : 07] Kaal: Records show you once served with the Azure Arbiters—Rank A certification. Not common to see one of their veterans in freelance work.
[00 : 12] Ren: Left the uniform, kept the habits. Collectors' Den pays in coin instead of promises.
[00 : 17] Kaal: You were the on-site supervisor for operation F-088?
[00 : 18] Ren: Confirmed. Twelve Collectors active, one Nullborn auxiliary—Xang Xi.
[00 : 23] Kaal: Describe the Tear at entry.
[00 : 25] Ren: Stable F-rank. Flux Anchors green. Martial Alliance had cleared the core beast two hours prior. We had roughly one hour before resonance decay.
[00 : 34] Kaal: Any anomalies prior to collapse?
[00 : 36] Ren: Not until two late registrations showed—Seren and Lyra. Credentials checked out. When they removed their D.R.I.L. masks, the readings spiked but no instability formed.
[00 : 45] Kaal: Why remove filtration in active field?
[00 : 47] Ren: No idea. Their resonance didn't behave like Qi. No pressure change, no aura. It was just … there. Felt wrong.
[00 : 54] Kaal: Proceed.
[00 : 55] Ren: Then the ground pulsed. I ordered withdrawal. Xang was nearest the vein—Seren moved behind him faster than a Gale Step could trace. I tried to intercept—activated Gale Step myself—but Lyra appeared between us and caught my arm mid-motion. No displacement blur, no energy signature. It wasn't technique—it was absence.
[01 : 10] Kaal: Did she restrain you physically?
[01 : 11] Ren: Not exactly. It felt like space refused to let me finish the step. Next heartbeat, Seren struck Xang with a Qi Force Palm. Impact registered, but instead of air displacement, every reading flatlined. Then the light—black and violet—hit from nowhere.
[01 : 26] Kaal: Origin?
[01 : 27] Ren: Couldn't trace it. Didn't come from them. It came to them. Pressure wave threw me back—fifteen, maybe twenty meters. Flux Anchors overloaded simultaneously.
[01 : 37] Kaal: Did you lose consciousness?
[01 : 38] Ren: No. I watched the center fold in on itself. Not collapse—closure. When the light snapped out, Xang was gone. No body. No residue.
[01 : 48] Kaal: Condition of remaining personnel?
[01 : 49] Ren: Alive. Minor burns. Everything below the Tear turned to crystal — perfect surface, mirror finish. Pylons outside discharged violet light and disintegrated.
[01 : 58] Kaal: Seren and Lyra?
[01 : 59] Ren: Gone before the collapse finished. Together. She blew a kiss like it was rehearsed.
[02 : 04] Kaal: …Understood. Final assessment, Collector Daoqin. Tear collapse or unknown resonance event?
[02 : 08] Ren: Unknown. If you ask me, the Tear didn't fail — it was closed from within.
[02 : 14] Kaal: By what means?
[02 : 15] Ren: Something beyond any technique the Dominion teaches.
[02 : 18] Kaal: End of record.
[End Record — Timestamp 07 : 42]
Filed and sealed under DCP-04 / Confidential Classification Δ-Sigma-3
> [Dominion Crest — static hum, re-formation of sigils]
Narrator (Automated Resonance Voice):
"The Bureau of Resonance Regulation confirms that a localized instability occurred within Dimensional Tear F-088 in Lohvar Province, Sector 9.
Routine extraction was underway under Bureau sanction and Martial Alliance supervision when a resonance fluctuation produced a rapid internal collapse.
The event resulted in three confirmed losses among the operation team.
Identification protocols remain classified pending family notification.
The Bureau extends formal acknowledgment to the Collectors' Den for immediate containment compliance."
[Visual: schematic of Tear containment array stabilizing — crystalline field spreading safely outward]
"All remaining personnel were evacuated without injury.
No civilian sectors were impacted.
Investigators attribute the crystalline field surrounding the site to natural Qi neutralization during collapse.
The Bureau emphasizes that Dominion containment architecture remains uncompromised, and that resonance stabilization crews have already restored full sector safety."
