Prologue — The Dungeon of Eclipsea
Darkness dreamed of itself.
Somewhere in that dream a young man fought to breathe. Stone ribs arched above him, half‑transparent, half alive, pulsing with dim blue light. Each pulse trembled through marrow and mind alike, as if the planet were whispering a language no human larynx could pronounce.
He staggered upright. The air burned with the taste of old thunder.
Who am I … and why does the darkness know my name?
The answer came from everywhere:
"IDENTITY: UNREGISTERED. GENETIC CORE: ABSENT.
INITIATING QUALIFICATION — VAULT OF THE BROKEN GENOME."
Walls liquefied into corridors of bone‑glass. Shadows moved like living veins. From far ahead rolled the first trials—storms of molten dust, beasts built from discarded chromosomes, rivers whose water carried electrical memory.
He should have died in the first minute.
Instead, instinct took command.
Each time a threat appeared, his pulse changed rhythm, cells adjusting in panicked harmony. By the third trial, he understood: the dungeon was not trying to kill him—it was trying to teach him.
Seasons or seconds passed. Finally, after the last corridor, he found the heart chamber: a sphere of crystal light containing a swirling equation, half flame, half silence. Energy hummed with the cadence of a heartbeat older than suns.
He knew, then, that this was the Forgotten Gene, the will of adaptation left behind when gods surrendered their laboratory. It spoke directly through vibration.
"CLAIM ME AND FORGET WHO YOU WERE."
Images jolted through him: worlds consumed by entropy, dancers of light, a blind man kneeling before collapsing stars. That last figure was unmistakably himself—older, worn, holding out two blazing fragments of his own eyes.
"Take them, younger me. See what I can no longer see."
The youth reached forward. The chrysalis burst open. Light and pain replaced everything. Cells ignited, bones re‑etched themselves with radiant scripts, veins became conduits for creation. For a heartbeat he glimpsed infinity: strands of time folded like origami, futures streaming backward to erase their own mistakes.
"Successor verified—transferring continuity."
The light folded into his chest. The mark of a double spiral burned there—a rune of order and chaos entwined.
He collapsed as the voice concluded:
"SUBJECT QUALIFIED. EJECTING TO GENE‑AWAKENING NETWORK."
The floor melted to silver and enclosed him. When the capsule closed, the dungeon sighed, its purpose fulfilled at last.
A blinding flash—then nothing.
Far above the dark planet, a flare of light pierced the void.
A pod of unknown origin veered toward twin suns orbiting a distant citadel of rings: the Aurora Sanctum. Within the pod, the boy's heart still beat in rhythm with the ancient world he'd conquered.
And in that rhythm lay the seed of rebellion against Heaven itself.