[Closing frame — Dominion emblem in white Qi light]
> 'Resonance is Virtue. Through Dominion, We Endure.'
The holoplate above the ward flickered in and out of focus, bathing the containment cradle in a thin, artificial blue.
For a long time, Dr. Cerce said nothing. The only sounds were the hiss of suppression vents and the slow pulse of the cradle's field.
Ling floated inside, weightless in the shimmer. Her breath rose faintly beneath the light. Cerce watched, jaw tight, until the Dominion's seal bled across the holoplate.
> [HOLOPLATE BROADCAST — DOMINION NEWS NET / PUBLIC CHANNEL 3]
Timestamp: 302 AR — Cycle 9 / Day 22 / 20:04 Standard Vaen Time
Subject: Official Statement — Collapse Event, Dimensional Tear F-088
"At 19:47 Standard, an operational anomaly occurred within Dimensional Tear F-088 during a routine extraction under Freelance Collectors' oversight.
The Dominion confirms three casualties. Investigation ongoing.
Stability of surrounding sectors remains nominal.
Citizens are reminded: Dominion endures through Resonance. Obedience is Harmony."
The crest dissolved into static.
Cerce closed his eyes. The hum of the cradle filled the silence until the door hissed open.
Rain pooled beneath Ren Daoqin's boots as he stepped inside.
"You came fast," Cerce murmured without turning.
"They looped the broadcast through every ward," Ren answered. "Couldn't sit still."
He set his gloves aside. "They said Xang's gone."
Cerce's gaze stayed on Ling. "If the Bureau says that, they believe it. Dominion certainty isn't truth."
Ren leaned against the frame. "He was sixteen, C. He shouldn't have been down there."
"I sent him," Cerce whispered. "That letter I wrote you—the one he carried with him every day. It wasn't recommendation, it was plea."
He summoned a private holoplate. Lines of legal script scrolled upward, cold and perfect.
> [HOLOPLATE CONTRACT A-17 / SUPPRESSION DECREE — CLASSIFIED]
Subject: Ling Xi — CRC Case 014-Δ
Clause §4: Suppression in lieu of Euthanasia approved by the Board of Resonance Physicians.
Condition: Guardian labor tithe = 70 % of all earnings remitted directly to the Physicians' Guild.
*Failure to remit reinstates termination protocol without appeal.
Authorized by: Dr. Cerce (Physician's Sigil of Praxis)
Status: Active / Review Pending
"The Dominion called it mercy," he said, closing the plate. "They let her live—but only so long as he paid for it. That clause was punishment for refusing euthanasia."
Ren's jaw flexed. "And there are no others like him."
"None," Cerce said. "One anomaly is easier to condemn than to understand."
Silence spread again, thick as the ward's air.
Ren exhaled, rough. "When the Bureau audits those funds, they'll revoke the decree. She'll be terminated."
"Not if I intercept the audit first."
"Forgery?" Ren frowned. "You'd lose your Sigil."
Cerce gave a tired smile. "I already lost the patience to call this mercy."
Ren stepped closer, voice steady. "Then let me carry it. Transfer the tithe to my name. The Dominion won't question an Arbiter's account."
Cerce looked up, startled. "You'd shoulder a debt that isn't yours."
"She's his sister," Ren said. "And he was my responsibility. I couldn't protect him in that Tear. I can at least protect what he left."
Cerce's expression faltered—something fragile caught between admiration and grief.
"That would tie you to her suppression records. If they discover it—"
"They won't." Ren forced a crooked grin. "You forge the paperwork; I'll forge the trail."
The physician's laugh came quiet, half disbelief, half relief. "You always did fight head-on."
"And you always hide behind ethics until someone drags you out," Ren replied.
The two men stood there a moment longer—veterans of different wars sharing the same defeat.
Cerce rested a hand against the cradle's glass. "If they took him, they won't take her too."
Ren nodded. "We'll keep her alive. For him."
The holoplate replayed its last line, sterile and eternal:
"Obedience is Harmony."